Imagine you’re in a band performing at a club or even if you’re just a solo artist with a guitar in a coffeeshop. You want to sense people are listening. You want engagement. You want applause. That is, unless you’re one of the members of the longtime Asheville trio Free Planet Radio . They recall a recent show at the Light Center in Black Mountain that was one continuous flow of music for nearly 90 minutes. “Everyone is lying on their backs with their eyes closed,” said guitarist and composer

Melodie Galloway is bothered by what she sees every time she takes the podium at a rehearsal of the Asheville Choral Society . “We are very, very white,” she said with a chuckle. “We have a few people of color, but we are heavily caucasian.”

Melodie Galloway is bothered by what she sees every time she takes the podium at a rehearsal of the Asheville Choral Society . “We are very, very white,” she said with a chuckle. “We have a few people of color, but we are heavily caucasian.”

As Asheville’s Magnetic Theatre prepares to open its new show, 13-year-old Cory Silver has two concerns. “Of course my main goal is to pull it off,” he said. “But my second goal is definitely to not offend anybody.”

Like the artform it’s dedicated to, Asheville Bookworks is hidden. You could stand right in front of its building in West Asheville and patronize four other storefronts without ever knowing—because there’s no sign to tell you—the entrance is tucked onto the side. That’s worked just fine for the screenprinters, papermakers and mixed-media book artists who, since 2004, have regarded Asheville Bookworks as their town square.

Browse around the Cottage Craftsman, a gift shop in the center of Bryson City, and you’ll see candle holders, wall hangings, baskets, pottery, jewelry, a small selection of wine. Paige L. Christie is too modest to point them out on her own—and they do look a bit out of place— but if you ask her about the fantasy novels displayed on a small stand near the register, she’s more than happy to tell you a little bit about the author. “I’ve been developing the world of my novels since I was about 14

Like many novelists, Jacqui Castle stumbled into fiction through a side door. She mixed a background in psychology, some surrounding social and political upheaval and a few encouraging friends to wind up with “The Seclusion,” her debut novel . “For years, people have been telling me to try to write fiction, and I just kinda brushed it off,” she said. “I hadn’t really felt a drive to do that, but once I started, I haven’t stopped.”

Puppetry doesn’t quite contain everything Lisa Sturz puts into her art. She builds elaborate sets, writes detailed narratives and, for the biography of her grandfather , she spent a year painting a 25-foot backdrop that unfolds from the scrolls of an oversized Hebrew Torah. “As a puppeteer, I could write the scripts, I could write the music, I could sing and build the costumes and characters and perform them,” Sturz said. “It was a way of combining all those interests rather than choose between

Zeb Camp was studying Appalachian history and Southern literature four years ago, at UNC-Asheville, when he began writing lyrics for the Asheville band Bask . While folk, bluegrass and the iconic singer-songwriter are the soul of our regional music scene, guitar-driven heavy music is emerging here, and Bask is at the forefront. The music is soaked in heavy guitars, but the tone and lyrical sentiments are baked in this part of the south.

Jeanie Linders has inspired a lot of people to think they, too, can create or copy a hit stage show and change their own lives forever. “My show has been knocked off 14 times by other people,” she said. “There’s ‘Weight Watchers: The Musical,’ ‘Assisted Living: The Musical,’ all written by guys that think it’s different. Because the show was a cash cow.”