Fayetteville Public Library is proud to welcome Ann Patchett as the 2017 Fulbright Author on Friday, March 31, 2017 at 7:00pm.

Ann Patchett is a celebrated author, a devoted reader and a champion of literary culture. She is the author of seven novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written three books of nonfiction–Truth & Beauty, What Now?, and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Patchett has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including England’s Orange Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the American Bookseller’s Association’s Most Engaging Author Award, and the Women’s National Book Association’s Award. Her books have been both New York Times Notable Books and New York Times bestsellers. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.

In November, 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with her business partner Karen Hayes. She has since become a spokesperson for independent booksellers, championing books and bookstores. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Ann Patchett lives in Nashville with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky.

Novelist Hisham Matar discusses his new memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between on Tuesday, December 6 at 6:00 pm in the Fayetteville Public Library.

Twenty-two years after his father’s kidnapping and disappearence, Hisham Matar returns to Libya searching for answers and trying to discover how to process his feelings of love, […]

Pickin’ Post radio show Mike Shirkey will host John McCutcheon, Friday, November 11 at 7:00pm in the Fayetteville Public Library. The Washington Post described John as folk music’s “Rustic Renaissance Man,” a moniker flawed only by its understatement.

“Calling John McCutcheon a ‘folksinger’ is like saying Deion Sanders is just a football player…” (Dallas Morning News). John is a whirlwind of energy packing five lifetimes into one. In the past few years alone he has headlined over a dozen different festivals in North America (including repeated performances at the National Storytelling Festival), recorded an original composition for Virginia Public Television involving over 500 musicians, toured Australia for the sixth time, toured Chile in support of a women’s health initiative, appeared in a Woody Guthrie tribute concert in New York City, gave a featured concert at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, taught performance art skills at a North Carolina college, given symphony pops concerts across America, served as President of the fastest-growing Local in the Musicians Union and performed a special concert at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This is all in his “spare time.” His “real job,” he’s quick to point out, is father to two grown sons.

But it is in live performance that John feels most at home. It is what has brought his music into the lives and homes of one of the broadest audiences any folk musician has ever enjoyed. People of every generation and background seem to feel at home in a concert hall when John McCutcheon takes the stage, with what critics describe as “little feats of magic,” “breathtaking in their ease and grace…,” and “like a conversation with an illuminating old friend.” Learn more about John McCutcheon’s at http://www.folkmusic.com/

Due to increased demand for this event, registration is requested. Tickets for this after hours event are $20 and available for purchase at the event. Doors open at 6:30pm and music is set to begin at 7 p.m.

http://fplwebapps.faylib.org/events/event_registration/register.asp?event_id=460

Sunday, November 6 at 2:00 pm for the Fayetteville Public Library University of Arkansas Press Author Showcase featuring Leonard Schwartz. He will discuss his latest book, The New Babel: Toward a Poetics of the Mid-East Crises. This work explores –from a Jewish American perspective and in the forms of poetry, essays, and interviews–the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, […]

Pickin’ Post radio show host Mike Shirkey presents Steve Davison with Ken Bonfield in concert, Friday, October 21 at 7:30pm in the Walker Community Room of the Fayetteville Public Library.

On this musical evening, Davison and Bonfield will play solos and duets while on stage together. Expect music far ranging, from Celtic to Classical, including Blues, Folk, Country, and some good ol’ Travis thumbstyle fingerpicking. The music will be played on some amazing instruments – Bonfield’s Alan Carruth 11-string harp guitar, high-string, and baritone guitar and Davison’s Tony Yamamoto 12-string and his Sheldon Schwartz Oracle.

Steve Davison is a finger style guitarist who composes on both the 6 and 12 string guitar. An aging hipster, his musical career started at age 12 playing the drums in a multitude of rock and roll bands. At the tender age of 19 he saw a performance on solo acoustic guitar in Denton, Texas by a performer named Thom Ward (who he would really like to locate!) that changed his life. He put down the sticks and picked up the guitar and started a life long journey of discovery. His compositions are built around simple melodic structures and focus on the intimate qualities of the wooden guitar and the tonal possibilities of alternate tunings that give the guitar such an extraordinary range. His influences range from the jazz piano stylings of Claudia Burson (who taught him what was musical and what wasn’t) to the work of fingerstyle guitarists such as Leo Kotke, Ed Gerhard, Ken Bonfield, Peter Janson and Stephen Bennett.

Steve is a 2 time finalist and 2005 winner of the solo competition at the Arkansas Acoustic Music Festival and a finalist in the 2009 Merle Travis Fingerstyle Competition and the winner of the 2016 Merle Travis Fingerstyle Competition in the contemporary part of the competition. Mr. Davison was a featured performer on Arkansas Educational Network Television’s “AETN Presents” broadcast and his music was also used as a soundtrack for another AETN production, “The Historic Bridges of Arkansas”.

Fingerstyle Guitarist Ken Bonfield has performed throughout the United States for more than 20 years. Based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Bonfield is a regular at guitar festivals, concert series, and acoustic venues across North America, and has released seven albums. His latest, Legacy, is a solo effort that focuses on harp and baritone guitars, with several new arrangements of original tunes Bonfield recorded on earlier albums. Although he came out of the 1960’s folk tradition, Bonfield was closely associated with new-age music in the mid 90’s. Today his sophisticated Americana compositions feature a solid dose of Celtic, jazz, and traditional folk influences that might best be described as American Baroque.

Tickets for this after hours event are $15 and available for purchase at the event. Doors open at 6:30pm and music is set to begin at 7:30pm.