by Catherine Kimrey Breeden photographs by Jimmy Williams “When I was a young boy, about 10 or 11 years old,” says Jim Goodnight, “and living on the edge of town in Greensboro, I’d venture out into the surrounding area and…
by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Catherine Nguyen When Bill and Judy Fitzgerald signed up six years ago for one of the cottages at The Cypress of Raleigh, an elegant North Raleigh senior living community, they were hoping to relieve themselves…
by Samantha Thompson Hatem photographs by Chris Fowler Holly Aiken is talented at many things. Making cool handbags. Creating captivating window displays. Trailblazing where others wouldn’t. But singing her own praises? It’s not part of Aiken’s style. Yet her modest,…
Needlepoint Retreat by Jessie Ammons Serious stitchers will convene in the mountains this month for Elizabeth Bradley Home’s annual needlepoint retreat October 2-4 at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn. Attendees will dive in to two full days of instruction on a seasonal…
by Kaitlyn Goalen photographs by Jillian Clark I first discovered that I loved to cook through baking. As a teenager I jumped at the chance to make cakes, pies, and sugar cookies, spending hours on lattice crusts and intricate icing…
by David Menconi Co-writing someone else’s memoir involved a number of firsts, but probably the biggest was this: It was the first time I was ever interviewed for a job on a band bus. It happened in the summer…
by Amber Nimocks photographs by Travis Long Maybe Boylan Heights owes its creative spirit to close quarters. Living there means knowing one’s neighbors, and those neighbors tend to be creative types with eclectic interests. The neighborhood, which spans just six…
Rural Academy Orchestra by Mimi Montgomery In our age of instant, at-your-fingertips entertainment, The Rural Academy Theater is doing things a little differently. Each year, these Pender County-based performers take some of their original shows and hit the road in a horse-drawn…
by Kevin Barrett, cocktail director at Foundation photographs by Jillian Clark Did you know North Carolina is the number one producer of sweet potatoes in the U.S.? I didn’t. It provides over 40 percent of the domestic supply. North Carolina…
by Liza Roberts David Spain is an artist whose medium is moss. Yes, moss. That spongy, green, felt-like plant that sprouts in humid nooks and wooded glens. A pioneer in the burgeoning world of moss landscaping – and heralded by…
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Aster oblongifolius – “Fanny” – and I go way back. Back to 1992, when I learned about it through Ruth Knopf, the antique rose expert at South Carolina’s Boone Hall Plantation near Charleston….
West End Poetry Festival in Carrboro by Mimi Montgomery You don’t have to be an experienced wordsmith to attend the West End Poetry Festival in Carrboro. Hosted October 16 and 17 by the Carrboro Poets Council, the gathering marks the 10th…
by Andrew Kenney photographs by Nick Pironio Patrick Torres watches from the front of the hall as people take the stage one by one. He hears them lay bare their own true stories: The woman who found a moment of…
by Mimi Montgomery photograph by Travis Long “We never dreamed it’d be this big … watching Seaboard Avenue change, watching Capital Boulevard change. It’s just getting bigger and bigger.” – Molly Rohde, co-owner of Studio 123 It started out as just a fun…