Life is Good in Delaware, Ohio

Sometimes when you plan an event at an independent bookstore in Delaware, Ohio on a Tuesday evening in late September, you think to yourself---It's a good date. What else could possibly be going on?

It turns out there was a lot going on in Delaware last night.  Our event with the poetry group House of Toast was one of 3 other events that I knew of within a 1/2 mile radius of our store (walking distance).  And we had a full house of people listening to an incredible group of poets.

Among the other events were OWU professor Sean Kay, whose book launch of Celtic Revival we hosted back in June with a discussion led by Fred Andrle, who was a featured poet at our House of Toast event last night.  Kay spoke about Africa's Wars and Global Security at OWU's Benes Room for the Sagan National Colloquium, at 7pm.

I also learned that the talented and dynamic OWU music professor Nancy Gamso was giving a performance at Sanborn Hall at 7pm.  She has played at the Beehive many times with groups of her amazing students.

And at Andrews House across the street Alec Johnson, a Beehive customer and supporter, was giving a presentation about his experience with the Tar Sands Activists in Washington DC, at 7pm.

I'm sure that all of these events were as well-attended as ours and I wish I could've been at each one. 

I love that on a cool and misty autumn evening on a Tuesday in a seemingly sleepy little town, that there is a hell of a lot of stuff going on.

If you did miss our poetry event last night, please stop in to check out our selection of books from the poets.

And mark your calendar for our next event with artist Matt Kish on Thursday October 20 at 7pm.  His forthcoming book, Moby-Dick in Pictures, will be published in early October by Tin House.  He started documenting his project on his blog http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com/ which we have been following for several years.  Check it out!


posted by Mel

House of Toast September 27 @ 7pm

House of Toast, an eclectic assemblage of Central Ohio poets, will give a poetry reading on Tuesday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. at Beehive Books.


Poet and playwright Fred Andrle, the former long-time host of WOSU’s “Open Line” talk show, will be one of the featured poets along with Linda Fuller-Smith, MJ Abel, Jerry Roscoe, Jacquelin Smith and Charlene Fix.

The House of Toast poets have been widely published and have won many literary awards. Members Roscoe and Andrle’s poems have been featured on Garrison Keiller’s public radio series, “The Writer’s Almanac.”  Read their poems here:  Andrle on Writer's Almanac  ;  Roscoe on Writer's Almanac

House of Toast was founded in 1995 as a vehicle to critique and support the members' work and poetry in general. The group has evolved into a troupe of performers known for their engaging, audience-friendly readings.

Andrle’s current poetry collection is "Love Life," published by XOXOX Press in Gambier, Ohio. He has received playwriting and poetry fellowships from the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and his one-act play, “The Eternal Brunch,” was staged by CATCO, the Contemporary American Theater Company (Columbus) in 2000. He has received Ohio Public Broadcasting and Regional Emmy awards . For his radio and television programs and taught courses in mass media at Ohio Wesleyan University and Ohio Dominican University.

Fuller-Smith has been published in The Heartlands Today, Urban Spaghetti, Pudding Magazine and several anthologies.

Abell is a two-time winner of Thurber Treat humorous essay contest and has published a chapbook titled Below the Waterline.

Smith is the author of several books, including My G-Rated Life, which won the Chiron Review Chapbook Contest.

Roscoe’s collection Mirror Lake was published in Two Midwest Voices, which won the 2002 Ohioana Book Award. His poem “Illustration” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and his poems “Adequate Love” and “Bouquet” were read by Garrison Keillor on his show.

Fix is chair of the English and Philosophy department at Columbus College of Art Design. She has won poetry fellowships, and her chapbook Mischief is available from Pudding House.  Read more about Fix and her dog-inspired poetry collection here:  This Week article

Leslie Noyes Mass Book Talk Thursday 9/15 @ 7:00pm

Leslie Noyes Mass author of the newly published book Back To Pakistan: A Fifty-Year Journey will give a presentation about the book Thursday 9/15 @ 7pm at Beehive Books.

In 1962, Mass graduated from college and joined the fledgling Peace Corps. She was assigned to Pakistan to start an educational program in a small Muslim village, where she was the only Westerner and only Peace Corps volunteer. She left after a year, feeling she had not made an impact.


50 years later, she returned to find a much-changed Pakistan and a village that still remembered her. In her book, she deftly interweaves journal entries from her Peace Corps experience with her current volunteer work training female teachers for a Pakistani non-governmental organization.

In a series of interviews with Pakistanis from every social class, Mass gives voice to those who are taking responsibility for their country’s educational problems and addressing challenges within the tradition, culture and religious understanding of their people.

Mass also is the author of “In Beauty May She Walk,” about her experience hiking the Appalachian Trail at age 60. She earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University in early and middle education and was director of the Early Childhood Center at Ohio Wesleyan University, from which she retired in 2007.

Mass is donating her proceeds from the sale of the book to The Citizens Foundation, a Pakistani NGO that supports education for girls in Pakistan.