Summertide and Currents arrive by mail

Not quite a year ago, I sat with Bonnie Offit in Rittenhouse Square talking about a dream she and her friend Gary Jacketti had to produce a free summer magazine for the Stone Harbor crowd. The magazine would feature literature and art. All proceeds would go to the CHOP Brendan Borek Fund. Might I have some ideas, Bonnie asked.

I pondered. I thought of this: Why not share the first two-thirds of a summer mystery, to be completed by a young writer? And why not introduce Bonnie to the work of Hannah Litvin, a talented poet and memoirist (and fiction writer, too) whom I had met while teaching memoir at Rosemont College?

And so those things happened. I shared my story. A willing mystery writer wrote the end. Hannah shared her poetry. And then Bonnie, with her team of Gary, Jen Gensemer, and Cailin Fogarty, went away and dreamed much bigger, inviting photographers and designers and other writers into the fold.

Today I received my two copies of Summertide, and what a genuine beauty it is, both at its soul core and in its art. At the same time, I received our copies of Currents, the magazine we create for each Juncture workshop initiative. Within this edition are the empathy pieces our writers wrote about their Frenchtown partners. Portraits that Bill took. Images of that place and our time.

And so it is a lovely day here. A day of quiet thanks.