After taking a couple months off for improvements, Windber, Pennsylvania’s haunted hotel, The Grand Midway, has re-launched its weekly coffeehouse. The re-opening was last night, Saturday, September 7. We’ll be open each Saturday evening, 6 till (at least) 10 PM through Halloween. And since this coming Friday is the 13th, we’ll be doing a bonus […]
Read more "REVIVING COFFEEHOUSE NIGHTS: 7 September 2019"At the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record (and a whiny complaining one at that), the Thursday June 20 coffeehouse proved a less than satisfying effort. Again we were plagued by bad weather (thunder, lightning, a couple downpours of pelting rain) and low attendance. I’m sure the opening night of the region’s hugely […]
Read more "COFFEEHOUSE NIGHTS: 20 June 2019"This week’s coffeehouse coincided with the official opening of Windber’s annual Miner’s Memorial Days, which honors local history and always climaxes on Father’s Day (which is this Sunday). I approached the evening in a very good mood. Having one of my short stories being published (in a hardcover anthology of SF/F for kids) and a […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 13 June 2019"The second weekly coffeehouse of the season at Windber’s Grand Midway Hotel was in many ways a disappointment. Attendance was well off from the previous week’s promising beginning, despite the presence of a handful of stalwart regulars. Yet there were some positive aspects worthy of mention. In honor of this week’s 50th anniversary of the […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: June 6, 2019"First an apology: I fully intended to post this recap of last Thursday’s coffeehouse within 24 hours of the event. Other factors intervened, some writer related (like the June 1st deadline on my bimonthly column for the PennWriter newsletter) or other more general life issues. Anyway……. The first coffeehouse of 2019 was, on the whole, […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 30 May 2019"We had quite a good and varied crowd at last night’s coffeehouse at Windber’s Grand Midway Hotel. Plenty of regulars, a few past guests we hadn’t seen in a while and a sprinkling of total newcomers. It being the last one before Halloween night, I again donned the creepy Bell Boy costume from last weekend’s […]
Read more "Windber Coffeehouse Nights: 25 October 2018"Manderley Forever: A Biography of Daphne Du Maurier by Tatiana De Rosnay (Biography, 2017). The title here is, of course, a reference to the fictional mansion in Du Maurier’s best known novel, Rebecca. As the author makes clear, real life homes fascinated and repeatedly inspired Du Maurier. In particular, ones she lived in (as well as […]
Read more "REVIEWED: Manderley Forever"