Letters to the Editor - by Tom Byrn & James Goode & Jerry Matheny & Gerard Stropnicky (Paperback)

About the Book

Two hundred years worth of letters to one town's newspapers represent the most memorable moments in American history and the passions they engendered, in this "living love letter to the spirit of a community" ("Times Leader", Wilkes-Barre, PA.) 100 photos.

Book Synopsis

The voices of America's past and present live on in this timeless portrayal of small-town America, which, through two hundred years of letters to one town's newspapers, evokes the most memorable moments in our history and the passions they engendered.
Since the days of the Founding Fathers, the citizens of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, have recorded their impressions of such dramatic events of national significance as the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the rise of Andrew Carnegie, the assassinations of President John F. and Senator Robert Kennedy, and the Clarence Thomas hearings -- as well as their opinions on genuinely local concerns like building good schools and roads, seeing the sights at the Bloomsburg Fair, romantic intrigue in a trailer park, and finding a home for a lonely puppy.
By turns hilarious and contemplative, here is a book so genuinely representative of the American experience that each page will bring memories of home and family, friends and neighbors, and our own hometowns sharply -- and honestly -- into focus. Beneath it all, Letters to the Editor is about how a community negotiates with itself, how it talks and how it listens.

Review Quotes

Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on the stage version of Letters to the Editor It doesn't matter where you live...Letters to the Editor is a rich portrait of your neighbors and your town, a living love letter to the spirit of community.

Robert Coles Harvard University, winner of the Pulitzer Prize Here is history in the daily making: a wonderful chronicle of a democracy's life as experienced by its citizens -- who have been lucky indeed to live in a country where their ideas can be publicly shared.

About the Author

Gerard Stropnicky, Tom Byrn, James Goode, and Jerry Matheny are members of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, whose stage version of Letters to the Editor provided the impetus for this book. They live and work in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.