Top Authors At
Strafford Readings

The ninth annual Strafford Reading Series will present public readings by outstanding prose writers and poets in Strafford’s 18th-century town meeting house on three Wednesday evenings and one Thursday evening in August at 7 p.m.

Guests are encouraged to come early and bring their own picnics to join the authors on the lawn for a picnic supper at 6 p.m.

On Aug. 6, the series opens with acclaimed fiction writers Lydia Davis and Margot Livesey.

A professor of creative writing at SUNY Albany, Davis is the author of six collections of short stories, most recently "Varieties of Disturbance" in 2007, a novel titled "The End of the Story," and translations of the work of such French writers as Proust and Foucault. Noted for their brevity and humor, many of Davis’s stories are only a few sentences long; they have been described as a blend of poetry, philosophy, and fiction. Davis is a 2003 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius award."

Margot Livesey will be reading from her brand new novel, "The House on Fortune Street." Livesey has published five previous novels, including "Banishing Verona," and a collection of stories. She is currently a writer in residence at Emerson College.

The Thursday, Aug. 14, reading will feature fiction and memoir, with authors Castle Freeman, Jr. and Don Metz. Freeman, a longtime contributor to The Farmer’s Almanac, will read from his new novel "Go With Me". A notable success for local publisher Steerforth Press, it has received glowing reviews nationwide. Freeman’s other books include "Judgment Hill" and "My Life and Adventures: A Novel."

Lyme resident Don Metz will read from his collection of personal essays, "Confessions of a Country Architect." Metz has also written two novels, "Catamount Bridge" and "King of the Mountain."

The Aug. 20 reading will bring together three local poets: Cleopatra Mathis, Gary Lenhart, and Jim Schley.

Winner of the 2001 Jane Kenyon Award and author of "What To Tip the Boatman" and "White Sea," Mathis directs the creative writing program at Dartmouth College.

Lenhart, who also teaches creative writing at Dartmouth, has written several books of poetry, including "Light Heart" and "Father and Son Night," as well as the critical study "The Stamp of Class: Reflections on Poetry and Social Class."

Jim Schley, executive director of The Frost Place in Franconia, N.H., will read from his new book "As When, In Season."

"I like these poems immensely," Hayden Carruth has written of Schley’s book. "Prosodically, he has discovered an odic tone, grave but graceful, imaginatively objective."

The series will conclude Aug. 27, with biographers Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina and Sheldon Novick. Gerzina will read from her latest book, "Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend," an account of a pre-Civil War African-American family living in New England. The chair of the English department at Dartmouth, Gerzina is the host of "The Book Show," a nationally syndicated weekly radio program.

Novick will be reading from "Henry James: The Mature Master," published earlier this year by Random House. Novick is the author of "Henry James: The Young Master" and "Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes." He teaches law and history at Vermont Law School.

Admission to the readings is free, though donations are appreciated. Proceeds benefit the new book fund of Strafford’s Morrill Memorial and Harris Libraries.