The 3rd Annual Berkshire Blueberry and Book Festival on Saturday, July 22, will feature works by more than a dozen authors with ties to Tioga County. Of the local authors who will be at the Festival, they have returning authors Jerry Marsh, Charles Yaple and Mary Jordan.<\/p>\n
Mary Jordan\u2019s award winning book, Dear Friend, Amelia,<\/i> is based on the Civil War letters of Private John Tidd of the Speedsville, N.Y. area to Amelia back home. <\/p>\n
In this compelling true story, the loneliness and nightmares of war are interspersed with longing comments on the hometown news sent by Amelia. The book, by Jordan and Joyce Hatch with Ronald E. Ostman and Harry Littell, has been made into a play performed locally in Owego and Newark Valley and recorded on DVD. <\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s newest project is The 109th New York Volunteer Infantry Remembered. <\/i>This extensive book contains letters and diaries written by 50 soldiers of the 109th and private citizens, newspaper articles, photographs, and other data including a Revised 2010 Adjutant with biography of 30 of the soldiers and additional genealogical information on many of the soldiers. <\/p>\n
Aunt Becky\u2019s Army Life <\/i>is the record of Sarah Palmer of Tompkins County during her three years as nurse for the 109th Infantry Volunteers. First published in 1867, the book was revised by Jordan to include an index, map and pictures.<\/p>\n
The Brotherhood of Battle <\/i>by Jerald \u201cJerry\u201d Marsh reports on the hundreds of Civil War soldiers connected to Newark Valley, most of who also had direct connections with Berkshire, Richford, Candor, Owego, and communities in Broome, Cortland and Tompkins Counties, and in Pennsylvania and elsewhere throughout the United States.<\/p>\n
In August 2013, the national book review company, Blue Ink Review, praised The Brotherhood of Battle<\/i> in its “Top Reviews of Self-Published Books,” stating, “Marsh delivers his information clearly and without embellishment, putting human faces on the terrible toll taken by the Civil War and providing a valuable tool for researchers.”<\/p>\n
Berkshire researcher and American history aficionado Roger Sharp, former director of the Tioga County Historical Society Museum in Owego, N.Y., lauded The Brotherhood of Battle<\/i> as a “five star” book and wrote, “Countless hours and many miles of travel were logged to locate original sources and documentation for every soldier. This information was merged with interviews and unwritten families stories to provide a new, more personal understanding of the Civil War. It is a genealogical treasure trove.”<\/p>\n
Marsh also will be available to discuss his upcoming book, So Noble a Cause<\/i>, in which he profiles the more than 500 soldiers of Tioga County who sacrificed their lives in the Civil War that the Union might survive. Marsh has researched and documented the lives of the heroic soldiers from all nine towns of Tioga County who died from their valiant service. <\/p>\n
Charles Yaple\u2019s \u201chistorical novel based on the life of Adirondack hermit, Foxey Brown, is more than a biography. Those who love Adirondack stories will enjoy reading about the historic events of the past century and their connections to the lives of the Adirondack settlers. Known Adirondack characters such as French Louie, Floyd Ferris Lobb, Charles and Julia Preston, among others, have lives intertwined with Foxey Brown.\u201d — Don Williams, Adirondack historian, newspaper columnist, and author of Inside the Adirondack Blue Line <\/i><\/p>\n
Yaple\u2019s new book, Jacob\u2019s Land, <\/i>years in the making, is a carefully researched and factual account about life on New York\u2019s frontier before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. Following the experiences of a German immigrant family, an Indian Leader (Joseph Brant), and George Washington\u2019s Surveyor General (Simeon DeWitt) it brings the hardships, dangers, ironies, and politics of the revolution up close and personal for the reader. <\/p>\n
Striking parallels with today\u2019s terrorist bombings, people (Indians and whites alike) on New York\u2019s frontier could never be certain when neighbors were plotting to raid, murder and burn. However, there is considerably more to the story than war episodes. It is about conquest and division of Iroquois Nation lands and creation of places like Ithaca that provided the agricultural and forest resources enabling New York to become the \u201cEmpire\u201d State and the U.S.A. a nation where common people enjoy lifestyles unheard of in the annals of history. Finally, Jacob\u2019s Land<\/i> is about our dwindling connection to the land and how that undermines the pursuit of happiness.<\/p>\n
Other works from local writers that will be available at the festival include Dr. Wayne Gustafson, Owego writer R. W. White, and Berkshire History Buffs Ray Hunt and Maurice Stoughton.<\/p>\n
R. W. White will be available for conversation and to sign his several, popular fiction and nonfiction books on local history, gas drilling, international intrigue, cozy mysteries, a biography, and surviving breast cancer. <\/p>\n
His latest novel, Deadly Ice<\/i>, is a story of intrigue that features a 13-year old champion American figure skater who, while in England, finds herself to be more of the center of more attention than she had bargained for. This novel, also suitable for young reader, is the last in a trilogy of Ben and Francesca cozy mysteries. <\/p>\n
Wayne Gustafson has been a Prison Chaplain, Pastoral Counselor, Professor of Pastoral Care, College Instructor in Psychology, and an Interim Minister. He is a certified Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and an ordained Minister of the United Church of Christ. Gustafson has written two thought provoking works: Community of Promise: the Untold Story of Moses <\/i>and The Wisdom Weaver<\/i>. <\/p>\n
In The Wisdom Weaver<\/i>, \u201ctold through the eyes of a young Hebrew girl left behind in the Exodus, the reader is brought into the world of ancient Egyptian temple life. Because the narrative moves with such fluidity, the reader is easily drawn in to the profound questions Gustafson addresses.\u201d <\/p>\n
Theodore Richards\u2019 Community of Promise<\/i> is a novel that raises social, economic, political, theological\/religious, and community issues while the story follows Moses and the fledging community through their exploration of emerging identity and ultimate destination.<\/p>\n
The list of local authors would not be complete without Ray Hunt and Maurice Stoughton\u2019s books of photos and narratives of the history and families of the Berkshire area. While the first of the series is sold out, More History and Life Around the Town of Berkshire, New Yo<\/i>rk<\/i> and Berkshire, The Town and People We Remember<\/i> will be available for purchase. <\/p>\n
The festival will also be welcoming Newark Valley graduates, Pamela Morris and John Nizalowski.<\/p>\n
John Nizalowski\u2019s poems and essays take us along his life journeys from his youth here in New York to his explorations of the land and peoples of the west. Family and old friends trek with him through layers of time and place. Alexander Blackburn writes of Nizalowski in Creative Spirit<\/i> that he \u201cis a poet of myths and sciences with cosmological structures.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fellow poet John Macker writes that Nizalowski\u2019s newest work, East of Keyenta<\/i>, \u201cis a book of sighs, a book of mysteries, a book of presences that gather Hercule Poirot, Rene Magritte, trickster archetypes, sentient ravens, kiva priests and an arrangement of other souls in a jazz\/blues emergence mythology of \u2018spirit truths inherent in lost spaces\u2019. Each finely-tuned poem is a visitation that takes up residence in the open territories of the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Nizalowski teaches writing and mythology at Mesa State University in Grand Junction, Colorado. Unfortunately, he will not be able to attend the Festival in person this year, however, East of Keyenta<\/i> and his other works: Hooking the Sun<\/i>, The Last Matinee<\/i>, and Land of Cinnamon<\/i> Stars<\/i> will be available at the author table in the Community Hall lower level.<\/p>\n
Berkshire native, Pamela Morris, has been writing since age 11, first with a journal and then poetry and short stories. She has written several family and local history articles for the Tioga County Courier <\/i>and has written for the on-line magazine, \u201cThe Good Men Project\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her passion, however, has been for mystery and the paranormal. Her first paranormal murder-mystery, Secrets of the Scarecrow Moon<\/i> is set in fictionalize small town Barnesville, N.Y. This book and Morris\u2019 next murder-mystery, That\u2019s What Shadows Are Made Of, <\/i>are the beginning of a planned series, the Barnesville Chronicles, which will have a paranormal\/horror theme, but not all will be murder mysteries. <\/p>\n
Her latest work, No Rest for the Wicked<\/i>, is a unique, and somewhat risqu\u00e9, ghost story told mainly from the perspectives of the ghosts. It\u2019s set in an old plantation house just outside of Winchester, Virginia and received a 5-star rating and review from the established horror author, Hunter Shea.<\/p>\n
When not writing, Morris enjoys on-line gaming, visiting the American Southwest, being with her family, and, of course, reading.<\/p>\n
The 3rd Annual Berkshire Blueberry and Book Festival will take place on Saturday, July 22, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Berkshire Free Library, Fire Station, and Community Hall on Route 38 at the corner of Jewett Hill Road.<\/p>\n
Blueberry pancakes will be served from 7 to 10 a.m., and a chicken barbecue will start at noon in the Fire Station with live music, an art show, craft and food vendors, children\u2019s activities, and more all day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 3rd Annual Berkshire Blueberry and Book Festival on Saturday, July 22, will feature works by more than a dozen authors with ties to Tioga…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":58124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-happening"],"yoast_head":"\n