“In the Company of Writers’” program offers a series of personal and conversational dialogues featuring guest writers/poets followed by an open mic forum. These inspirational gatherings will elucidate and entertain those attending. The guest authors speak from 7-8 PM with an open mic from 8 -9 PM. Original music welcomes you, continues during intermission, and closes the evening. Sign-ups for the open mic sheet are posted at the entry.
Jeremy B. Jones is the author of the recently published nonfiction book Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries (Blair, 2025), as well as the award-winning memoir Bearwallow (Blair, 2014). His essays appear in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Oxford American, The Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun, and Brevity. He also writes regularly for Our State, and, alongside Elena Passarello, co-edits In Place, a nonfiction book series from West Virginia University Press. Born and raised in Henderson County, Jeremy earned his MFA from the University of Iowa and is a professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where he teaches creative writing and directs the Spring Literary Festival.
Alice Martin recently published her debut novel Westward Women (St. Martin’s Press, 2026), an Editor’s Pick on Amazon and acclaimed by Joyce Carol Oates as “An audacious first novel to set beside Margaret Atwood.” An Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, she received her PhD in American Literature from Rutgers University. Before returning to academia, she worked in commercial book publishing at Algonquin Books, Writers House, and elsewhere. Her writing has appeared in the Carolina Quarterly, Appalachian Heritage, and Triangle House Review, amongst others. She lives in Waynesville, NC with her husband, her son, her attention-seeking cat, and too many typewriters.