First of the Season's Author's Night

Lianne Spidel

During the winter months the Friends of the Greenville Public Library will again present a series of Author’s Nights. Each program is held at Montage on Broadway in downtown Greenville and begins at 7:30 (doors open at 7:00). Along with the excellent literary offerings, music by J. R. Price and Bill Westfall and food & drink to purchase make for a special evening.

The first of three will be held on Friday, January 13th, with poet Lianne Spidel. She will read from her book of poetry, What to Tell Joseme, which was published by Main Street Rag Press last August. This collection is her first full-length book. Her chapbook, Chrome, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2006.

In addition, Lianne will talk about “the methods and madness” of getting a book published. She will describe the long years of learning her craft and acquiring credits by publishing poems “one or two at a time in good journals” to build enough of a reputation to convince an editor to invest in publishing a whole book.

Her first poem will be the story of her childhood imaginary friend, “Where Have You Been, Joseme McCloyer?” The premise is that if the imaginary Joseme should show up after 60 years, she and the poet would tell each other their life stories. Lianne calls her book “a memoir in poetry.”

Lianne claims her friend and fellow Greenville Poet, Cathy Essinger, got the idea for the book and extracted the chosen poems from a stack of work at least a foot high. “Cathy gets annoyed if I call it our book,” says Lianne, “but it never would have happened without her.” She adds “That doesn’t mean I’m not proud of it.”

An E-Review of Lianne’s book was written by David Lee Garrison on www.rattle.com, the online version of the well known poetry magazine Rattle. He concludes his article by stating, “Emily Dickinson would approve. She knew a good poem when she felt the top of her head coming off and that’s what I felt as I read this book in one sitting. You’ll love it.”

Be sure to mark this date on you calendar for at lovely, enlightening, and fun evening. Many thanks to the Friends of the Library for their sponsorship.