2022 Book Awards

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 23, 2022
Media Contact:
M. Thomas (Tom) Collins
(615) 948-1544
Tom.collins@i65n.com

Books by Local Author Tom Collins Earn Top Awards

Tom Collins’s book, Exploring Asheville—Its History Attractions, Mysteries, Ghosts, and Tall Tales earned the top spot as the 2022 winner in the regional category at both the Independent Press Awards and the NYC Big Books Awards. Also winning in the NYC Big Book Awards was his novel, Beyond Visual Range, as a 2022 Distinguished Favorite in Military Fiction.

M. Thomas (Tom) Collins writes from his home in Franklin, Tennessee, where his characters come to life and frequent familiar places in the bucolic middle Tennessee landscape and the majestic mountains of Western North Carolina. A pioneer entrepreneur of the information technology industry, Tom is now retired from the commercial world and devotes his time to creating his mystery series, Mark Rollins Adventures, and writing about Asheville and Western North Carolina.

Regarding his two award winning books, Collins explained:

As an author, the awards are even more meaningful because the books are so different from each other. “Exploring Asheville” is not your typical travel book. It addresses the Western North Carolina destination as a whole to make the reader ‘Asheville Smart’—to understand why it’s called “The weirdest, happiest, quirkiest, most haunted place in America.” As for “Beyond Visual Range”, it is the fictional story of a paraplegic former female fighter pilot turned drone pilot who exposes the reader to the moral injury suffered by drone pilots deployed on kill missions.”

Books by Tom Collins are available from your favorite neighborhood bookstore. Print and eBook editions are also available on Amazon, Google Play, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, and other online bookstores. Audio editions are available on Amazon, iTunes and directly from Audible.com.

To inquire about a review copy or an interview, call (615) 948-1544 or email tom.collins@i65n.com.

Malaprops

Malaprop’s is one of the independent bookstores stocking my book, Exploring Asheville. The bookstore is in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The town itself is considered the Weirdest, Happiest, Quirkiest, Place in America. And so it is, that it would have at its heart a bookstore with such an inappropriate name.  “Malaprop” basically means to use of language inappropriately--the most common example being to use a wrong, but similar sounding, word in a sentence.

A malaprop would be for me to write about the great “tall tales” in my new book Exploring Asheville. Another example would be to “wrench” the dishes. And then there is the TV character Archie Bunker’s question, What do I look like, an “inferior” decorator?

I suppose the Hungarian founder, Emoke B'Racz, chose the name to express his feeling that it’s an unlikely store in an unlikely place by an unlikely owner at an unlikely time. B’Racz opened the store in 1982 with little more than a hope and a prayer. It was a time when businesses had left the downtown area for suburban malls and building space was nearly rent free. Writing about his store Emoke wrote, As a political exile from a communist country, I cannot overemphasize my passion to provide a space where freedom of expression is supported, where important literature—from authors backed by major publishers to those who self-publish—is available to all, where censorship has no place, where respect and service are practiced daily, where women feel safe, where all are welcome, and where books are the stars.

Today, our goals are the same as the ones we committed to in 1982: to be the best little bookstore in the land; to enjoy what we do while we’re doing it, and to ensure that bookselling remains a fine and noble profession.

Nashville’s writer, Ann Patchett ,[owner of Parnassus Books], in an article for the New York Times, said of the Asheville bookstore, Malaprop’s was the heart and soul of Asheville, NC, when Asheville was a sleepy little hippie town, and it’s still its heart and soul now…, a position Malaprop’s maintained by being unabashedly true to itself.

You can show your support for this independent bookstore by purchasing your copy of Exploring Asheville from them at https://www.malaprops.com/book/9781939285034.

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All of my books are available from your favorite bookstore, or click to find one near you. Ebook and print editions are also available on Amazon, Google Play, Apple iBooks,  Smashwords, and other online bookstores. Audio editions are available on Amazon, iTunes and directly from Audible.com.

Chicken Alley

The story of Chicken Alley appears in my new book, Exploring Asheville, Its History, Attractions, Mysteries, Ghosts and Tall Tales.

One of the most haunted streets in Asheville is less than a mile from the Arcade Building. It is just off Woodfin Street. It is actually an alley, Chicken Alley, a narrow walkway between North Lexington Avenue and Carolina Lane. As you approach the alley, you will pass by Building #6 on Woodfin Street with its tiny mouse doors. But the landmark that will announce your arrival will be the giant Chicken Mural painted by Asheville artist, Molly Must. While the mural celebrates the area’s rich agricultural heritage, it is the ghost of Dr. Jamie Smith that attracts many of the alley’s visitors.

In the late 1800s, Ashville had a rough and raunchy side. Asheville’s nearby forest and the navigable French Broad River fostered a growing logging industry in the area, and Asheville was where loggers went for entertainment and “good times.” And the Broadway Tavern at Chicken Alley was one of their favorite spots. Asheville’s Dr. Jamie Smith was one of its prominent physicians, although on the side he is said to have counted many of the loggers among his clients for treatment of injuries and social disorders. He too enjoyed the “good times” and was a regular at the tavern. Dr. Smith stood out from the other men in route to and from the tavern for his unusual attire—a wide-brimmed black fedora hat and long duster style coat with a silver topped cane in one hand and a medicine bag in the other. On his last visit to Chicken Alley’s Broadway Tavern, Doctor Smith met his end. He arrived just as a bar brawl raged and while trying to stop the fighting, he was stabbed in the heart and died instantly. A year later in 1903, the tavern was destroyed by fire.

People say that things die slowly in the quartz laden mountains—especially those who meet a tragic or untimely end. So it seems with Dr. Jamie Smith—his spirit lingers. Late at night (since his death in 1902—now well over 100 years) those who live in Chicken Alley and people passing through it have reported hearing a cane tapping on the pavement or seeing a man lurking in the alley—a man in a long coat and wide brimmed fedora and a silver topped cane.

[Author’s Note: Some say Doctor Smith’s spirit is looking for revenge, but most locals say he just wants another drink before departing his earthly bonds. As for the mouse doors, they are the subject of another story.]

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All of my books are available from your favorite bookstore, or click to find one near you. Ebook and print editions are also available on Amazon, Google Play, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, and other online bookstores. Audio editions are available on Amazon, iTunes and directly from Audible.com.
To purchase my latest book click on the title, Exploring Asheville .

Christmas Spiders

A Tall Tale from my book, Exploring Asheville as told from Applewood Manor’s Rocking Chair Porch

It was snowing and we already had a good six inches on the ground. I was standing on the Rocking Chair Porch watching some of the younger guests building a snowman. I say younger, but you must understand that for someone in their seventies pushing eighty, people in their thirties, or heck, even forties, qualify as young. Dr. Cornelius Burgos, a retired Church of Christ minister, was also on the porch. He and his wife moved to Florida when Dr. Burgos retired, and this year, missing the seasonal changes, they decided to spend winter in the mountains.

It was that time of the year when people are starting to decorate their homes for Christmas. There were Christmas trees for sale on just about every vacant lot in the city. Holiday shopping was getting in high gear. You could feel the excitement as people counted down the days to Christmas. So, it was only natural that the minister and I started talking about Christmas. I asked Dr. Burgos if the commercialism bothered him. “Sometimes,” I said, “the real reason for Christmas seems to get lost in the excitement of tree decorating and all the gift giving and getting.”

Dr. Cornelius Burgos’s face seem to light up at the question and he said, “Not at all, my friend. I consider it wonderful. Trees and particularly evergreens have been a symbol of growth, death, and rebirth throughout the ages. They represent the joy of life God has endowed us with. And Christmas is a celebration of gift giving. After all, Christ was a gift—the greatest gift of all. I’m sure you remember the words— “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Dr. Burgos continued. “Throughout the ages Christmas has been about giving. To help the children of our Church understand that we give Christmas gifts and decorate our Christmas trees to celebrate the birth of Christ, I tell them the Ukraine story of the Christmas Spiders. Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, there are variations, but the one I was taught in my village goes like this”:

Once upon a time, a poor mother lived with her children in a small home. Outside their house was a tall pine tree from which a pinecone dropped and started to grow from the soil. The children had heard stories of people decorating trees to honor Christ on his birthday. So, they tended to it, ensuring that it would continue to grow and be strong until it became tall enough to be a Christmas tree to take inside their home.

On Christmas Eve, the tree was up, and the mother got busy cleaning the house for the most wonderful day of the year—the day of the year on which the Christ child was born. Not a speck of dust was left. Even the spiders had been banished to a corner in the ceiling to avoid the housewife's cleaning. Unfortunately, the family was poor and even though they had their Christmas tree, they had no gifts to go under it. Nor could they afford ornaments to decorate it in celebration of Christ’s birthday. The spiders, another of God’s beloved creatures, heard the sobs of the children as they went to bed and decided they would not leave the tree bare. So, the spiders created beautiful webs on the Christmas tree as their gift, decorating it with elegant and beautiful silky patterns.

When the children woke up early on Christmas morning and saw their beautiful tree, they were jumping with excitement. God was pleased, and as the rays of the sun shone on the tree his blessing for what the children and spiders had done in his Son’s name, turned the webs into glittering silver and gold making the Christmas tree dazzle and sparkle with a magical twinkle. Thus, the blessed family never suffered from want again. And, to this day, gold and silver colored tinsel decorates Christmas trees all over the world, and we exchange gifts to celebrate the birthday of Christ.

Merry Christmas To All!