Category: Autumn

Celebrate Books in September

Published on by gilliampoetLeave a comment

It’s always a great time to immerse yourself in the literary world, but September seems to be an especially busy month if you want to celebrate books. Get ready to mark your calendar because whether you want to find a new read from an indie author, or you want to collect a signature from a well-known author, September gives you multiple chances to grab some new books for your TBR pile.

1. The National Book Festival (September 5-6, 2025) – Washington, D.C.

Organized by the Library of Congress, the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. brings together a wide range of authors, journalists, and intellectuals to discuss literature and current affairs. With free events and a large roster of authors, this festival is a must-attend for book lovers.

Highlights:

  • Diverse Program: From fiction and memoirs to history and science, there’s something for everyone.
  • Author Signings: Meet bestselling authors and get your books signed.
  • Free Admission: All events are free to attend, making it accessible to everyone.
  • Panels & Discussions: Topics range from politics to personal stories and more.

2. FrightReads Book Festival (September 13-14, 2025) – West Friendship, Maryland

FrightReads Book Festival is an all-ages event, dedicated to horror, sci-fi, mystery, paranormal and thriller books in Maryland! Featuring Celebrities, guest authors and tons to do! Old Scratch Press member Gabby Gilliam will be selling books at this event!

Free & Open to the Public: Kids 12 and under are free. Adult tickets need to be purchased.

Highlights:

  • Panels & Discussions: Topics cover everything from contemporary fiction to publishing trends.
  • Costume Contest: Categories for both children and adults.
  • Special Guests: Cosplayers, celebrities and more.
  • Film Festival: Screening 4 spooky films all afternoon.

3. The Brooklyn Book Festival (September 14-22, 2025) – Brooklyn, New York

One of the largest and most anticipated literary events in New York, the Brooklyn Book Festival offers nine days filled with book signings, panels, and performances. It’s a wonderful opportunity to explore the literary scene in the heart of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Book Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year! BKBF is dedicated to celebrating diversity in literature, so they aim to develop original programming that is hip, smart, diverse, and inclusive. They also present free, literary, cultural events at the BKBF Day & Literary Marketplace, Virtual Festival Day, and the family friendly Children’s Day. Additionally, BKBF presents Bookend events in venues across NYC and on-line, which are overwhelmingly presented free to the public.

Highlights:

  • Children’s Day: September 20 is all about young readers.
  • Diverse Program: From fiction and memoirs to history and science, there’s something for everyone.
  • Panel Discussions: Topics on writing, editing, and publishing.

4. Indie Lit Festival (September 25-27, 2025) – Frostburg, Maryland

This event, hosted by the Frostburg University Center for Literary Arts, brings together editors and publishers with writers and educators of the local community. This event celebrates the writers, publishers, and readers of small press and independent publishing. The weekend features a poetry slam, readings, roundtable discussions, practical “how to” sessions, and a small press book fair in Frostburg, Maryland. Two Old Scratch Press members (David Fulcher and Gabby Gilliam) will be reading and selling books at this event!

Highlights:

Free & Open to the Public: Many of the events are free, making it an accessible event for all.

Friday 9/26:
Indie Lit Kickoff Reading featuring Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh at Main Street Books (2 E. Main St.), 7 PM

Followed by rock and roll with The Downstrokes at the Deep End (16 W. Main St.)

Saturday 9/27:
Panels, workshops, and readings in City Place (14 S. Water St), Mountain City Traditional Arts (25 E. Main St.) and the Frostburg Public Library (65 E. Main St.), 11-5

  • Poetry Slam: Thursday night @7, sponsored by Savage Mountain Punk Arts.
  • Book Signings & Readings: Hear authors read from their works and engage in discussions.
  • Workshops and Panels for Readers and Writers: Learn the ins and outs of writing and publishing.
  • Poetry & Fiction: Events covering a wide range of genres and literary styles.

Don’t see anything local to you? Bookreporter has a calendar with even more upcoming festivals.

These festivals offer fantastic opportunities to hear from both bestselling authors and indie authors, attend workshops, and get involved in the global literary community. Mark your calendars for these exciting events, and let me know which ones you’re most excited to attend!

Some Odes to Autumn

Published on by rdfauthorLeave a comment

By R. David Fulcher

Autumn has always held a special magic for me, a season in which the poet John Keats aptly described as “a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”

Indeed, if there is an hour for magic, it strikes in the crisp dawn of an early Fall day. And further, if magic has a language, surely its language is poetry.

So I find this an appropriate time to post some of my own verse (hopefully imbued with magic itself) for your reading pleasure.

The first poem is “Ode to the Night”, and it hints at the darker aspects of this time of year, a time when pumpkins cast you crooked smiles and ghosts and goblins are generally free to roam:

Ode to the Night

To the Night, the Night, the dark delight,

The children sleep soundly in gentle white,

Breathing in time with the Raven’s flight.

To the Night, the Night, the waxen moon,

Audience of one to the witches’ croon,

Driving the tides for the sailors’ doom.

To the Night, the Night, its starlit fires,

Which guide the ghosts from funeral pyres,

Which soften the Harpy to play the lyre.

I hope you enjoyed “Ode to the Night”, and at a minimum it puts you into the Halloween spirit!

My second poem is “Melinda”, a story of lost love, and although not directly a tribute to the season was nonetheless designed to evoke a haunted mood:

Melinda

Sometimes in the lonely hours

I would walk the hill

Leaving the clamor and din behind

For headstones gray and still,

As I neared the place where the dead did lie

I knelt and bowed my head

A fool is he who visits the graves

Without homage to the dead,

‘Melinda’ read the stone I sought

Melinda, my betrothed,

Only a thief as clever as Death

Could steal the health of Melinda, my love

Often I hear Melinda’s voice

Soft upon the breeze

I answer her call of eternal love

And grow hoarse among the trees.

I hope you enjoyed “Melinda”! Last but not least is an ode to a much maligned creature, a symbol of the undead, but in reality a beautiful animal that sustains our ecosystem. This last poem is called “The Bat”:

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels.com

The Bat

Taking inverted Sabbath in the caverns of Carlsbad

I measure time in locust-breath and calcite drip,

My bird-chest rising and falling with the gentle tides

Of this black carpet of brotherhood.

Footsteps fill my dreams,

Sun-bleached tourists groping into the cavern’s belly

To enter the sublime,

Their voices like a million valves releasing pressure.

For an instant they will recognize the face of God in this hard darkness,

The stalactite points of his beard,

The cascading rock formations of his brow,

And that fraction of animal intellect will rush forth,

Freed from concept and equation,

To join our ranks as we veer through this Jerusalem darkness

Toward dusk and sustenance,

Toward the amphitheater where they wait for their own departure.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed these odes to the season and wish all of you a sublime Autumn.

-R. David Fulcher, Founding Member of Old Scratch Press