Parisian Phoenix Publishing

It’s cold. At least, for the moment, it’s not damp. I’m struggling with the idea of productivity, balancing the projects I feel like doing with the ones that might seem more important. Harass local media about the upcoming book festival or add more author pages to my web site? Fix my business tax log-in with the state so I can file paperwork or film a YouTube video about the different planners I’m considering for 2024?

Whatever decisions I make, I think it requires another cup of coffee.

Today’s world often presents distractions that masquerade as tasks that should be further up our “to-do lists.” And sometimes, when it’s cold and Monday morning especially, it’s hard to do the unpleasant stuff.

I can’t believe the Easton Book Festival kicked off already!

The festival organizers, which include poet Darrell Parry whose compilation Twists: Gathered Ephemera is a favorite around here, have showed a certain fluidity with event planning, adding school-based and virtual events before the in-person events kick off on Thursday, October 19. This strengthens the sense of community and supports the mission of the festival.

Easton Book Festival’s mission is to inform, educate, enrich and inspire people of all backgrounds in our community through cultural and literary programs and to otherwise foster intellectual discourse and civic engagement.

The festival’s aims overlap with our mission as a small press, which I suppose is not surprising as I have been involved with the festival since its origins, though not as intimately as Darrell.

In my previous life as working with a local non-profit in their development office, we appeared in the Easton Book Festival trailer in the early days of the festival’s existence. You can watch the 38-second video here: “Read a Book” Easton Book Festival trailer. Clients of the Easton-based adult literacy organization ProJeCt read at the :15 and :31 second mark, and I am part of the collage scene that appears at :19 and :37 seconds. I wore one of my favorite dresses and a stylish, bold Lily Pulitzer summer scarf.

As I look over the program booklet, I am reminded that writing requires an awareness and participation in the world around us. Friday night’s launch party and discussion of sex in print with myself, Ralph Greco Jr., and William Prystauk wouldn’t be possible without an awareness and a willingness to explore the sensations in our bodies— whether in real-life or in fantasy.

And really, most writing doesn’t feel authentic without some personal connection. Larry Sceurman and I were talking the other day about what “works better,” expounding on our past through creative non-fiction and memoir or capturing the essence of the experience in fiction. Larry does this with amazing finesse in his nostalgic tales, The Death of Big Butch and his collection Coffee in the Morning (which can I add that he writes a masterful, crazy story that spurs my memories of the Mummers with the Pine Barrens folk lore of The Jersey Devil?).

I met with someone last week, a figure from my past whom I wasn’t sure where our professional relationship stood. Our discussions started with the emotions that can lead to inspiration. We examined some poetry and talked about how the circumstance depicted in the writing doesn’t have to be real as long as the feelings are. There’s a raw vulnerability when writers share their work, and most writers must submit their work to strangers and authority figures. This reality means that writers regularly expose their deepest, truest selves on an everyday basis.

Writers truly are some of the bravest people on Earth. Perhaps not in the first responder hero sense, but certainly in the putting their truth into the world sense.

Darrell and our favorite right-hand-woman Nancy Scott will bare parts of their souls at the book festival as they read their poetry as part of the Stick Figure Poetry Showcase. Joe Swarctz and dear Ralph will be encouraging the kids with Echo City Capers events at Easton Public Library.

And Thurston D. Gill Jr. will offer a blessing and a glimpse into his Phulasso living way of life to kick off the Small Press Expo and Readings event at the Easton Public Market. How can you be more vulnerable than when you share not only your thoughts and words, but your soul, with the strangers around you?

As for me, I’ll dig deeper into the idea of Lehigh Valley as setting, and hopefully Larry can join me.

Schedule: Parisian Phoenix at Easton Book Festival

• FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 10 to 11 p.m., Juicy Bits launch party/ Easton Book Festival AFTER DARK at Book & Puppet Company on the circle (22 Centre Square) in downtown Easton. The event will feature naughty live music from our co-editor and author Ralph Greco Jr., readings and question-and-answer sessions with Ralph, myself, and William Prystauk. The session is designed to explore how writers research and write about sexy things, especially when those scenes may not come from personal experience or within the author’s sexuality. But, with Ralph’s experience with professional erotic writing and participation in adult-themed conventions, Bill’s Kink Noir series that focuses on BDSM (and addresses polyamory and trans relationships) and, well, my unfiltered openness, who knows what or who might end up on the table.

Just a reminder that Parisian Phoenix has lots of family-friendly events at the Easton Book Festival:

• SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 11:30 a.m. to 12, ECHO CITY CAPERS illustrator Joe Swarctz (who also did the cover illustration for Juicy Bits) and writer Ralph Greco will present their new children’s Christmas book at Easton Public Library. 

• SATURDAY 12-1 p.m. at Book & Puppet, Darrell Parry author of Parisian Phoenix’s poetry book, Twists: Gathered Ephemera will lead the Stick Figure Poetry Showcase. Nancy Scott will read.

• SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Small Press Expo at Easton Public Market, featuring Parisian Phoenix, Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group members, Collapse Press and other independent/self-published authors.
• SUNDAY 11:15 a.m. to noon at the Small Press Expo in Easton Public Market, Parisian Phoenix will kick off the day’s readings. Opening with a blessing and reflection from our own Thurston Gill and sharing the purpose of his book, Phulasso Devotional: Engineering the Warrior Priest for Dark Times.

We hope Larry Sceurman can join us, as his fiction captures the nostalgia of times and Lehigh Valley past. (Did you know the setting in The Death of Big Butch is based on Fullerton when the Lehigh Valley Mall first opened? And Coffee in the Morning depicts what life was like in Bethlehem fifty to sixty years ago?)

I will be closing our reading with excerpts from my novel series that use Easton as a setting. The villain in Manipulations uses a church in Williams Township, Pa., as a home base to stalk supermodel Adelaide Pitney. Courting Apparitions features the meeting of the “two rivers” and the Delaware-Lehigh Canal system as a magickal setting. (In both novels, Étienne d’Amille has a weekend home in Upper Mount Bethel Township, and businesses in Portland, Pa., play a role in the story.) The end of Courting Apparitions includes a scene in Easton Hospital and what is now Three Mugs Pub in Wilson.

For more of the geography of The Fashion and Fiends series, here’s a Google map.

MEANWHILE… in Echo City… while we’re closing out the Easton Book Festival, Joe and Ralph have a signing a the Barnes & Noble at the Southmont Shopping Center in Bethlehem Township, 11 a.m. The remaining appearance in local bookstores featuring Ralph and Joe is on Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Barnes & Noble in the Promenade Shoppes, Center Valley.