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Art of the tease
From the editor
Hey, Dispatchers,
Nah, I’m not teasing exactly. But if I keep publicly declaring that I’m almost done with two Dispatch upgrade projects … then I’ll have to pull the trigger soon, right?
It’s gonna be good!
— Abby
In this issue:
📚 Introducing ‘Schuywich’
🎭 No arts experience required
🏇 Halloween with the horses?
🗣️ Spa-Vegas connect for truest Saratogians
📩 Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Subscribe — and join the more than 6,500 of your neighbors who never miss a thing.
🗓️ IRL
🀄 MAHJONG CORNER
🎃 Halloween Hangover Open Play — THIS Sunday Nov. 1 @ 12:30 p.m.
Plus: Three more beginner classes and one Guided Play.
Reply to this email with “MAHJONG” for more detailed info — and first dibs — and I’ll add you to our mahjong-only list.
🍽️ DINNER CLUB
Our next Dinner Club is on lucky 11/11 — if you’ve been meaning to try it, that’s the sign you need.
📚 FEATURED EVENT
‘Upstate’ book launch TONIGHT at Northshire
Full circle: When buying the Owl Pen bookstore didn’t work out, “our hearts were a little bruised,” says author Kim Van Alkemade, who stayed away for five years so she could imagine it freely for her novel Upstate. She recently went back with an advance copy to share with new owners Sydney Nichols and Eric Kufs, and to talk about “the difference between the reality and the fiction,” she says. “It was really cool.”
You might know Kim Van Alkemade from Northshire or one of her popular Book Festival sessions. Now the New York Times bestselling author of Orphan #8 and Counting Lost Stars has a new novel out (released today!): Upstate, which is absolutely chock full of Saratoga Springs refs. Its heart, though, is just up the road: the storied Owl Pen bookstore, reimagined as Red Barn Books in the town of “Schuywich.”
What sparked Upstate?
“In 2021, when the Owl Pen bookstore was up for sale, my partner and I tried to buy it and couldn’t make it work. It wasn’t our destiny, but we were in love with the idea, and walking away was heartbreaking. I had 70,000 words of a different book written when I showed my editor a synopsis for Upstate. She said, ‘Write this one first.’”
I’m glad you did. I fell in love with this book. Are the characters based on real people?
“Upstate isn’t the story of Owl Pen, but our experience of almost buying it was the spark. There’s a little inspiration for [the book’s Red Barn Books founder] Evelyn Cabot in Barb Brobst, who started Owl Pen in her barn in the 1960s with her partner, Jean Slocum. A couple of details are real: she wrote for Mademoiselle, and she fixed a roof because she read a book about it. But as soon as I decided to write the novel, I stopped researching. The rest is my imagination.”
I hear you already have some bragging rights…
“Upstate is an Indie Next pick for November! Look for it on the Next Great Reads handout at Northshire. And by chance, they chose [Northshire’s] Rachel Person’s review to go with it, so it’s a full-circle moment.”
🦉 Owl Pen is open for the season through Nov. 1 — so you have a few days left to see the place that inspired the novel.
📚 Launch party: TONIGHT at 6 p.m.! Kim Van Alkemade in conversation with Kate Fagan at Northshire Bookstore. Free and open to the public.
🎭 ARTS
Got a minute?
The Saratoga Springs Arts Commission wants to know how you experience the city’s arts scene: music, theater, opera, dance, film, Beekman Street galleries, murals and festivals. Have 10 minutes? Take the survey by Nov. 15 and help shape how the city supports the arts.
🏇 HORSE RACING
The Breeders’ Cup post position draw went down yesterday evening, and we took the excuse to call in our fave avian sports reporter, Spa Infield Goose, for the results. With both Golden Tempo (Classic) and Englishman (Sprint) set to race Saturday, it could be a big day for our hometown hero Cherie DeVaux. Plus Sovereignty (Classic) and Nitrogen (Distaff), who did well at The Spa. (Magnitude was here, too…) Who’s tuning in?
Where to watch: National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame is throwing a party from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. (Register ahead to receive a free gift.) Think Ted’s Fish Fry and wine to purchase as well as other surprises.
📌 ICYMI…
🗣️ CROSSWALK GUY
Only in New York Vegas…
Remember when we tracked down the Long Islander behind the voice of our pedestrian crosswalks? I couldn’t believe it when I received an iPhone video of none other than Saratoga Report’s Dan De Federicis showing off “our” (ha!) William Teese — who has family in Clifton Park and had never before been recognized as the Saratoga voice — blaring out of the pedestrian crosswalks of the Las Vegas Strip: “Oh my god it’s the same guy!”
📰 IN BRIEF
Opera Saratoga will perform La traviata at UPH on Dec. 4, following last year’s first holiday performance (La bohème), writes NYS Music.
A decade on, this Skidmore rape victim has turned her trauma into a career in research, reports the Daily Gazette.
PHOTOS: Saturday’s Fall Fest pumpkin roll down Caroline Street, also in the DG.
Local race makes the New York Times.
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