Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal. Fall/Winter 2023, Vol 5, No 1

by William J. Donahue (Editor), Melissa D. Sullivan (Editor), Leigh Ann Stuart (Editor)

Neshaminy ’s Fall/Winter 2023 issue features a biographical study of the author James Purdy based on Don Swaim’s decade-long friendship with the controversial literary figure, often hailed as a genius in his day, but now largely forgotten. Purdy’s first and most celebrated novel, Malcolm , staged by Edward Albee, was conceived in a Bucks County farmhouse. Plus an original short story by Purdy, “Sound of Talking,” first published in 1955.
History about the fiery destruction of the building that once housed Doylestown High School, whose graduates included cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead and Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener.
By Daniel Dorian, a profile of the venerable Bucks County Workshop after a quarter of a century of helping to inspire local writers.
Fiction by Natalie Zallat Dyen on ghostly happenings at the historic Black Bass Inn, which is on the National Register of Historic Places; by William J. Donahue deadly doings in an insular neighborhood in the northeastern corner of Philadelphia; and by Don Swaim a fictional treatment of renowned seventeenth-century scientist Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen, forced to flee his native England for sanctuary on the banks of the Susquehanna River.
Interviews and profiles of novelist and playwright Ken Jaworowski; Linda Salley of the African American Museum of Bucks County; and artist Patricia Allingham Carlson.
Original poetry by Joseph Brunetti, Spencer Szwalbenest, and Hayden Saunier.

145 pages, Paperback

Published September 8, 2023

About the author

William J. Donahue lives in a small but well-guarded fortress somewhere on the map between Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. When he's not writing fiction, entertaining his cats, or wandering quietly in the woods, he works as a magazine editor and features writer.