The State of Things

Minrose Gwin grew up in a segregated Mississippi town much like the one she wrote about in her debut novel “The Queen of Palmyra” (Harper Collins/2010) and like the book’s protagonist, she was disturbed by the willful ignorance of white people in her community who blinded themselves to the problems of racism and violence. Gwin, Kenan Eminent Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, now makes her home in North Carolina where she continues to reveal the unspoken truths of Southern culture in her writing.

The Plug-In electric car conference wrapped up its four-day run this week in Raleigh. It's the first time the conference, which draws car makers and utility planners from around the country, has been held on the East Coast. Conference planners were drawn to North Carolina's capital by the growing demand for electric vehicles in the Triangle.

The National Black Theatre Festival is a longstanding tradition in Winston-Salem. Founded in 1989 by North Carolina native Larry Leon Hamlin, the biennial celebration of African-American stage performance draws thousands of people to the Triad.

Durhamite Brian Hill is the lead singer of the ska band Regatta 69, even though the rest of the band is based in Berlin. There’s still a big ska scene in Europe, and Hill wants to lead a revival of the genre stateside, so he’s starting locally. He’s organized a concert series called Skank Festival 2011 that visits Greensboro this weekend.

North Carolina State University sociologist Michael Schwalbe’s new book, “Smoke Damage: Voices from the Front Lines of America’s Tobacco Wars,” (University of Wisconsin Press/2011) is a collection of portraits of people whose lives have been changed by tobacco. The images and the stories that accompany them span a wide range of ages, social classes and professional disciplines, from lawyers and farmers to disease survivors. The intimate photos tell a story not captured by statistics, but the book is not merely sentimental.

When Marcia Owen began the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham in 1992, it was a traditional gun-control advocacy group. Over time, Marcia realized that new laws weren't going to address the root causes of the violence plaguing the Bull City. Instead of working for Durham's underserved communities, she began working with the people who lived in them. That particular method of social engagement is what Dean of Duke Chapel Sam Wells has been advocating in his theology for years. Wells and Owen have co-authored a new book called “Living Without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence” (IVP Books/2011).