Writer and Musician Ted Olson to Perform and Read at City Lights Bookstore

Description

Educator, musician, writer and former park ranger, Ted Olson will visit City Lights Bookstore on Friday, May 3rd at 6:30 p.m. to read poetry from his new collection, Revelations. He will also perform Appalachian ballads and folk songs. 

Olson has written several books, including two collections of poetry, Breathing in Darkness and his new book, Revelations, and a study of Appalachian culture, Blue Ridge Folklife.  He has edited numerous books, including four volumes of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual and collections of literary works by authors James Still (including the recent book The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Still), Sarah Orne Jewett, and Sherwood Anderson.  Olson co-edited the award-winning The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music (with Charles K. Wolfe), and he contributed numerous trail narratives to the popular hiking guide Hiking Trails of the Smokies.  Additionally, Olson was the music section editor and associate editor for The Encyclopedia of Appalachia.  He has received three Grammy Award nominations for his work as a music historian, most recently this year for Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music.  A seasonal park ranger on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the 1980s and 1990s, he now teaches at East Tennessee State University.