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John Gardner’s October Night

"I think a writer who leaves his roots leaves any hope of writing importantly"---John Gardner Those so favored by the Good Lord as to be within listening distance of Batavia, NY, on…
Bill Kauffman
October 20, 2009

“I think a writer who leaves his roots leaves any hope of writing importantly”—John Gardner

Those so favored by the Good Lord as to be within listening distance of Batavia, NY, on Saturday, October 24, at 8 pm, might want to drop by the Pokadot, the late novelist John Gardner’s favorite diner, for our 13th annual  evening of readings from Gardner’s many works. I recommend the beef on weck, the pepper and eggs, Grendel, and Mickelsson’s Ghosts. 

In the unsolicited advice department, I urge other towns to celebrate, in their own ways, their own writers. Maybe Peters can exercise his texting finger to organize an Octave Thanet Day across the river in Davenport, Iowa?

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Bill Kauffman

Bill Kauffman is the author of eleven books, among them Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette (Henry Holt), Ain’t My America (Metropolitan), Look Homeward, America (ISI), and Poetry Night at the Ballpark (FPR Books). His next book, Upstaters, is due from SUNY Press in 2026. He is a columnist for The American Conservative and The Spectator World. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 2013 feature film Copperhead. He is a founding editor of Front Porch Republic and has served as a legislative assistant to Senator Pat Moynihan, editor for various magazines and publishers, and vice president of the Batavia Muckdogs, a professional baseball team that was euthanized by Major League Baseball. He lives with his wife Lucine in his native Genesee County, New York.

5 comments

  • AML
    16 years ago

    I had my first beef on weck last weekend in Buffalo. As an Ohioan (from Cincinnati) I had no prior knowledge of this mysterious thing called weck. Being in exile in DC, I am always hankering for a home town three-way.

  • alice
    16 years ago

    It sounds like a great night. I wish I could be there.

  • Bill Kauffman
    16 years ago

    Tom, every day is Bill Kauffman Day.
    JP, maybe you can enlist the Quad Cities chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis in celebrating Sister Octave?

  • A
    Jason Peters
    16 years ago

    A worthy cause for a man who, for good reason, drank himself into sweet oblivion.

    I’ll get on the Thanet day. Thounds like I’m lithping.

  • Thomas G.
    16 years ago

    Dang. I’ll be back in B-town on the 28th and 29th, 4 days too late for the Gardner shindig.

    Thankfully, the Beef-on-Weck will still be there, even if I can’t partake of Pontillo’s Pizza anymore.

    By the way, when does Elba hold the Bill Kaufmann celebration? Is that going to be in conjunction with the Onion fest?

Comments are closed.