Celebrate the Release of Here on the Chester: Book Signing, Readings and Refreshments, January 25

Chestertown, MD, January 13, 2006 — Washington College's Literary House Press invites the community to celebrate the publication of its new anthology, Here On the Chester: Washington College Remembers Old Chestertown, as we kick off Chestertown's 300th anniversary year, Wednesday, January 25, at 5 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge.

Enjoy refreshments, live music, a local trivia contest with prizes, and readings by contributors to this collection of essays, reflections, poems, and photographs honoring unique people, places, and moments from 300 years of Chestertown history.

Our Contributors
Sheila West Austrian '03
Sarah Blackman '02
John Bohrer '06
William Chapman Bowie '75
John Buettner '89
Elizabeth Clay '08
Professor Robert Day
Kees DeMooy '01
James Dissette '71
Jack Gilden '87
Adam Goodheart, C. V. Starr Fellow
Meredith Davies Hadaway M'96
P. Trams Hollingsworth '75
Roy Hoopes
Jim Landskroener M'91
Marcia Landskroener M'02
John Lang
Andrew McCown '77
Pat Herold Nielsen
Leslie Prince Raimond '63
Jean Dixon Sanders '79
William Thompson '70
Nicole Vattimo '06
Professor Kathy Wagner '79
Marshall Williams M'92
P. J. Wingate '33
Mary Wood '68
Peregrine Wroth, Class of 1803

The event is free and open to all. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Did the Tea Party really happen? Did George Washington really visit Chestertown? What was it like to celebrate Christmas in Kent County 200 years ago? Compiling the work of 28 Washington College writers, Here On the Chester delves into these questions and more as it looks at the multifaceted history of a town that has become a Maryland treasure, a colonial jewel, and an eccentric's haven.

Life is very interesting Here On the Chester—join us Wednesday, January 25, to find out just how much!

For more information contact JoAnn Fairchild at Washington College's Literary House Press, 410-778-7899, or via e-mail:jfairchild2@washcoll.edu.

Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in historic Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, it was the first college chartered in the new nation.

WC Students Contribute to New Book Celebrating 300 Years Here on the Chester

Chestertown, MD, November 18, 2005 — Where did the 1960s' most famous beat poet once attempt to levitate a town jail? Where did such music legends as Ray Charles and James Brown once fill the night air with the soulful sounds of R&B? Where did rebellious colonials tussle with Redcoats, thumb their noses at British taxes, and—supposedly—dump tea on May 23, 1774? And where did chicken-neckers by the thousands once find the Bay's best-tasting Callinectes sapidus? The answer? Right Here On the Chester.

In commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of Chestertown in 2006, Washington College's Literary House Press has just released Here On the Chester, a new collection of stories, essays, reflections, and photographs celebrating Chestertown's rich and colorful past. Compiling the work of 28 Washington College writers, Here On the Chesterprofiles the people, the places, the personalities, and the history that have made Chestertown an Eastern Shore treasure, a colonial jewel, and an eccentric's haven for generations. Contributors and friends of the College celebrated the release of the book Friday, November 18, at Washington College's Rose O'Neill Literary House.

The book also gave four current Washington College students an opportunity few college students have, to see their work and research published in print. John Bohrer '06 of Monroe Township, NJ, describes George Washington's various trips across the Chesapeake to Chestertown in the late 18th century. History and American Studies major Erin Koster '07 of Tranquility, NJ, contributed valuable research to Adam Goodheart's controversial "Tea and Infamy: Fact, Fiction and the Mysterious Spring of 1774," an article on the famous Chestertown Tea Party that is sure to raise a tempest in the town's teacup. Senior Nicole Vattimo '06 of Columbia, MD, authored "The Chestertown Blast," an article on the tragic explosions of July 16, 1954, when common firecrackers, M80s, destroyed the Kent Manufacturing Company and 11 lives, and Elizabeth Clay '08 of Bethesda, MD, contributed the essay "Black Patriots on the Eastern Shore," an overview of the little-known history of Kent County's African-American Civil War veterans.

From Revolutionary War heroes and Freedom Riders to beat poets and blues stars, there's something for everyone Here On the Chester, says Baird Tipson, President of Washington College.

"The book represents Washington College's contribution to the remarkable community in which we have found ourselves. You may soon find yourself, as I did, reading the volume from cover to cover. Or, you may just pick and choose. Your appreciation for this fascinating town is certain to increase."

Here On the Chester is available for $14.95 per copy by mail, check or money order, from The Literary House Press, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620. For more information, including information for book retailers and wholesale orders, contact JoAnn Fairchild, Director of Sales and Marketing for The Literary House Press, at 410-778-7899 or via e-mail, jfairchild2@washcoll.edu.

The publication of Here On the Chester was made possible in part by a grant from The William H. Donner Foundation of New York, NY.

Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in historic Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, it was the first college chartered in the new nation.

How Words Get into Print: Free Seminar Presents an Insider's Guide to Book Publishing

Chestertown, MD, September 15, 2005 — Is your pile of rejection letters growing higher and higher? Has your great American novel joined the newspapers and beer cans in the recycling bin? Or are you the kind of reader who despairs when you see the latest installment of The Botticelli Code on The New York Times bestseller list?

For all those who have ever wondered how the mysterious world of book publishing works and how it continues to thrive in an age too shallow for deep reading, Washington College's Rose O'Neill Literary House will host a day-long seminar, "Words Into Print: An Insider's Guide to Book Publishing," on Saturday, October 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge.

Free and open to the public, the seminar will explain the how's, why's and wherefore's of contemporary publishing from four perspectives—those of an editor, literary agent, book designer, and publicist—for a true insider's look at how books are made and where the publishing world is headed in the 21st century. A complimentary light breakfast and buffet lunch will be provided for all participants.

"Books continue to have a special meaning in reader's lives," says Benjamin Anastas, Interim Director of the Rose O'Neill Literary House and author of two critically acclaimed novels, An Underachiever's Diary (Dial Press, 1998) and A Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001). "We've assembled an extraordinary group of publishing professionals who understand this and protect our faith in the written word."

The seminar's featured guests are Barbara Epler, Editor-in-Chief of New Directions, the independent literary publishing house founded by James Laughlin in 1936 and renowned for publishing the Modernist luminaries Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Tennessee Williams, as well as works in translation by Celine, Mishima, Rilke, Kafka, and Octavio Paz; literary agent Ira Silverberg, Director of Foreign Rights at Donadio & Olson, a New York agency representing a wide range of authors from Chuck Palahniuk, J.T. Leroy, and Adam Haslett to the estates of Mario Puzo and Jacqueline Susann; Rodrigo Corral, an award-winning book designer who began his career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, served as an Art Director at Doubleday, and now runs his own design firm; and Cary Goldstein, Associate Director of Publicity at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, who has worked as Director of National Poetry Month for the Academy of American Poets, an editor and buyer for Barnes & Noble.com, and as Senior Publicist with Basic Books.

For more information, or to reserve a place, please call 410-778-7845 or e-mailpublishingseminar@hotmail.com, by Thursday, October 6.

The seminar is sponsored through the auspices of the Donner Foundation, Washington College's Literary House Press, and the Sophie Kerr Committee.

John Barth On Browsing: New Literary House Press Chapbook Celebrates The Origin, History And Pleasures Of Libraries

Chestertown, MD, September 14, 2004 — Tired of Internet surfing? Then it is time to rediscover the pleasure of browsing. For any reader who has ever plunged joyously headlong into a book or sought the mysteries of life in an obscure tome hidden in the library stacks, the publication of John Barth's Browsingwill be a special treat. Released this month by Washington College's Literary House Press, Browsing takes the reader on a literary ramble through the history of libraries, both real and imaginary, to explore what the author of The Floating Opera and The Sot-Weed Factor calls “the browserish aspect of human consciousness.”

Adapted from a speech given by Barth in celebration of the shelving of the 200,000th volume in Washington College's Clifton Miller Library, Browsing is a book for true book-lovers, a delight for the mind as well as the eye, with specially commissioned woodcut illustrations by Chestertown artist Mary Rhinelander. In this extended essay combining humor, erudition and intellectual exuberancy, Barth visits such topics as the hazards of reading on the beach; the Library of Pergamum and Borges' infinite Library of Babel; hypertexts and the Pandemonium Model of Utterance; and the challenges of deciphering another's marginalia (“In short the reader has changed the book, as well as vice versa, and I was reading the reader as well as reading the writer and, by extension, reading the writer that that writer was writing about.”)

Browsing is available in paperback for $10 from Washington College's Literary House Press, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, MD 21620, or by calling 410-778-7899. Proceeds support the operations and publications of The Literary House Press alone.

Founded in 1994 by faculty, staff and students of Washington College, The Literary House Press has released more than a dozen works of fiction, poetry, essays and travel writing. The publication of Browsing was made possible with a grant form the College's Sophie Kerr Committee, which oversees the legacy of Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, MD, whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, she left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most “ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor” and the other half be used to support Washington College's creative writing program by bringing visiting writers to campus, funding scholarships, and defraying the costs of publications.

Start The Presses! Endowment Revives Washington College's Literary House Press

New Projects Include John Barth Signed Limited Edition, Eastern Shore Travel Guide

Chestertown, MD, November 14, 2003 — At a College that attracts writers young and old to itsO'Neill Literary House and boasts the Sophie Kerr prize—the nation's largest undergraduate literary award—it seems only fitting that book arts flourish here as well. After a brief hiatus, the Literary House Press, a small publishing venture launched by creative writing professor Bob Day with two friends of the College will start rolling again, thanks to a revitalized board of directors and a $200,000 endowment.

Founded in 1992, the Literary House Press was directed in its early years by the late Richard Harwood, former ombudsman of The Washington Post, and the late Maureen Jacoby, who served on the board of the Press and as managing editor after a career with the Smithsonian Institution Press. After her death in 2002, Jacoby left the College a $200,000 endowment. Matched by The Hodson Trust, her bequest will be used in part to support future publishing projects. In line with its original mission, the Press will continue its focus on the heritage of the Eastern Shore and its writers, said Adam Goodheart, a freelance writer, historian and C. V. Starr Fellow at Washington College, now serving as director of the Press.

“We think the Press has the potential to be a real asset to many different parts of the College community,” said Goodheart. “We'll be giving students, faculty, staff and alumni opportunities to do everything from writing books, to designing and illustrating them, to learning about the business side of publishing. This will be not just a creative venture, but an entrepreneurial one.”

The revived Press' first two projects will bring together local and national talent. The first book, to be released in 2004, will be a limited-edition printing of author John Barth's Browsing, an essay he delivered as a speech at Washington College in 1992 to mark the shelving of the 200,000th volume in Miller Library. The monograph, designed by alumnus and graphic artist James Dissette '71, is being printed by hand on the College's antique letterpress and bound in Minnesota, using handmade paper. Washington College senior Heidi Atwood '04 worked with Barth and Dissette to prepare the text for publication, while Chestertown artist Mary Rhinelander created several linoleum cuts to illustrate the book. The Press will produce 150 limited edition copies of Browsing, 50 of which will be signed by the author.

“This will set a high benchmark for the type of work we do in the future,” Dissette said. “It will be marketed specifically to universities with special collections and to bookstores that sell limited editions.”

Also in the works is a revised edition of Maryland's Eastern Shore: A Guide for Wanderers, which the Press first published in 1997, with text by travel writer Mary Corddry. For the new edition, Goodheart is soliciting short essays on Eastern Shore locales written by members of the Washington College community, turning the book into a collegiate publishing venture in the tradition of the Berkeley Guides and Harvard's Let's Go series. Students in Goodheart's spring course on travel writing will also contribute to the volume.

To order books from the Literary House Press, contact John Parker at 800-422-1782, ext. 7899, or via e-mail: jparker2@washcoll.edu. To learn more about getting involved in the Press' publishing ventures, contact Adam Goodheart at agoodheart2@washcoll.edu.