COURTESY
LUDLOW, Vt. — The Book Nook will sponsor a homegrown arts festival featuring Jackson Ellis, Rachel Carter and Asher Ellis, who grew up in the Okemo Valley.
Book talks and a movie premier will take place at 7 p.m. Friday, July 6 at the Frank Heald Auditorium at the Ludlow Town Hall.
Jackson Ellis will talk about his new novel, “Lords of St. Thomas.” In the Mojave Desert, at the southern end of the isolated Moapa Valley, sat the town of St. Thomas, Nevada. A small community that thrived despite scorching temperatures and scarce water, St. Thomas was home to hardy railroad workers, farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, and a lone auto mechanic named Henry Lord. Born and raised in St. Thomas, Lord lived in a small home beside his garage with his son, Thomas, his daughter-in-law, Ellen, and his grandson, “Little” Henry. All lived happily until the stroke of a pen by President Coolidge authorizing the construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Within a decade, more than 250 square miles of desert floor would become flooded by the waters of the Colorado River, and St. Thomas would be no more.
Ellis is a writer and editor from Vermont who has also spent time living in Nevada and Montana. His short fiction has previously appeared in The Vermont Literary Review, Sheepshead Review, Broken Pencil, The Birmingham Arts Journal, East Coast Literary Review, Midwest Literary Magazine, and The Journal of Microliterature. He is the co-publisher of VerbicideMagazine.com, which he founded in 1999.
Rachel Carter likes to write about time travel and faraway worlds. She’s the author of the “So Close to You” series with HarperTeen, and a regular contributor to BookTrib.com. These days you can find her working on her next novel in the woods of Vermont, where she also teaches creative writing at Champlain College.
In “So Close to You,” Lydia Bentley has heard stories about the Montauk Project all her life: stories about the strange things that took place at the abandoned military base near her home and the people who’ve disappeared over the years. Stories about people like her own great-grandfather. When Lydia stumbles into a portal that transports her to a dangerous and strange new reality, she discovers that all the stories she’s ever heard about the Montauk Project are true, and that she’s in the middle of one of the most dangerous experiments in history.
Asher Ellis is the author of “The Remedy,” a horror novel set in the backwoods of northern Vermont. He is also a screenwriter, and wrote the award-winning short film “Exit 7A” and “My Name Is Art.” Directed by Shahab Zargar, “My Name is Art” wears its “Black Mirror” and “Twilight Zone” inspirations on its sleeve. This event will be the world premiere for “My Name is Art.”
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