Columbia native Cathy Tolley will read and sign her new book, “A Weed in the Garden” at Literary Bookpost on Friday, April 18, 5:30-7:30 p.m., during Earth Night Out. The store is at 110 S. Main St.
What will happen when a little, unsightly weed pops up in a garden filled with beautiful flowers who are a little snobbish and uppity? Will the weed be able to grow and thrive in a garden such as this? Or will this change them forever?
The book teaches that we should be tolerant of each other because there is always beauty within.
Tolley always enjoyed reading children’s books to her two daughters when they were little. She especially liked the book characters with lots of personality so that she could incorporate her love of acting in creating a crazy accent or voice for them.
Tolley lives in South Carolina with her husband, Mark, where she teaches communications at the college level. These days she also gets to read to her favorite listeners, her two grandsons.
The book is illustrated by Sarah Flowe, who also lives in South Carolina with her family.
To learn more about Tolley, go to www.cathytolley.com; for Flowe, visit www.sarahflowe.com
William Ferris talks about “The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists” on “North Carolina Bookwatch” at noon Sunday and Thursday at 5 p.m.
UNC-Chapel Hill folklorist and scholar Ferris has spent a lifetime collecting and celebrating voices of the South. In the book he shares his favorite memories of 26 Southern writers, scholars, artists, and composers, including Eudora Welty, Ernest Gaines, and others
“The book really tracks my love for and interest in the American South over the last 40 years – the people who are my heroes and heroines whose work inspired my own.

I was able to meet these people along the way, and they graciously invited me in for an interview. I did interviews and photographs and films with them.”
Ferris has been director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss, co-editor of the original “Encyclopedia of Southern Culture,” and chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. His courteousness, curiosity, and thoughtfulness have made him a model builder of friendships across the lines of time, class, talent, and race. In “The Storied South,” using text, photos, and a CD full of sounds, he shares the fruits of those hard-won friendships.