5 QUESTIONS FOR DEE SCHWAB

Philanthropist Dee Schwab is one of 13 dancers competing for a great cause at the sold-out Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte for The Pink House fundraiser. Dee will perform a ballroom routine with her professional dance partner, Felipe Gonzales Edmiston.

One of the fastest-growing fundraisers in Charlotte is Dancing with the Stars of Charlotte for The Pink House, a benefit for Caroilna Breast Friends. Since 2016, it’s raised more than $1.55 million to support the services the nonprofit Carolina Breast Friends provides for those with breast cancer in our community.

Modeled after the popular Dancing with the Stars TV show, it pairs professional dancers with community leaders. Each team performs a ballroom dance number that is scored by judges from the competitive dance world. Audience members also get to vote for their favorite star by making donations to Carolina Breast Friends. Each dollar donated is equivalent to one vote.

Emcees for this year’s sold-out event on March 30 at Knight Theater are WBTV's Molly Grantham and NFL star DeAngelo Williams, both of whom have lost close family members to breast cancer. They’ll be handing out the mirror ball trophy for the top fundraiser, the biggest crowd pleaser, and the highest-scoring dancer.

Among the 13 stars competing is Dee Schwab, a mother of four who is also a grandmother of four. She’ll be joined on stage by fellow competitors and philanthropists JoBrent Austin-Diehl, Nick Clavin, Amanda Hibberts, Anitha Leonard, Davis Ligon, Katherine Weeks Mulford, Joey Profeta, Heather Sendler, Mary Bryan Smith, Celia Thompson, Shane Wagner and Hayes Woollen.

Dee will perform with professional dancer Felipe Gonzales Edmiston. She jokes that she’s looking forward to finding out if her 5th grade ballet classes will finally pay off. But her true motivation is supporting the nonprofit’s inspiring mission.

In between her demanding dance practice sessions, Dee took time from her busy schedule to answer The O Report’s questions.

The O Report: Being a dancer at this fundraiser is a huge commitment. What motivated you to participate?

Dee: I love to dance! And dancing for such a worthy cause is an added plus.

The O Report: What has been your favorite part of the process?

Dee: Connecting to Charlotte’s community of dancers and dance teachers has been a great new thing for me. My weekly lessons at Midtown Ballroom were intimidating at first. But now they are relaxing, sometimes hilarious and always fun.

The O Report: What has been the most challenging?

Dee: Memorizing our agreed upon dance. It’s only two minutes, but has lots of intricate steps. Fingers crossed!

The O Report: Any details you can share about your costume, music and your amazing professional dance partner Felipe?

Dee: I could not have a better partner than Felipe. He also directs our production. He’s a spectacular dancer, a kind and patient teacher, and now a great new friend. Our beautiful costumes are custom-made by the very talented Daniel Gonzales, who happens to be Felipe’s brother. It’s a family affair!

The O Report: What are you most looking forward to in regards to the fundraiser and what you hope it accomplishes?

Dee: I’m looking forward to our performance Saturday night at the Knight Theatre. And I so appreciate the generosity of friends who have supported me and all the other community dancers. We’ll never know the Pink House patrons we’ve helped, but we’ll know we helped them.

THE O REPORT’S TOP 18 ARTICLES FROM 2018

Top Bobbi Brown Products For Men (#1)

Author Kimmery Martin Rules (#2)

Felix Sabates Hosts Allegro Foundation Fundraiser (#3)

Dr. Stephan Finical (#4)

Exquisite Rings For Brides of Any Age (#5)

Michael Marsicano (#6)

Visionary Women Luncheon (#7)

The O Report Magazine Wins Prestigious Award (#8)

Francene Marie Morris: Create A Life You Desire (#9)

Michelle Melville Shares How To Stay Modern (#10)

Advice From A World Famous Makeup Artist (#11)

Randy Gartz (#12)

Wig Party! (#13)

Get The Job Done In Style (#14)

Fashion Is In Her DNA (#15)

Lynn Ivey: Follow Your Intuition (#16)

Advice From Style Influencer Scott Newkirk (#17)

Tips From A Fitness Expert (#18)

As we say goodbye to 2018, here’s a list of the Top 18 most popular articles from The O Report website over the past year. Click on each title to read the original story.

Top Bobbi Brown Products For Men. It’s true, men really are becoming as obsessed with skincare as the women in their lives.

Author Kimmery Martin Rules. The O Report readers love books, especially this Charlotte-based author’s national debut novel, The Queen of Hearts.

Felix Sabates Hosts Allegro Foundation Fundraiser. Felix was in the news a lot this year as rumors swirled about his interest in putting together a group to buy the Carolina Panthers, but The O Report readers loved seeing this soft side of the generous businessman.

Dr. Stephan Finical. A profile of one of the top plastic surgeons in the nation who’s part of Charlotte Plastic Surgery’s award-winning team of doctors.

Exquisite Rings For Brides Of Any Age. When 50 and up brides and grooms marry, Tiffany & Co. at SouthPark Mall is a popular stop on the way to the altar.

Michael Marsicano. Our profile of the man who many consider to be Charlotte’s most powerful people, and also one of its nicest.

Visionary Women Luncheon. This celebration of the power and purpose of women coming together to connect, listen and share is presented annually by Queens University of Charlotte, Wells Fargo Private Bank and the Mint Museum.

The O Report Magazine Wins Prestigious Award. To be recognized as an outstanding publication by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts and its team of judges from iconic brands including Conde Nast, Estee Lauder, Sotheby’s and Lockheed Martin was definitely the highlight of The O Report publisher Olivia Fortson’s professional year.

Francene Marie Morris: Create A Life You Desire. Readers really tuned into the award-winning radio personality’s advice.

Michelle Melville Shares How To Stay Modern. The J.Hilburn stylist’s tips for men were on trend.

Advice From A World Famous Makeup Artist. Sir John is beauty industry royalty and his exclusive Q&A with The O Report was a major coup.

Randy Gartz. This tech recruiter’s great advice and zest for life resonated with readers.

Wig Party! Readers flipped for photos from creative couple Regine and Andreas Bechtler’s Wig Party.

Get The Job Done In Style. The O Report readers love to look chic while working hard, and they want their desk accessories to do the same.

Fashion Is In Her DNA. There’s a reason why Whitley Adkins Hamlin is one of Charlotte’s most sought-after and fashionable stylists.

Lynn Ivey: Follow Your Intuition. A fascinating profile of the woman who founded a nonprofit that has made a dramatic difference in the lives of caregivers and their family members with memory loss.

Advice From Style Influencer Scott Newkirk. Tabor’s buyer and creative director has an expert eye for all things elegant and modern. 

Tips From A Fitness Expert. Jill Cerami, who manages, trains and teaches classes at Trilogy at Lake Norman’s workout center, has great advice for older exercisers.

SUMMER READING LIST

With summer in full swing, we asked Park Road Books owner Sally Brewster to share her top picks for the best books to read now. (Click here to check out her husband and fellow book lover Frazer Dobson's favorites in the Men's section.)

Here are Sally's favorites: 

Last Cruise by Kate Christensen (Doubleday Books, $26.95). "The vintage ocean liner Queen Isabella is making it’s final run on a two week retro cruise from Long Beach to Hawaii and what happens is a fantastic read for those us landlubbers. A great book that straddles the line between a beach read and literary fiction."

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Grove Press, $20). "A unique, compelling read about a Japanese woman who starts working in a convenience store in college and still works there eighteen years later. Learn why it sold 600,000 copies in Japan."

Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (Berkley, $15). "Stella is smart enough to come up with algorithms to predict customer behavior but she has problems in the dating department. Being extremely logical, she decides to get professional help and hires an escort. Light and fun."

Calypso by David Sedaris (Little Brown, $28) "Who else can make essays about mortality and middle age funny but David Sedaris? Poignant but funny works of art about his family and the vacation home he buys on the Carolina coast."

Sally also recommends these two great sequels:

When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger (Simon & Schuster, $26.95) follows up on her bestselling The Devil Wears Prada by catching up with one of the characters 10 years later. 

How Hard Can it Be by Allison Pearson (St. Martin’s Press, $27.99) continues from her bestseller I Don’t Know How She Does It, but this time her protagonist is going through menopause. 

THE O REPORT MAGAZINE WINS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD

The O Report magazine (Vol. 1) has won an Award of Distinction in the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA) 2018 Communicator Awards. The magazine is an annual compilation of the best content from The O Report website and is produced and designed by Charlotte-based Spark Publications.

Founded over two decades ago, the Communicator Awards is an annual competition honoring the best in advertising, corporate communications, public relations, and identity work for print, video, interactive, and audio. 

Communicator Award winners are hand-selected by AIVA members including executives from organizations such as Airtype Studio, Big Spaceship, Conde Nast, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, Lockheed Martin, MTV Networks, Pitney Bowes, rabble+rouser, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Time, Inc, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo. 

The Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA) is an assembly of leading professionals dedicated to recognizing the rapidly evolving nature of traditional and interactive media. It has a diverse group of 600+ members from all 50 states and 15 countries worldwide, AIVA’s mission is to honor, promote and encourage creativity by providing a benchmark standard of excellence for evaluating media design, production and distribution.

AUTHOR KIMMERY MARTIN RULES

Author Kimmery Martin's debut novel is set in Charlotte.  

There's a new Queen in Charlotte - The Queen of Hearts author Kimmery Martin.

Her debut novel, described as a cross between Grey's Anatomy and Big Little Lies, is already generating a lot of buzz nationally even though its official launch date isn't until Feb. 13. A mix of medical drama and love gone wrong, it tells the story of pediatric cardiologist Zadie Anson and trauma surgeon Emma Colley, their friendship and a secret from their pasts. 

Kimmery grew up in Eastern Kentucky. After graduating from Medical School at the University of Louisville and completing her internship and residency, she moved to Charlotte in 1998. It's where she met her husband, Dr. James Fleischli, a sports medicine surgeon at OrthoCarolina, and they are raising their three children here. 

Although the two main characters are from Kentucky, Kimmery's novel takes place in Charlotte. The references to Charlotte are fun to read and her witty observations are spot-on. "It's a case of the saying write what you know," Kimmery says. "It didn't make sense to research another city when I could set it in a place that I knew well."

The book is dedicated to her mother, whom Kimmery credits with igniting her love of literature. "She got her Master's Degree at the University of Kentucky," Kimmery says. "She always took me with her to the library and I would load up on books."

Still a self-proclaimed book nerd, Kimmery loves reading so much that her website www.kimmerymartin.com is filled with her reviews of works by other writers. One of her favorite authors is Tom Wolfe; and she loves to read about science and technology, especially astrophysics. But she's also a fan of Bridget Jones's Diary. That personal literary mix is what makes her novel a success: It's well-written with a serious medical side, yet funny and soapy enough to keep it entertaining. 

The grueling process of not only writing a novel but finding a publisher - especially one as coveted as Penguin Random House - is a major accomplishment. The majority of the reviews, including Publishers Weekly and Southern Living, have praised the novel, but the few less positive ones are hard for her to read. "You can't escape criticism," she says. "It took five years and I failed a lot along the way. But if you feel compelled to write a story that's in you, you will find a way to do it."

Kimmery is on hiatus from her longtime job as an ER physician at CMC-Pineville and CMC-Mercy to promote her novel. Here are upcoming opportunities to meet her and learn more about her creative process.

January 25, 6-8 p.m.: Kimmery will join fellow authors Charles Thomas and Austin Light at Final Draught, a panel discussion moderated by Queen City Forward director Amy Chiou. Presented by The Friends Council, it benefits the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Includes light bites; beer and wine may be purchased. 7th Street Public Market, 224 E. Seventh St. For tickets, click here.

11 a.m. Feb. 13: A Luncheon/Book Signing at Quail Hollow Club. Ticketed event.

6:30 p.m. Feb. 13: A Book Signing with wine and cheese at Morrison Regional Library, 7015 Morrison Boulevard. Free. To RSVP, click here.

Noon-1:30 p.m. Feb. 22: Author Luncheon at Flatiron Kitchen + Taphouse. hosted by Main Street Books in Davidson. Tickets are $30 and must be purchased by Feb. 20. For details, click here. 

MUST-READ BOOKS

Park Road Books owners Frazer Dobson and Sally Brewster shared their favorite new books during a Holiday Books event at Queens University of Charlotte. 

Here are the best of this season's must-reads according to Park Road Books owners Sally Brewster and Frazer Dobson. They revealed this list of their favorite new books during a Holiday Books event presented by Friends of the Library at Queens University of Charlotte. Have fun picking out a few that either you, or someone on your gift list, would enjoy. All are available at Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road at Park Road Shopping Center. Details: 704-525-9239; www.parkroadbooks.com. 

Artemis: A Novel, Andy Weir, $27. "From the author of The Martian, this takes place in the first colony on the moon," Sally says. "The people in the colony are chosen to be there because of either their job skills, they have enough to pay to be there, or they won a spot in the lottery. The main character has a plan to make money and ends up coming up with a plan to save the planet."

Bolt & Keel: The Wild Adventures of Two Rescued Cats, Kayleen BanderRee. $14.95. "These two cats are breaking stereotypes one adventure at a time," Frazer says. "The like to get out into the great outdoors and go camping and hiking." 

Charlotte: The Signs of the Times, Christopher Lawing, $34.99. "It's filled with photos of famous Charlotte signs including the JFG coffee sign, Park Road Shopping Center, the Penguin, the Athens restaurant and Thompson's Bootery and Bloomery."

David Tanis, Market Cooking, David Tanis, $40. "It's very focused on fresh ingredients and a lot of the recipes are vegetarian," Frazer says. 

Dogist: Puppies, Elias Weiss Friedman, $24.95. "Extraordinary dog photos for the dog lover," Frazer says. 

First Major: The Inside Story of the 2016 Ryder Cup, John Feinstein, $28.95. "There's a lot of tension but it's beautifully written," Frazer says. 

Grant, Ron Chernow, $40. "This fascinating biography of the celebrated general and two-term president is written by the author of the Alexander Hamilton book," Sally says.

How to Instant Pot, Daniel Shumski, $16.95. "A very good reference for how to use and get the most out of your Instant Pot," Frazer says. 

The Indigo Girl, Natasha Boyd, $26.99. "Historical fiction about a young woman in the 1730s who tries to save her family's rice plantation from ruin by growing indigo," Sally says. "Everyone wants her to fail."

The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash, $26.99. "It's inspired by the 1929 labor strike in Gastonia," Frazer says. "Some of it is hard to take because during the depression people were starving. It shows how we need to take care of each other."

Last Castle, Denise Kiernan, $28. "Edith Vanderbilt wasn't prepared for her husband's dream of building the Biltmore Estate, but she rose to the occasion," Sally says. 

Leonardo Da Vinci, Walter Isaacson, $35. "It's written by the author of the Steve Jobs biography," Frazer says. "He can do no wrong. It's perfect for history buffs." 

Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan, $28. "A fascinating book about a woman named Anna, her father and gangster in Depression era Manhattan and during World War II when Anna gets a job in a shipyard," Sally says. 

Redemption, Adam Lucas, $35. "For Carolina basketball fans, it's about how Carolina bounced back after the devastating loss of the 2016 championship," Frazer says. 

Smitten Kitchen: Every Day, Deb Perlman, $35. "A cookbook that makes you think outside the box," Sally says. 

What Can I Bring?, Elizabeth Heiskell, $30. "It's by a food writer from Mississippi," Frazer says. "It's great for fledgling cooks." 

What Unites Us, Dan Rather, $22.95. "Essays by Dan Rather on patriotism and what we have in common," Frazer says. 

When the English Fall, David Williams, $24.95. "An Amish apocalyptic novel," Frazer says. "If you're a pacifist, what do you do to protect your family when the world falls apart." 

Wild, Dan Kainen, $25.95. "A photicular with beautiful moving pictures of endangered animals," Frazer says. "It's perfect for youngsters who are animal nerds." 

The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Marta McDowell, $27.95. "The landscapes, gardening and agriculture that inspired the series," Frazer says.

A World of Cookies for Santa, M.E. Forman, $16.99. "Tales of the cookies children around the world leave for Santa," Sally says. "It's a really fun book with recipes." 

SOUTHERN FICTION AT ITS BEST AND MORE NEW BOOKS

Sally Brewster, owner of the independent book store Park Road Books, recommends these new offerings:

"The Nest" by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, a quirky drama about a dysfunctional New York City family and the fluctuating bonds between siblings. According to Sally, the author is 55 and this is her first novel published - and she was given a $1 million dollar advance.

"The Queen of the Night" by Alexander Chee has real-life events and figures of the Belle Epoque era woven into a story about the scandal-filled experiences of a girl from Minnesota who escapes to Paris and becomes a famous opera singer. 

"Lies and Other Acts of Love" by North Carolina writer Kristy Woodson Harvey is praised as "Southern Fiction at its best." In this novel a grandmother finds out her family's little white lies may have influenced her responsible granddaughter to suddenly ditch her hedge fund manager fiancé to marry a musician she's only known for three days. The author will sign copies of her book May 11 at Park Road Books during a Girls Night Out event that starts at 7 p.m.

In other news from Park Road Books, Sally says that readers are snapping up copies of "The Rainbow Comes And Goes: A Mother and Son On Life, Love and Loss," by TV journalist Anderson Cooper and his famous heiress/entreprenuer mother Gloria Vanderbilt.

Also popular is "Flight of Dreams" by Ariel Lawhon, a romantic adventure novel that takes place during the days leading up to the real 1937 crash of the German airship Hindenberg.

And she confirms news reports that after the terrorist attacks in Paris last year, there was a demand from readers who wanted to revisit 1964's "A Moveable Feast," a memoir of Ernest Hemingway's expat observations of Paris in the 1920s. Interest in the book has waned, but the store still has copies in stock.

Park Road Books is at Park Road Shopping Center, 4139 Park Road. Details: 704-525-9239; www.parkroadbooks.com. 

Previously recommended by Sally Brewster of Park Road Books: 

 "The Arrangement" by author Ashley Warlick. Set in 1934 in California, France and the Swiss Alps, it's based on the real-life love triangle between food writer M.F.K. Fisher, her husband, and the man she left him for. The author has taught at Queens University of Charlotte's MFA program and is now the buyer for M. Judson Booksellers & Storytellers in Greenville, S.C. 

"The Swans of Fifth Avenue" by Melanie Benjamin. The New York Times bestselling author of "The Aviator's Wife" takes readers into the world of 1950s New York High Society and its brightest star, Babe Paley, who becomes involved in a literary scandal with Truman Capote.