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Passion At The Bee: Big Book Getaway Summer Series Kicks Off With Romance, Erotica Novelists, Today

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Bestselling Authors L. Marie Adeline, Charles Dubow and Lauren Willig to discuss their work with Moderator, Nick Hahn, at the historic Bee & Thistle Inn

Summer is right around the corner, and with warm weather comes fun and relaxing days spent at the beach … but, no beach day is complete without a good book.  And, warmer weather isn’t the only thing to look forward to this summer: The Big Book Getaway Blockbuster Summer Reading Series opens on June 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the historic Bee and Thistle Inn in Old Lyme, CT.

The new summer series will feature themed events from June through September, sponsored by The Day.  The first event, titled ‘Passion at the Bee,’ will feature bestselling authors Lauren Willig, Charles Dubow, and L. Marie Adeline, moderated by Nick Hahn.  The beautiful Bee & Thistle Inn provides the perfect setting, and will serve a full luncheon and dessert for all attendees, prepared by Chef Kristofer Rowe.

Lauren Willig.

Lauren Willig.

An expert at keeping her readers riveted, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig uses elements of mystery and romance to immerse readers from around the world in her stories.  With translations into more than a dozen languages, Willig’s books have received the RITA, Booksellers Best and Golden Leaf awards.

Her works have also been selected for the American Library Association’s annual list of the best genre fiction.  Willig is the author of the “Pink Carnation” series, based in Napoleonic times, and her latest work, “That Summer,” will be released on June 3.

Charles Dubow’s life experiences have taken him to many different places, and now he finds himself making a strong debut in the literary world with “Indiscretion,” a moving and multifaceted tale. Before his move into literature, Dubow was Founding Editor at Forbes.com and later became an editor at Businessweek.com.

“Indiscretion” is an irresistibly sexy and sleek story of love, lust, and betrayal retold through the eyes of a close confidant and observer.   This remarkable debut is an exciting, textured novel that smartly explores the boundaries of marriage, friendship, and fidelity, and reminds us that sometimes perspective is everything.  “Indiscretion” is a summer read that is impossible to put down, and you are unlikely to forget.  Intriguing, seductive, alluring—this is a book to take to the beach and devour before sunset.

Lisa Gabriele

Lisa Gabriele

The S.E.C.R.E.T. erotica trilogy is published in more than 30 countries, and is a bestseller in many of them.  They’re written by L. Marie Adeline, a pseudonym for Lisa Gabriele, who has also written Tempting Faith DiNapoli and the Almost Archer Sisters, both bestsellers.  She also writes and produces for television and radio, and was the show runner on the Gemini and Screen award-winning CBC reality program, Dragons’ Den.

Her essays and articles have appeared in several anthologies and in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, the Washington Post, Salon, Nerve, Glamour, Flare, Elle and Chatelaine.  She was the original Dear Diary columnist for Vice Magazine. Adeline’s articles on feminism and erotica have been read widely; her most recent piece on the relationship between the two subjects is “Is Feminism Un-erotic?” for XO Jane and for Salon.com.

Nick Hahn.

Nick Hahn.

Nick Hahn’s writing career started during his days as a student at the University of Notre Dame.  He later became President and CEO of Cotton Inc., and eventually went on to form Hahn International, LTD, an agribusiness consulting group primarily focused on third world countries.  Hahn has spent 14 years living abroad working amongst indigenous people from Africa to Latin America, writing down observations of social and political unrest in travel journals.

Hahn’s 14 years abroad inspired his first novel, “Under the Skin.”  In addition to writing his novel, Hahn also writes and narrates audiobooks.  Nick Hahn previously appeared at the Big Book Getaway at Mohegan Sun in February 2014 on the International Thrillers panel.  Hahn also moderated the Avon Romance panel at the same event.

Tickets to “Passion at The Bee” are $55 each, which includes a full luncheon, dessert, author presentations and book signing session.  Visit www.thebigbookclub.org for more information or to purchase tickets.

Tickets are also available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/684004 .

The June 7 event will be the first of four events to be held this summer and fall.  The Day Publishing Company is the title sponsor for the series; The Day is an award-winning multi-media company and daily newspaper that covers a 20 town region in eastern Connecticut.  LymLine.com and ValleyNewsNow.com are also media partners.

The historic Bee and Thistle Innis an important stop within Old Lyme, Connecticut’s art colony, arguably one of the most famous Impressionist-oriented art communities in America.   While retaining the integrity of the historic landmark built in 1756, the transformed Bee and Thistle Inn provides a link to the past while nurturing artists of the present.  Innkeepers Linnea and David Rufo are building an inspirational environment which serves as a gathering place for artists and authors to collaborate, display and sell their work.  Visit the Inn’s website at www.beeandthistleinn.com.

The official bookseller for the event is Bank Square Books of Mystic.  Locally owned and independently operated, Bank Square Books has been a staple of the downtown Mystic community for 25 years.

Local Artists Cantrell, Christiano, Friday Featured in Rowayton Art Show This Weekend

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Local artists Helen Cantrell, Catherine Christiano, and Judy Friday will be featured from June 5 – 8, in the 52nd Annual Art Show, hosted by the Community Cooperative Nursery School (CCNS), in Rowayton, Conn.  The featured artists will be present at the opening reception this evening, June 5, from 7 to 10 p.m.  Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be offered, admission is $40 and valet parking is available.

This show, which includes work by an additional 70 artists, is a great opportunity to view numerous works in a wide range of styles and price points.  Many of the paintings can be viewed on the show’s website www.ccnsartshow.org. Forty percent of your art purchases are tax deductible.

Additional show hours are Friday, June 6, 6 – 10 p.m., June 7, from 2 – 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 8, from 12 – 4 p.m. with admission of $15.  On Saturday, June 7,  from 3 – 4 p.m., Helen Cantrell will be demonstrating her palette knife painting technique, and on Sunday, June 8, from 2 – 3 p.m., Judy Friday will be demonstrating her painting technique using etching ink on paper.

"Summer People" by Helen Cantrell.

“Summer People” by Helen Cantrell.

Helen Cantrell is a painter and printmaker from Old Lyme.  Born in Chicago, Illinois, she moved to New York City in 1968, after majoring in painting at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, and has lived along the Northeast coast for the past 40 years.  Cantrell was inspired early on by a Horizon magazine article on Richard Diebenkorn and the Bay Area figurative painters.  She retired from working as a typesetter in NYC about 15 years ago to pursue painting and printmaking full-time.

Cantrell has intensively studied and worked with printmaking techniques at workshops in Connecticut, at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and at Crown Point Press in San Francisco.  She is an elected artist member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, exhibits extensively in the Northeast, and recently co-founded gallery19 in Essex with Judy Friday.

"Precursors" by Catherine Christiano.

“Precursors” by Catherine Christiano.

Catherine Christiano is a representational artist from Old Lyme, who works primarily with painting and drawing media.  Her unlikely path to studio art began with a bachelor’s in engineering and an MBA in finance followed by some years of work combined with part-time study in drawing and painting at the National Academy of Design’s School of Fine Arts in New York.

A move to Connecticut prompted her to fully focus on her artwork and additional study at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, where she completed a BFA in 2001.  Christiano’s artwork often focuses on subjects that are close to her own life and environment.  She exhibits in the Northeast, is included in numerous private collections, and has been published in several journals. Christiano also designed the seal for the Town of Old Lyme.

Judy Friday was born in Columbus, Ohio, and lived there until she graduated from Ohio State University in 1980 with a degree in Business Administration.  Having worked off and on in artistic and decorative painting for several years, she began to study art seriously when she and her husband moved to Lyme in 1985.  Friday studied at Lyme Academy of College of Fine Arts from 1987 to 1993.

Her primary focus recently has been on landscapes, particularly bodies of water with an interest in the haze and light that bounce off the water.  She finds inspiration in the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound.  Recurring subjects also include Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island.  Friday exhibits in Ohio and the Northeast and recently co-founded gallery19 in Essex with Helen Cantrell.

Carney Cruises to Victory in 23rd District Republican Convention

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Devin Carney

Devin Carney, Republican candidate for State Representative, won the 23rd District Convention by a vote of 10-4.  His campaign was able to earn unanimous support from Lyme, Old Saybrook, and Westbrook.  This included votes from the Lyme First Selectman, Ralph Eno, the Old Saybrook First Selectman, Carl P. Fortuna, Jr., and the current State Representative for the 23rd District, Marilyn Giuliano, who also gave Carney his nominating speech and has endorsed him.

In a statement, Giuliano said, “I believe Devin will work for all of us with energy and integrity, and with an interest not in politics, but public service.”  Giuliano lost her convention in 2002 by onlytwo votes on a second ballot vote after the first vote failed to determine a winner by majority, but defeated her opponent in a primary due to her showing in her hometown of Old Saybrook.

In addition to the support at convention, Carney has received support from each town – which can be seen through his strong fundraising effort.  He collected 95 donations from Old Saybrook, 57 from Old Lyme, 35 from Westbrook, and 18 from Lyme.

Carney stated, “The results at convention were a testament to the hard work I’ve put in these past few months and to the confidence the delegates have in me to win in November.  I bring new, fresh ideas to the table and can’t wait to get up to Hartford to offer some much-needed common sense.  I am not your typical politician, but rather a regular person just trying to fix our economy, get jobs back in Connecticut, and help rejuvenate the Republican Party in this state.”

He continued, “Most importantly, I believe the people of the 23rd District deserve a representative who understands the unique issues in each of the four towns.  While I live in Old Saybrook, my family is from Westbrook, my mother lives in Lyme, and my longtime girlfriend lives in Old Lyme with her children.  I have a personal stake in each town and will be a representative for all; the people of the 23rd deserve nothing less.”

For more information about Carney’s campaign, contact Melissa Bonner at carneyfor23pr@gmail.com.

Talking Transportation: America’s Interstate Highways

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The 47,000 miles of highways that comprise America’s interstate highway system are nothing short of an engineering marvel, surpassed only by what China has built in the last few years.

We take them for granted, but when they were designed almost 60 years ago these super-highways presented both great opportunity and vast challenges.  The US wasn’t the first with super-highways. Those bragging rights go to the Germans, whose Reichsautobahn saw cars zooming along at 100+ mph in the 1930’s.

Most credit President Eisenhower, whose troops rode the Autobahn in WWII, for seeing the military value of an American equivalent, though engineering such a complex across the US was far more difficult.

Of course, by 1940 the US already had the Pennsylvania Turnpike and, by 1954, the NY State Thruway, but private toll roads were just the beginning.

To build a road expected to last, in 1955 the federal government, AAA and automakers first built a $27 million seven mile test road near Ottawa, Illinois.  Half was concrete, the other half asphalt.  The 836 separate sections of highway had various sub-surfaces and 16 bridges.  For two years army trucks drove night and day, seeing which road designs would hold up.

Weather and traffic dictated different designs:  in desert areas the highways need be only a foot thick, while in Maine the tough winter and freeze-thaw cycles required that I-95 would be five feet thick.

Construction of the highways required moving 42 billion cubic feet of soil.  To expedite construction of I-40 in California, there was even a plan to use nuclear bombs to vaporize part of the Bristol Mountain range.

As author Dan McNichol writes in his excellent book, “The Roads that Built America”, “VIP seating was even planned for the event.  The (nuclear) bombing was to produce a cloud 12,000 feet high and a radioactive blast 133 times that of Hiroshima.”  Needless to say, the mountains were moved using more conventional explosives.

Outside of Greenbelt, Md., another site tested the design of road signs … white lettering on a black background, white on blue (already adopted by the NY Thruway) or, what proved to be the winning model, white on green.

Just 5,200 of the original 41,000 miles of Interstates were to be built in urban areas, but those few miles accounted for almost half of the $425 billion total cost.  By 1992 the system was deemed “completed”.  Bragging rights for the longest of the interstates goes to I-90 running 3,020 miles from Boston to Seattle and our own beloved I-95, which runs 1,920 miles from the Canadian border to Miami, Fla.

As anyone who drives on I-95 in Connecticut knows, the interstates have far surpassed their expected traffic load and are in need of billions of repairs.  Little did we know 60 years ago what our automotive future might bring.

Jim Cameron

Jim Cameron

Jim Cameron has been a Darien resident for 22 years.  He is the founder of the Commuter Action Group and also serves on the Darien RTM.  The opinions expressed in this column are only his own.  You can reach him at CommuterActionGroup@gmail.com

Lanier to Primary on Aug. 12 for Republican Candidacy of 23rd District

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Vicki Lanier

Vicki Lanier

Vicki Lanier (R) of Old Lyme has announced her intention to primary in August to be the Republican candidate for the state assembly seat of the 23rd District, which will be vacated by Marilyn Giuliano at the end of this year.  Giuliano, who has represented the district since 2003, announced in February that she would not seek a seventh term.

In six weeks of active fundraising, Lanier has exceeded the required amount of funds and number of donors to qualify for public campaign funds to be used both in any primary efforts and ultimately in her race against any Democratic candidate this November.  Lanier’s donors have come from both statewide and the four towns with areas in the 23rd District, namely Old Lyme, Lyme, Old Saybrook and Westbrook.

Lanier commented, “First, I offer congratulations to my Republican opponent [Devin Carney] for the result at the convention, which was not unexpected. The convention is the first part of our process in selecting a candidate to represent the Republican Part this November.”

She continued, ” I am reminded of a time 12 years ago when a strong candidate named Marilyn Giuliano, who lost the convention, felt compelled to let the full membership of the Republican Party make a choice about who would be the best qualified to not only defeat the Democratic opponent, but most importantly, effectively serve the people of the 23rd district.”

Lanier concluded, “As Marilyn emphasized at the Holbrook Dinner last Friday night, it was her practical experience that enabled her to be so successful in the legislature.  I am confident that the voters in the Republican Party will choose a candidate equally equipped with the life experience, professional skill set, energy, and proven track record to be our next representative. ”

For additional information on Lanier, contact vickilanier2014@gmail.com, visit her page on Facebook at “Lanier2014″ and her website at www.lanier2014.com.