Fairhope's Winter Visitor

Last year I spent the month of February in Fairhope. By the time I got back to Hoboken the brutal weather was about over and I made a decision I'd come again in 2011. So as I prepare for Christmas in upstate New York with my family I'm mentally packing my bags for a jaunt to warmer climes for the month of January.

Decided to push the date forward a month, choosing January instead of February, largely because of the events surrounding the Wharton Esherick events. Mark Sfirri, woodcarver, professor, and expert in the Modernists of the Philadelphia area in the 1920's, will be talking about Esherick at the Fairhope Library at 1 P.M. January 8. As noted in previous blog posts here, I met Sfirri at an Esherick symposium at the University of Pennsylvania in October and he was very intrigued by Fairhope and the role it played in the life of Esherick, his family and friends of that period. He'll show some of Esherick's art work and sculpture and put it in the context of Fairhope in that time frame.

The next week I'll speak at a tea at the Fairhope Museum of History on the history of theatre in Fairhope, which will cover the old Shakespeare Festival, the many informal theatrical events of the 1920's and 30's, the Fairhope Little Theater of the 1940's, and the birth of Theater 98 in the late 1950s, as well as Tom Pocase's Theater 8:15 and other theatrical projects including the Equity Jubilee Fish Theater of the 1990's. I'll talk to the Baldwin Writers' Group on Jan. 15 about how I got my two books, Meet Me at The Butterfly Tree and The Fair Hope of Heaven published in the early 2000's, and I'll be signing books at Page & Palette from 2-4 that afternoon. NOTE: My novel That Was Tomorrow set in Fairhope in 1921, is available on my website or on amazon. com, Barnes & Noble. com or iBooks.

My vacation month is fast filling up. I hear that an old friend may be getting married and several who have moved away are planning to be in town for the event on the 22nd. Haven't seen some of them in two or three years, so that will be nice.

Before the visit, I thought I'd spend most of the time doing research on my novel set in Fairhope in the 1920's. It didn't work out that way, but the book is now finished and available.