Parisian Phoenix Publishing

While I offer workshops at the Easton Area Public Library, I serve on the board of trustees for my local public library, the Mary Meuser Memorial Library in quaint Wilson Borough, Pa., which shares a zip code with neighboring Easton.

I first joined the library board circa 2008 when my now-college-aged child attended preschool story time every week. The board then was highly dysfunctional, filled with argumentative old men who did not even use the library. The Pennsylvania state librarian promoted term limits for public library trustees and we rewrote the bylaws that eventually allowed us to get the troublemakers off the board. When my term expired, Darrell Parry (the poet who wrote Twists: Gathered Ephemera) took my place.

That began a cycle of one of us serving eight years on the library board and then the other returning for the next eight years.

This week, the board elected me president. I have held the office at least twice before, as had Darrell.

You might ask why I don’t host my workshops at my library. The answer is this: small libraries like mine don’t draw the attendees like a larger library. The larger library, which is not even two miles away from mine, has more traffic, larger email lists and a bigger parking lot. Little libraries like mine are still rebuilding foot traffic after the pandemic.

So if you appreciate your local library, please consider:

• volunteering if they need the help, not many people volunteer especially to serve on boards
• fundraising, and this could mean buying used books or signing up for a bus trip
• attending an event and/or borrowing books, libraries keep statistics of how many people use the library.

While at my local library for my monthly board meeting, I visited the writing craft section. I was surprised to see how many books related to writing poetry and plays.

Because of my commitment to read one craft book each month to share with my subscribers, I took out four books on writing:

• Janet Evanovich, author of the Stephanie Plum series, 2006’s How I Write
• John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
• Jerry B. Jenkins, author of the Left Behind apocalyptic series, Writing for the Soul
• Jami Attenberg, 1000 words (Her novels have really great covers.)