Mara Evans

MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR HOMETOWN: NEW BOOK GUIDES EVERYDAY PEOPLE ON PRESERVING HISTORICAL STRUCTURESCharlotte, NC (June 3, 2025) Every town has at least one property with an aging original structure that has been abandoned or neglected and needs a little love. Beth Yarbrough, a preservation enthusiast, is sharing her personal passion to return these structures to their former state of glory with her new book, The Grassroots Guide to Saving What Matters: Historic Preservation for Everyday People. In this succinct yet insightful guide, Yarbrough provides a layperson’s roadmap through the building preservation landscape, offering salient tips to anyone looking to protect historic structures in their community.Yarbrough realizes embarking on the journey to preservation can be daunting, especially when pieces of history are at risk. Finding the funds, applying for permits, following the rules, and tracking down original features can quickly get overwhelming. Sometimes it feels pointless—but in fact, “the whole point of The Grassroots Guide is to inspire those who wish they could make a difference and don’t realize that they actually can,” she says.“Many old houses simply die from lack of knowledge. We lose a lot of our best old places because a homeowner is not aware that there is preservation help available. As you read through this book, you will learn what that help looks like, where to find it, and what role it—and you!—can play in saving an old house from an undeserved fate,” Yarbrough says. Yarbrough’s book approaches the process from a thoughtful standpoint, allowing those new to the topic to feel confident in their ability to give a voice to beautiful old structures needing protection as they are guided through the work.Yarbrough hopes her guide will raise awareness of what can be done to protect aging structures, highlight the programs in place that can help, and get everyday people involved in preserving these important pieces of history. After a decade of traveling the country and working to save endangered buildings, she’s poured her experiences with navigating the preservation landscape into an accessible format so that more people can join the effort.###

A YEAR FOR THE BOOKS: AUTHOR PORTRAYS LIFE DURING THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF 1969National (June 24, 2025) Janet Sarjeant dives into the division between historical events and personal life in her new book, 1969: Half Year, Half Light. Published by Warren Publishing, the novel follows a teenager’s senior year of high school in small-town America during the tumultuous year of 1969. Sarjeant draws on different recollections of the time to craft a nostalgic story that explores the experience of watching once-in-a-lifetime moments capture the nation’s consciousness on television while living in a tiny town distant from the center of attention.Sarjeant strives to imbue her characters with the same, singular mix of emotions she once felt as a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, explaining that 1969 was full of “tragic times as well as joyous times, because there are poignant times in every life.” Shared experiences connect readers to her writing. “We were a bit isolated, even though TV brought the world into our homes, but everyone knows where they were when the first man landed on the moon,” says Sarjeant.Readers are propelled into the life of Edna Louise Walters, or “Eddy” for short, as she navigates the journey into adulthood during a time of change for the world. She feels the charge in the air, she feels electric with anticipation for the things to come, and she grapples with desires she can’t even name. Like any teenager, Eddy is keenly aware of the in-between state she is in, and the challenges that can pose.As Eddy maneuvers through her 18th birthday, her final year of high school, and the countless historical events that dominate the news, she finds herself falling for a boy who’s also struggling to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood. Serjeant puts small-town problems in conversation with national dialogues, grounded by her lyrical storytelling.Readers will undoubtedly recognize the monumental events spread throughout the story, either through personal experience or familiarity with the media frenzy around them that has continued to circulate decades later. 1969: Half Year, Half Light presents readers with a chance to reconnect with history through a personal lens and re-experience the anticipation of what life on the cusp of adulthood felt like.###