Been gone for a while, traveling the beautiful Canadian Maritimes, covering many miles on the Lobster Trail. More about that shortly; first I’ve got some goodies on my plate that need to be shared.
To the Mischief Time reader who gifted me a WordPress.com plan for the up and coming. A million thanks. I’m not sure there’s a way to find out who you are, or if I’m tech smart enough to figure it out, so a here’s a large thank you.
Secondly, for those of you in the geographic vicinity of Jamestown, Rhode Island, The Friends of the Jamestown Library are holding a book and author event on Saturday, October 4 at 2 pm, and they have invited me. Imagine the fellow above bowing again.
Inspired by the Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, London, a place where anyone is free to talk about any lawful topic, the Friends of the JPL are calling their gathering, Authors’ Corner: A Mini-Hyde Park.
Five authors, four of whom live in Rhode Island, and the other has her roots here, will give brief talks about their latest books and then break out into smaller audience chats with folks interested in the genre they represent. The event is free and open to the public.
Authors include Annaliese Bischoff, who will talk about writing biography and landscape design, yours truly, who will focus on short story writing, Will Henry on cartoons, Charles Kell on poetry, and Brookes Moody on poetry and creative nonfiction.
In the “I don’t make the rules” department, the town of Jamestown prohibits commerce in town buildings, so, no books will be sold at the event. If you’d like to me to sign one or both of my books for you, you will “have to bring them with you when come”, as Jim Kweskin might have said.
For those interested in buying either The Book of Norman, or Here Comes Herodotus, Again!, or both, you can order The Book of Norman at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu, or Kobo, or from me directly here at the site: https://wcresser.com/
Here Comes Herodotus, Again! is only available on this website.
About my compadres:
Annaliese Bischoff is a biographer and author of The Man Who Loved Trees (Koehler Books, 2024) that tells the story of landscape architect Frank A. Waugh, who created important principles for the design of US national parks, balancing public access with the preservation of natural scenery.
Bischoff has received numerous awards and honors for her design work and has edited hundreds of articles in her field. She paints and makes prints, exhibiting her work in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York. Currently she is active with the Frank A. Waugh Arboretum on projects cultivating tree stewardship. She is a professor emerita of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Will Henry is a syndicated cartoonist whose comic strip “Wallace the Brave” appears in hundreds of newspapers nationwide, including the Jamestown Press. Wallace the Brave follows the exploits of a trio of kids who live in Snug Harbor, a fictionalized version of Jamestown. His sixth and latest book is Sunday Funday Wallace. Henry draws “inspiration from everyday life, and in the age of the smartphone, he aims to recreate a world in which kids still collect bugs and fly kites and eat ice cream cones upside down.” Henry is a pen name. As Will Wilson, he is co-owner of Grapes &Gourmet in Jamestown.
Charles Kell is a poet and the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent is Ishmael Mask, (Autumn House Press, 2023.) His first collection, Cage of Lit Glass, (Autumn House Press, 2019) was awarded 2018 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize. His poetry and fiction are widely published in well-known literary journals. Kell is an assistant professor of English at the Community College of Rhode Island and advisory editor of the Ocean State Review, a yearly publication of poetry, prose and nonfiction.
Brookes Moody is a poet and author of creative non-fiction. A full-length collection of poetry, Astral Weeks, Etc., was published in March by Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines. She has a PhD in English with a concentration in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she taught literary journal production and creative writing. She also holds an MFA in creative writing from The New School. A Jersey girl who spent summers in Jamestown as part of a sailing crew, Moody has worked in marketing and content development for the sailing industry for several years. She will give a three-session creative nonfiction workshop at the Jamestown Philomenian Library in November.
Hope to see you there.
Returning to the Lobster Trail for this last bit—I was calling this odyssey just that because my wife, her cousins and our dear friend and traveling companion, Jeri, said they would taste it everywhere they found it: Alma in New Brunswick, Halifax in Nova Scotia, Baddeck and Cheticamp on Cape Breton, and in Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island in Maine.
Of course they did, and I did not because you know, there’s plenty of (shell)fish in the sea. And didn’t I find one when I was least expecting it, during a bracing swim in the freezing cold waters of Cape Breton?
This happened at a beautiful little sandspit called Black Brook Cove Beach where I thought I might do some body surfing. I was splashing around, happy as Larry, marveling at the transparency of the water through which I could see the bottom below when I spied a lobster not far from where I was planted. I let the waves roll by as I studied this very active creature scuttle along the ocean floor while it burrowed itself into it.
It was just a moment, and I am so pleased I was there to see it.
Just Between You and Me 
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