Tomorrow!

Mon 30 Sep 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Hey, tomorrow is publication day for Susan Stinson’s Spider in a Tree!

There will be stories in the newspapers, stories on the radio, streamers flying from the windows when Susan bikes through town, and readers’ mind blown as they consider the way 18th century theologians could also be . . . slave owners. Weird? Very weird.

Here’s one story about Susan’s graveyard tour (tickets still available!) Springfield Republican: “Writer Susan Stinson of Northampton honors theologian with Bridge Street Cemetery tours”

and here’s the info on Wednesday nights launch night.

Woohoo!

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.


Susan in the Republican; Smith College food service negotiations

Fri 27 Sep 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

There was a huge, great story about Susan Stinson in the Springfield Republican yesterday, “Writer Susan Stinson of Northampton honors theologian with Bridge Street Cemetery tours,” which included a couple of photos from a cemetery tour Susan took the author, Cori Urban, on. We’re going on the tour on Oct. 5—tickets available from Broadside Books (Hope to see you there!)

Bridge Street Cemetery was established in 1663. After the town voted that no more burials should take place next to the Meetinghouse, a portion of a 10-acre lot on the far edge of town, known as the “minister’s lott” at Pine Plain, was allocated for use as a burial ground, according to the website for Historic Northampton Museum and Education Center. In 1680, the bodies of those previously buried were moved to Bridge Street Cemetery.
The approximately 20-acre cemetery is an active non-denominational city cemetery.
A well-known theologian, Edwards has significant ties to the cemetery. He was minister at what is now First Churches in downtown Northampton from 1727-1750. Solomon Stoddard, his grandfather; Jerusha Edwards, his daughter; and other members of his family are buried in the cemetery.

Read more here.

Susan was also on the radio in Northampton on Bill Newman’s WHMP show:

Smith College food service employees speak out! Then, Susan Stinson on on her new book, “Spider in a Tree;” Rev Peter Ives & Annie Turner on Pope Francis.

The first interview with the Smith College food service employees is very much worth listening to. Smith College doesn’t see that it has an obligation to pay a living wage and hires lots of people into 32 hour jobs instead of full-time (defined by Smith as 37.5 hours/week) workers. Hmm. Hope the Smith College students take up with the employees.

Also, Susan will be on Writer’s Voice on October 2nd (the same day as her book launch!) and in the meantime Writer’s Voice Associate Producer Drew Adamek, in addition to the final episode in “The River Runs Through Us” series with artist and historian Russell Steven Powell, also includes highlights—including an interview with Susan—from previous episodes in the series. 

 


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!


Walking Tour of Bridge Street Cemetery

Mon 9 Sep 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

On October 5th at 1 pm, Susan Stinson will be giving a walking tour of Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. Tickets are $5 and are available at Broadside Bookshop, 247 Main Street,  Northampton MA 01060, 413-586-4235.

Walking in this cemetery inspired Susan’s forthcoming novel, Spider in a Tree. (Don’t miss the launch party at First Churches (129 Main St., Northampton) on October 2nd at 7 pm!)

cemetery tour ticket

 


PW on Spider in a Tree

Wed 21 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Publishers Weekly gave a lovely review to Susan’s forthcoming (at the printer now!) novel Spider in a Tree:

“Stinson restores personhood and complexity to figures who have shriveled into caricature. . . . the payoff is not just the recovered history but the beautifully evoked sense of lives lived under the eye, not only of prying neighbors, but of God, with all the terror and possibility that entailed.”

Read the whole thing here.

If you’re in Western Mass., don’t miss Susan’s launch party/reading on October 2nd and then the her cemetery tour (tickets available at Broadside Books) on October 5th. We’re still adding events, but here’s what we have at the moment:

October 2, 7 pm, Launch party & reading, First Churches, Northampton, Mass. Sponsored by Forbes Library and Broadside Books.
October 5, 1 pm, Public Cemetery Tour. Tickets will be available this autumn.
October 8, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.
(Late October: San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley)
December 15, 5 pm, Bloom Readings, Washington Heights, NYC


Susan’s lovely poem

Wed 8 May 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Susan Stinson writes about meal at Bela, one of about “forty-odd restaurants, bakeries, ice cream parlors and bars” that are “currently displaying poems by local poets as part of the Nourish the Body/Nourish the Soul project organized by Rich Michelson, Northampton’s Poet Laureate.” Susan has a poem, “Garden,” posted on the front door or Bela. Out of towners, you can read it here.

Susan is a force of nature (keep up with her here) and fittingly will be reading at Shape&Nature Press’s Summertime Reading and Music Party! along with many other readers on June 2nd 5-9pm, at Bishop’s Lounge in Northampton, 4th floor. They promise 8 amazing readers, 4 rockin’ musicians, and a raffle—which will include some books of ours.

Hey, go read the poem.


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