Neshaminy: The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal. Fall/Winter 2024. No. 10

by Don Swaim, William J. Donahue (editor), Melissa D. Sullivan (editor)

The Pennsylvania-born man of letters John Updike is profiled in the fall/winter 2024 issue of Neshaminy by Don Swaim, who recounts three personal interactions with the late author, not all of which went well. A glance at the monument along the Bristol waterfront dedicated to celebrated abolitionist Harriet Tubman. William J. Donahue’s Q&A with YA horror novelist Diana Rodriguez Wallach who recounts her fascination with the supernatural, the nature of evil, and high-profile murders of the distant past. Laura Irvine studies Bucks County’s historical fixation on Halloween. A photographic panorama of historic Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Maximillian Bogus III has a fictional take on Henry Mercer’s obsession with a strange object called the Lenape Stone that might—or might not—shed new light North America’s archeological past. A detailed study of the prolific John Philip Falter who painted more than 100 Saturday Evening Postcovers, many depicting scenes of Bucks County where Falter’s studio was in Hilltown Township. A profile of Pennsylvania artist Addie Hocynec. A look at the Andalusia Historic House, Gardens, and Arboretum in Bensalem. The origin of the man-made Lake Nockamixon near Quakertown. Fiction by Jill Lupine. Poetry by Joseph Brunetti, Arlene Geller, and Kal Stein.

135 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2024

About the author

Don Swaim is a writer, novelist, journalist, and winner of the 2011 Pearl S. Buck short story prize. His novel, The H.L. Mencken Murder Case (St. Martin's Press), was republished as a trade paperback under the Authors Guild's Back in Print program. Born in Kansas and educated in Ohio, his daily feature "Book Beat" was broadcast on major radio stations through the CBS Radio Stations News Service, and can be heard on the Internet at Wired for Books and at Book Beat:The Podcast. After a career at CBS in New York and Baltimore, Swaim founded the Bucks County Writers Workshop in Pennsylvania. He edits the web's definitive Ambrose Bierce Site. His fiction and articles have been published in small magazines and on the web.