‘Building Readers, Building Writers’ enthralls audience

Pakistan News & Features Services

The Westport Writers’ Workshop brought together the writing community on May 15 for an inspiring event entitled ‘Building Readers, Building Writers’ which literally enthralled the audience.

   

The evening’s purpose was to serve as a launch party for Books, Ink at HamletHub, a new book review and literary online publication, to gather book donations and honor the work of the children’s charity, First Book, and to celebrate both the writing craft and local authors. 

The Westport Writers’ Workshop Founder and Director, Jessica Bram, was partnered with Books, Ink Editor, Sally Allen, who also spearheads Westport’s HamletHub, for the event. HamletHub, an online publication covering hyper-local news, was launched in 2009 by Ken and Kerry Anne Ducey of Ridgefield and now has editions for 15 towns throughout Fairfield County. 

Allen, a former New York University writing instructor and current journalist, became familiar with the Westport Writers’ Workshop after being impressed by a one-day writing workshop which she took earlier this spring.

   

“In just three hours, we generated ideas, wrote, shared our writing, and learned elements that create compelling writing, whether fiction or memoir, from word choice and sentence structure to narrative cohesion. I’m a tough customer when it comes to writing workshops, but was extremely impressed by the degree to which the writing craft was emphasized,” she observed, adding that collaborating with Bram was the perfect match as the Westport Writers Workshop is home to several local authors and aspiring writers, and the Books, Ink was created in part to honor their work. 

“It’s my hope that Books, Ink becomes a local hub for readers and writers, a place to discover local authors, find out about book-related events in our area, and share reviews and recommendations from friends and neighbors.” Allen remarked. 

As a tie-in to the night’s theme, a door prize filled with books written and signed by local authors was an added feature. Among them were those penned by the Westport Writers’ Workshop instructors, including Jessica Bram’s Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey, the recently released young adult novel Last Ghost at Gettysburg: A T. J. Jackson Mystery by Fairfield resident, Paul Ferrante, and Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading by Westporter, Nina Sankovitch.