Spreading words like the fluff of a dandelion

Parties, events and even a radio broadcast. New titles and old ones. In person and online.

A flurry of activities filled this past weekend, culminating in an in-studio recording session at WDVR 89.7 fm in scenic Sergeantsville, N.J., on Monday. I hosted a “take the mic” session with station manager Carla Van Dyk celebrating the legacy of Steve’s Café in Phillipsburg, N.J. Maryann Ignatz curated the music and wrote the script.

I know Maryann from my experience as a print journalist in Phillipsburg 20+ years ago. She contributed an essay about her family’s four generations/more than 100 years of tavern ownership to our anthology, Not an Able-Bodied White Man with Money (click here for more information on that book). Steve’s Café appears on the cover of Larry Sceurman’s nostalgic novella, The Death of Big Butch. (Butch is another of our titles available in Kindle Unlimited.)

photo by Joan Zachary

The program will air June 21 at 4 p.m. and be available via the WDVR website for two weeks after broadcast. Click here to visit the WDVR website.

Speaking of Larry Sceurman, he and I had a delightful time at the Hellertown Library on Saturday. Adult programming is a hard sell to patrons of small local public libraries, which I know as a trustee of Mary Meuser Memorial Library, so I am always willing to help libraries expand their offerings. The attendees of the program threw themselves into our exercises on the theme of using your personal oral storytelling as a first draft of a written work. Everyone had great ideas and good motivation for their projects.

Then on Sunday, June 1, I attended a really fun book launch for Deadlights by Hugo Yelagin at one of my favorite bookstores, Book and Puppet in downtown Easton. Hugo’s debut novel released in April, but as a high school student (and as a procrastinator as he put it) he delayed his official party until now.

He did a delightful job giving a short reading from his book which introduced his antagonist, offered a brief discussion of genre distinctions like grimdark and his observations on Lovecraft, and then engaged the audience in a question/answer session that ended with refreshments from another downtown Easton landmark, Pie + Tart.

Opportunities to Write and Submit

The Poetry in the Wild Project on Easton, Pa.’s Stirner Arts Trail has posted a poem by Nancy Scott, “I can’t write because…” as part of their June Strawberry Moon compilation online. Click here to see the current Strawberry Moon poems. The Poetry in the Wild project is seeking more poems, details on how to submit are on the web page. They will be hosting Second Saturday poetry readings on the trail beginning June 14.

Nan and I often talk about poetry and she serves as an editor here at Parisian Phoenix often helping me analyze poetry submissions. On a phone call this week, she recommended the book Poet X (by Elizabeth Acevedo) to me. The YA follows a dated diary format, where the entries are all presented as poetry.

Nan posed the question of whether writing an entry about the day in poetic form would make it easier to stick to a journaling routine. And so we decided to try it. On my birthday, I finished my Alphabooks K journal and started my L volume. And the L is rather daunting to write it and I find myself more prone to lists because of the shape.

The first day of the poetry exercise I wrote a long horrible poem at 11:55 p.m. and yesterday, the second day, I wrote two probably equally horrible shorter poems. I did find it easier to approach the page with distilling the themes of the day in my head before actually writing. It felt more artistic than “this is what happened today” type chronicling.

If you try it, let us know your experience.

EVENTS

• On June 7, the Echo City Capers duo will be selling and signing books at Moravian Historical Society Arts & Crafts Festival in Nazareth, Pa. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, click here.

• At the Ice House in Bethlehem on June 10, the Queer Book Fair sponsored by the Ice House Literary Arts Committee. Parisian Phoenix will be there highlighting our books by queer authors and talking about publishing opportunities. Details to come!

• On June 14, Larry Sceurman will participate in Local Authors Day at Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pa. Look for more details here.

• On June 16, McKenna Graf will launch her newest poetry collection, The Depths, the third volume in her archive of adolescence series, with an audiobook releasing on Bandcamp. Print version will be available all the usual places.

• And on June 21, we will join the Pocono Liars Club at the Eastern Monroe Public Library in Stroudsburg, Pa., for their 2025 Author Expo with a theme of END BOOK BANNING. That event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Click here for more information. Angel Ackerman (yes, that’s me) and Joseph Swarctz will both be giving readings in the 11 a.m. hour. I will probably read an excerpt from my second novel, Courting Apparitions, a ghost story. (To check out Courting Apparitions on Kindle Unlimited, click here.)

• June 24, McKenna Graf will be at the Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, 6 to 7:30 p.m., promoting The Depths.

• July 4, the official release of Benjamin Goluboff’s and Mark Luebbers’ poetry chapbook, Group Portrait, a unique interpretation of a photographic portrait in the World War II era from Peggy Guggenheim’s art salon. We have seen the advance review copies and we are really excited about this little book!

• At the Whitehall (Pa.) Library, 6 p.m., on July 9, Larry Sceurman will present a family story time.

• July 12, E.H. Jacobs will be at The Bookery in Manchester, N.H., signing his debut novel, Splintered River, from 1 to 3 p.m. Jacobs has a sophomore novel on deck for 2026. For more information about The Bookery, click here. (This book is also available on Kindle Unlimited.)

• July 14, the official release of Motorhome Gypsies, our RV Living book that is part memoir and part practical advice, by Rachel Thompson and Lisa Cross. We may have a cover reveal soon!

• At 11 a.m. on July 16, Larry Sceurman will visit the Cops N Kids Reading Room on the southside of Bethlehem, Pa. For more information on Cops N Kids Lehigh Valley, click here.

• Barnes and Noble in the Southmont Shopping Center in Bethlehem Township, Pa., will host a benefit for the children’s hospital on August 16. Larry Sceurman will present a children’s story time (and he hopes to have his second children’s book ready before that event). Details to come. See Larry’s books here.

• Also August 16, I will be hosting a memoir workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. at Blank Space Community Center, 85 Makefield Road Unit 7, Yardley, Pa., 19067. Tickets will be $40 and will include print materials. Details to be announced soon.

• Also in August, the release of Any Landing You Walk Away from is a Good Landing, historical fiction about the airline industry in the throes of 1980’s deregulation. The author of that book is retired flight attendant Dawn O’Harra.

As always—

Angel

I found some Seussian friends at the Hellertown Library

And for my paid subscribers… Scroll below to access the slides from the workshop.