Wes Moore

Students and the community will have a chance to engage in-person with bestselling author and social entrepreneur Wes Moore when he delivers a free public lecture on Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 7 p.m. in UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium.

Moore’s latest book, The Other Wes Moore, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, follows the lives of two kids with the same name who were born blocks apart and within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police.

Moore’s novel explores how he grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the “other” Wes Moore ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence.

Moore is the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, New York City’s largest poverty-fighting organization, and was named one of Town and Country’s top 50 philanthropists of 2018. He hosts Oprah Winfrey Network’s Beyond Belief, and PBS’s American Graduate Day, and is the executive producer and host of PBS’s Coming Back with Wes Moore, focusing on the reintegration of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

A book-signing with Moore will take place after the talk.

Frank Walker, Photo: Patrick Mitchell

Frank X Walker will read from and discuss his work as part of UNCA’s Visting Writer Series at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 in UNCA’s Reuter Center, in the Manheimer Room.

A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, Walker is the editor of America! What’s My Name? The “Other” Poets Unfurl the Flag (Wind Publications, 2007), and Eclipsing a Nappy New Millennium.

These events are free and open to everyone. For more information, visit unca.edu/events.