Organized by David Dobbs with support from Kellogg-Hubbard Library, the Montpelier Bridge, and Onion River Community Access.

NEXT SEASON (2008-2009)

After a summer break, the “Why I Love” writers lectures series will resume with:

September 10    Jim Schley on “Why I (Still) Love Robert Frost”

Schley, of South Strafford, is a poet, essayist, editor par excellence, and director of the Frost Place, in Franconia, NH, which supports the writing and reading of poetry Frosty and otherwise. He will talk of how this complicated poet (and difficult, cantankerous man) continues to engage his and other modern sensibilities and imaginations.

Next year’s line-up also includes:

October 8:          Novelist Kathryn Davis, “Why I Love Jesus”

November 12:   Translator and poet David Hinton, on a subject he’s still pondering

•     Journalist Ben Hewitt on small farm animals

•     Columnist, sugar maker, and Morse Farm maestro Burr Morse, subject and date TBA

•     Poet Jane Shore (unconfirmed), subject TBD

•    Birder, bird guide, lichen lover, radio host, and author Bryan Pfeiffer on bugs and     butterflies

•    Science writer David Dobbs on the wierd neuroscience of attention

        and another TBA.

Past programs

All are available on DVD at Kellogg-Hubbard Library

November 2007    Why I Love My Hippocampus, by David Dobbs   

How the brain encodes and recalls space, time, and memory -- and where you end up when it doesn’t.

December 2007    Why I Love the Second Law of Thermodynamics, by Eric Zencey

Novelist, essayist, and historian Eric Zencey (Panama, Virgin Forest) explains entropy -- and how ignoring it “is going to kill us.” See his Why I Love webpage for a Q&A preview/sampler.

January 2008    Why I Love Dick Cheney, by David Goodman

Goodman, a political journalist and New York Times best-selling author, explained why “we need to show Dick Cheney a little love.”

February 2008        Why I Love Slate, by Jody Gladding

Prize-winning poet Jody Gladding brought her warm presence, lively intellect, and fine-grained, foilate, metaphorphic, and locale-rich sensibility to bear on slate.

March 2008          Why I Love My Niddy-Noddy, by Mary Hays

Hays, author of Learning to Drive, described both the niddy-noddy, a gizmo used in spinning yarn, and the special immersion one wins by pursuing hobbies, a realm of endeavor for endeavor’s sake.

April 2008            Why I Love Henry David Thoreau

Slayton, former editor of Vermont Life, told of how his fascination with Thoreau led him to retrace many of Thoreau’s footsteps -- journeys described to entrancing and funny effect in Slayton’s new book, Searching for Thoreau.

Howard Norman

Why I Love

The Ghosts of Northern Japan

WEDNESDAY, May 21, @ 7:00 pm

Please note that Norman’s talk is on the third Wednesay of the month, departing from our customary “second Wednesday” date

Novelist Howard Norman, internationally acclaimed and particularly beloved in Central Vermont, will give a talk drawing on his recent journey tracing the footsteps of the 17th-century poet and haiku master Matsuo Basho. Norman published a journal of the trip in a lovely photo essay on the National Geographic website -- well worth a visit, full of fine prose from Norman, some beautiful photos, and a nice map of the journey that you can click to read Norman’s various entries.

That, of course, is just the web version. We’re lucky enough to get the tale, and Howard, in person on May 21 at Kellogg-Hubbard. Please join us for this special treat to wrap up the first season of the “Why I Love What I Love” writers’ lecture series.

Click here for more on Howard Norman and Matsuo Basho.