Release Party Wrap-up

Friday night, after a two-year hiatus, we celebrated the return of Word Fountain, the Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library. Editors, writers, readers, and fans gathered in the Reading Room of the library for an unorthodox, but engaging presentation.

We were without a working microphone, so between contributing writers and several great voices from the Third Friday Readers group, we read through the entire magazine, cover to cover, in a sort of round-robin fashion. In total, we had six authors and six readers for the evening.

As new people slipped in late, we made sure they had copies, and were quietly told which page we were on. I was delighted to see how intently everyone was following along. There’s something almost spiritual about a moment like that–people gathering to read poems, and stories out loud, in a historic building, surrounded by books and works of art! As one attendee said afterwards, “It was such a lovely service!”

Thank you!

We would like to express our thanks to our Director, Richard Miller, and Head of Information Services, Elaine Stefanko, who both worked to host and organize the library’s Third Friday events for the evening, as well as making sure we had cake and refreshments. And our thanks also go out to the wonderful readers’ group who meets at 6:00 on the Third Friday of each month. Rebecca, George, and Lisa did a beautiful job reading for us that evening, as did our guest Harold Jenkins, who so kindly offered to deliver our short story for the evening.

Get your copy

You can pick up your own copy of the new issue of Word Fountain, as a gift from the library at the Osterhout Free Library in Wilkes-Barre, or at one of our three branches. If you’d like a print copy shipped to you, please go to our library’s donation page here. We suggest a five dollar donation (click the “other” box). Please write in the “Notes” section that you are requesting a copy, or copies of Word Fountain’s Summer 2016 issue.

Contributors who could not be there for the evening are being sent their copies this week.

An online version of the Summer 2016 issue will be posted here in a couple of weeks, preceded by some sneak previews from the writers.