Join us for an evening with authors from our own Shires Press - including author presentations and a q& a about being published by the Northshire.
Helen Hossley: Do I Get to Wear That Neat Hat? A National Park Ranger's Story
Helen Siskavich Hossley grew up in a small mining town in Northern New York dreaming of a life of travel and adventure. In 1988, she threw caution to the wind, quit her food service job, packed the car and took off with a friend. Their seven month journey began with downhill skiing in a zigzag line through the Rocky Mountains. Their dream journey was full of personal challenges, wild twists and unending fun. As the trip came to a close, she answers the call to become a National Park Ranger and proudly wears the iconic Park Service hat. She discovers that wearing it doesn't magically endow her with ranger instincts or abilities. She is forced to learn the rules of the desert the hard way. She finds herself dehydrated, on the verge of collapse, and lost. But the land she comes to love shapes the way she sees her own life. This is the engaging story of one woman's journey beyond the single-minded independence through fear to personal triumph.
Hedi Abdel Jaouad: The Brownings' Shadow at Yaddo
If fortunate enough to gain entry into the private Yaddo mansion in the late 1890s, you would have noticed two large paintings in the main hall: Eastman Johnson's portrait of the Lady of Yaddo herself, Kristina Trask, staring directly across the hall at a full-length portrait of English poet and dramatist Robert Browning, painted by his son, Robert "Pen" Barrett Browning. This unexpected vis-à-vis is the central frame of this study: The Brownings' Shadow at Yaddo. The story of this uncanny encounter has yielded surprising findings. Robert and Elizabeth Brownings' literary shadow haunted Katrina Trask's work, from her first publication. Spencer and Katrina Trask also personally interacted with the Brownings through their American daughter-in-law, Fannie Coddington Browning, Katrina's girlhood friend. In addition to investigating the Trasks' literary and artistic connections with the Brownings, this book offers an interpretation of the two paintings by Pen still on view at Yaddo. The Brownings' spirit lives on in Yaddo through the art of their son.
Tim McGillicuddy: In the Soil's Reach: Poems
Individual conscience and environmental activism are the backbones of the hard hitting work. Anyone who is rooting for Man and the Earth will love these poems.
