Northampton Book Fair

Tue 6 Dec 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

This world continues to be crap — i.e. “Half of Detroit votes may be ineligible for recount” (great pop up on that page, btw — everyone needs an instant audio ad for viagra to start when they click on a link!).

So for a brief moment instead of that here are some photos from a couple of panels at the Northampton Book Fair this weekend. The fair was in the Smith College Campus Center which is a beautiful building just outside the center of Northampton. The events were in two lovely, airy rooms on the ground floor and there was an antiquarian book fair full of the most tempting things upstairs. Wow, so many pretty things.

I saw some of the 10 a.m. Children’s picture book panel readers: Rich Michelson gave a, wait, no, really, fascinating presentation on Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy, Leslea Newman read her new book Ketzel, the Cat Who Composed (you can listen to Ketzel’s 21-second composition here), and Mordicai Gerstein (The Sleeping Gypsy, I Am Pan) strode up and just started drawing away on the white board. That was fabulous. Here he is drawing Hera (he noted she didn’t trust Zeus) and his drawing of the god Pan:

hera pan

I missed Heidi Stemple and Jane Yolen (what a line up that panel had!) as I had to split to prepare for John Crowley’s reading of The Chemical Wedding in the next room over at 11 a.m. John is erudite and smart and very funny — and, hey, we sold books, which is always nice. He read and then answered quite a few questions, as the reading was well attended, and afterward I met some more local book and nonbook people.

Here’s one photo and perhaps a one-minute video I just tried uploading to Flickr:

john_crowley

John Crowley reading

I came back in the afternoon and — with mostly patient kid — sat in on the Ninepin Press celebration/reading where Jedediah Berry and Emily Houk read from, played with, and showed their current projects:

 

 

 

 


Next Wednesday

Wed 25 Sep 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’ll be celebrating Susan Stinson’s book launch and reading at First Churches here in Northampton, Mass. Yes, this is a book set in Northampton written by a Northampton author and published by a company whose offices are in Easthampton, but whose principals live in Northampton. It’s a local book for local people! Well, in the sense that everyone is local somewhere.

Susan’s reading also kicks off the Forbes Library Local History/Local Novelists 2013/14 Reading and Lecture Series—the whole series info is below—and is leading a cemetery tour on Saturday, October 5 at 1 pm.

Hope to see you there!

October 2, 7 pm
First Churches, 129 Main St., Northampton, Mass.

October 5, 1 pm
Bridge Street Cemetery Walking Tour.
Tickets available from Broadside Books.

October 2 Spider in a Tree book launch
Susan Stinson
First Churches, 129 Main Street, Northampton
co-sponsored by Small Beer Press, Broadside Books and First Churches
November 6 Celebration of Local Novelists, Part 1 
John Clayton, novelist, Mitzvah Man
Marisa Labozzetta, novelist, Sometimes It Snows in America
Karen Osborn, novelist, Centerville
December 4 Hampshire County Memories: Historic Local Photographs 
Faith Kaufmann and Dylan Gaffney, Forbes Library Special Collections
January 8 Journalists as Fiction Writers 
Andrew Adamek
Fred Contrada
Bob Flaherty
James Heflin
Diane Lederman
Mark Roessler
February 5 Quabbin
J.R. Greene, author, The creation of Quabbin Reservoir: The death of the Swift River Valley
Maryanne O’Hara, novelist, Cascade
Gail Thomas, poet, No Simple Wilderness: An Elegy for Swift River Valley
April 9
(2nd Wed.)		 Emily Dickinson/Quiet
Charles Coe, author, All Sins Forgiven: Poems for My Parents
Kevin Quashie, author, The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture
Jane Wald, director, Emily Dickinson Museum
May 7 Celebration of Local Novelists, Part 2 
Deborah Noyes, novelist, Plague in the Mirror
Jacqueline Sheehan, novelist, Picture This
Hilary Sloin, novelist, Art on Fire

Susan Stinson readings & events:

October 2, 7 pm, Launch party & reading, First Churches, Northampton, Mass. Sponsored by Forbes Library and Broadside Books.
— Writer’s Voice interview, WMUA
October 5, 1 pm, Bridge Street Cemetery Walking Tour. Tickets now available from Broadside Books.
October 14, 12 p.m. Edwards Room, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Mass.
October 15, 6:30 p.m. Stockbridge Library, Stockbridge, Mass.
October 23, 12 p.m., American Studies, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
October 24, 4 p.m. Religion, Politics, and Globalization Program, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
October 30, 2 pm, reading, talk, Q&A, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
November 13, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.
November 18, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Mass.
November 21, 7 pm, Drunken Careening Writers series, KGB Bar, NYC (with Holly Hepp-Galvan and John Schuyler Bishop)
December 15, 5 pm, Bloom Readings, Washington Heights, NYC

Updated: October 2, 2013, is, by general agreement, a Wednesday, not a Tuesday. Oops!