Northshire presents two authors and Valentine workshop

MANCHESTER — Northshire Bookstore will host authors James Crews and Jessica Jean Weston, along with a children’s Valentines-making workshop.

Crews, author of “Telling my Father,” will visit the bookstore at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9.

In ”Telling My Father,” Crews explores familial bonds, memory, and grief through a beautifully written collection of poems. This Cowles Poetry Prize winning manuscript is a risky, bold, and elegant exploration of coming of age against a backdrop of profound loss, according to a press release from Northshire.

Crews’ work has appeared in Ploughshares, Raleigh Review, Crab Orchard Review and The New Republic, among other journals, and he is a regular contributor to The (London) Times Literary Supplement. His first collection of poetry, “The Book of What Stays,” won the 2010 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and received a Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award. His second collection, “Telling My Father,” won the Cowles Prize and will be published by Southeast Missouri State University Press.

He holds an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in Writing and Literature from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was an Othmer Fellow and worked for Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry newspaper column. He lives on an organic farm with his partner in Shaftsbury, Vermont and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Eastern Oregon University.

A Valentine’s Day Card Creation Event will take place for children at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 10.

All are welcome for a morning of glitter, glue and gorgeous cards with the bookstore’s children’s department. Staff will provide the materials, and visitors can bring the ideas. Kids can also participate in a grab a “fall in love with reading” book to bring home. 

Also on Saturday, Feb. 10. the bookstore will host a 2 p.m. Tasting, Talk and Book Signing and workshop with Weston, author of “Healing Tonics, Juices, and Smoothies.”

In this workshop, Weston will share some of her favorite nourishing superfoods to keep one’s immune system up and stress levels down. There will also be sampling one of Weston’s favorite recipe from her book which features many superfoods to enjoy throughout the year. The recipe is one of her favorite nourishing superfood elixirs for the depths of winter and into the spring.

Weston is chef owner of Superfresh Organic Café in Brattleboro. She was recently named one of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s 30 Under 30 Health and Wellness Leaders of 2017. With a BA in medical anthropology from Ithaca College and as a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), she has spent her career exploring the broad subject of food as medicine with Mayan healers in Belize, on organic farms, and with herbalists, shamanic practitioners, and more. Weston’s personal journey to health, navigating a series of food intolerances as well as what made her feel most vibrant, led her to a non-GMO, plant-based diet free of soy, gluten, dairy, eggs, and meat.