You’re cute jeans (iykyk)—especially now that Raleigh Denim Workshop has launched Field of Jeans, repurposing rare leftover Levi’s denim into fresh shrunk and field-dried ’fits for optimal wear. @raleighdenim
Mother Nature called—and she wants you to find your roots. Artist Pat Sweeney’s The Roots of Art transforms dead tree roots into poignant painted pieces that blend fine art with the great outdoors. therootsofart.com
We spy with our little eyes… Warby Parker’s newest Village District locale is setting its sights on Raleighites with too-cool-for-school eyewear—think sunnies, readers and blue-light lenses galore. @warbyparker
Vintage is so back at House of Rebellion, coming in hot to DTR with a fashion revolution of retro finds, secondhand must-haves and bold upcycled treasures to shake up any wardrobe. And those colorful, eclectic vibes? Totally tubular. @rebellionvtg
Give your wardrobe the old razzle-dazzle with Mary George Design’s curated selection of vibrant, bold and fashion-forward pieces that pop. Think dresses, blouses and shorts guaranteed to brighten any ’fit. @marygeorgedesign
Photo by Carrie Dale Photo
Now that’s a mood—Mood Raleighbows at Platform Apartments in the West End District to bring a little color into your life one nail at a time, thanks to skilled artists delivering flawless results no matter what design you may dream up. @moodraleigh
Bookstore turned dining spot aims to build community.
Beow’s Books & Brews’ story is still being written. The mystical North Raleigh spot for book lovers and brew enthusiasts (pronounced more like Beowulf and less like your cat’s meow) has been buzzing with new additions since it opened last November—and that was just the beginning. Originally serving only books and bevs, the shop’s next chapter spiced things up via a kitchen added in late April, with a full menu rolling out in May.
The food is a unique fusion of Italian and Mediterranean flavors with Southern comfort staples—a nod to owner Jim Ranieri’s roots as a New York Italian who grew up in Raleigh. Ranieri opened Beow’s alongside business partner Chad Mastny, a Nebraska native who moved to the City of Oaks in 1988.
Bearing Lord of the Rings-inspired names, the dishes span breakfast, lunch and dinner—think biscuits (The Bilbo features Italian breakfast sausage, a fried egg and provolone), egg bites, sandwiches (see: the veg-forward Legolas), salads and charcuterie. Drinkswise, there’s locally made craft beers (natch), wine, Mystic Monk Coffee and tea.
As for the literature, customers can browse books of ample genres ranging fiction, theology, philosophy, politics, culture, etc.—and titles by the likes of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Susanna Clarke and Walker Percy.
But Beow’s true destiny isn’t just books or food—it’s community. The spot has become a home for dozens of group gatherings and events aimed at sparking conversation, with a calendar chock-full of trivia nights, movie nights, a monthly comedy series hosted by Raleigh’s own Gerry Potoka, a speaker series and live music gigs. Not to mention book clubs, art clubs and even Bible studies.
And turning the page yet again, a second, larger location is on deck for this fall, promising even more space for your next great conversation. With the current high demand for events, the larger space will allow the Beow’s crew to host more groups wanting to meet, learn and engage.
So, though its story is still in the making, Beow’s looks like it’s headed for happily ever after. beows.com
Tap into your Fitzgerald flair in the new year via Redbud Writing Project’s local classes.
New Year’s resolution season is upon us! And if you’ve long, well, longed to finally pen that first chapter to free your inner Hemingway, Redbud Writing Project is here for it.
Co-founded by NCSU Creative Writing MFAs Emily Cataneo and Arshia Simkins and nestled beneath So & So Books on Person Street (with additional Triangle outposts to boot), the Triangle’s only adult writing school for aspiring and lapsed writers provides just the confidence and mojo needed to put pen to page—er, fingertips to keyboard.
Served up in a welcoming workshop environment, early 2024 classes range from fiction and nonfiction to poetry courses—plus manuscript consultations and retreats. First chapter(s) already in the books? Tap into Redbud’s yearlong Novel Intensive program, designed specifically for advanced writers working on a book.Essentially, it’s like a cozy coop for creatives and community. … And what better place to spark your imagination than within a welcoming indie bookstore? Flip the page—er, keep scrolling!—to school yourself on the best landing page for you.
Pencil It In
Commit to that 2024 ✍️ resolution via six-week immersions in Redbud’s various local courses.
~ Fiction I: Beginners, this one’s for you. Immerse yourself in fiction fundamentals and the collaborative workshopping experience via this class at Golden Fig Books in Carrboro. StartsJan. 17,weekly on Wednesdays ~Writing the Novel: This course at So & So Books and culminates with the completion of that first chapter you’ve been penning—plus the confidence to carry on. Starts Jan. 14, weekly on Sundays ~ Writing the Body: Everyone has a unique story—and the same goes for all written works. Craft a powerful narrative true to you during the writing school’s six-week course, kicking off Jan. 17 at Letters Bookshop in Durham. Starts Jan. 17, weekly on Wednesdays ~ Writing Peace and Protest: All genres are welcome at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill to explore topics of peace and protest—and why penning them is more important than ever. Starts Jan. 15, weekly on Mondays
No dream is deferred at Liberation Station Bookstore—bowing Downtown this month.
“I feel like I’ve always been a practitioner of possibilities,” says Victoria Scott-Miller, who made waves nationally in 2019 when a quest to find children’s books with characters of color for her two young sons proved unsuccessful. As the story goes, she and husband Duane Miller decided to take matters into their own hands and launched Liberation Station Bookstore—the Triangle’s first Black-owned children’s bookstore—out of the trunk of their 2011 Chevy Cruze.
“That’s how it got started—just us trying to be good parents and not only raising our children, but also allowing our children to raise us,” says Scott-Miller, who is also an award-winning entrepreneur, documentary filmmaker and author. “Listening to their needs, listening to their hopes and their dreams, and really just meeting them with action.”
After four years of operating as a pop-up, the pioneering business will open the doors to its first brick-and-mortar location at 208 Fayetteville St. over Juneteenth weekend, inviting kids and parents to step inside and discover an abundance of books that embrace the full spectrum of the Black experience. “They’ll get to see Black children laughing—and not just in the news,” Scott-Miller maintains. “They’ll get to see them being scientists and artists.”
(Andrea Weigl)
The community has rallied to bring Liberation Station to this watershed moment, raising over $12,000 (as of press time) to equip the new space with everything from shelving to seating. “We said if we ever asked the community for anything, then it would be because we were getting a physical space,” explains Scott-Miller. “So to know they were ready and they waited on us, it’s just amazing.”
In addition to carrying a wide array of banned books—“children deserve to see a full picture,” says Scott-Miller—Liberation Station will offer “Dope and Abled,” a collection of titles highlighting children of all abilities.
“We’ll have books in Braille; we’ll have books that talk about seeing kids being empowered by being on the spectrum. And we’ve connected with the Black ASL group here in Raleigh, and we’ll be offering storytime for deaf parents and deaf children to be able to interact with their community members,” reveals Scott-Miller, whose youngest son was diagnosed with autism two years ago. “We’ve tried to think about, ‘What does inclusion mean to us?’ We’ve thought about some of the discomforts we have felt as parents having a child with autism and really creating a space where they can feel welcome.”
The rest is still unwritten, but, for now, Scott-Miller says she simply feels grateful for the unique opportunity her family has been given to “make history in real time.”
“I’m excited to see indecisiveness,” she shares. “I’m excited to see little kids not knowing what to choose because there’s so many choices. ‘I don’t know what to pick because everything is for me.’ … I just cannot wait.”
Liberation Station’s Anchor section introduces a curation of adult titles lovingly paired with children’s titles to spark intergenerational discussion. For Scott-Miller’s curated pairings, click here.
Liberation Station’s Anchor section introduces a curation of adult titles lovingly paired with children’s titles to spark intergenerational discussion. “I’m excited about what type of conversations those books will open up in the home and around the dinner table because I know they’ve done that for us,” shares Scott-Miller. Here, she offers three pairings for families to dive into together this summer.
“Maud Martha is a novel that talks about a 7-year-old dark-skinned African American girl who loves flowers and also is learning to accept herself through the lens of a 1920s family,” says Scott-Miller. Coupled with the children’s book Sulwe, also about a dark-skinned girl struggling with acceptance “and really having an affirming conversation with the narrator of the story to be able to develop more self-esteem and excitement about who she is,” she emphasizes that “we get to have this span of conversation from 1920 all the way up to the late 2000s.”
“I call it a Black classic,” says Scott-Miller of Invisible Man, which “talks about social and intellectual issues that African Americans faced in the early ’20s.” Her rec for kids is The Talk, “a discussion about the different vantage points from children experiencing race in real time.” For instance, one poignant testimony comes from the son of children’s author Derrick Barnes, who explores “being Black and loving comic books and what’s that like,” she explains.
“Brown Girl Dreaming is poetry about the Black girl’s experience in adolescence,” shares Scott-Miller. For a powerful dialogue, she suggests pairing it with Her Stories, a collection of tales combining the “innovative fantasy side of folklore” with the empowerment of “Black girlhood leading into Black womanhood.”
