Author: Saratoga TODAY

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Northshire Bookstore this week celebrates 10 years in its Saratoga Springs location, at 424 Broadway. 

Northshire Bookstore was founded by Ed and Barbara Morrow on Main Street in Manchester Center, Vermont in September 1976. The Saratoga Springs location opened in August 2013. Both Northshire Bookstore locations are now owned and operated by sisters Cathleen Ihasz, Nicole Ihasz and Ashley Ihasz-Austin.

“Saratoga Springs understood the value of a downtown bookstore and effectively lobbied, invested and supported us, later pouring into the aisles with friends and family in celebration of their new bookstore,” says Nancy Scheemaker, general manager of the Saratoga store. “We are of course deeply grateful for this passion and vision. We are grateful also for a decade of support that we could only have dreamed of prior to experiencing the real thing.”

Over the last decade, Northshire has presented more than a 1,000 author events in Saratoga Springs, hosted children’s programming and brought authors into area schools, partnered with local not-for-profits, and has worked with our customers to provide free children’s books to area children via our Book Angels program. 

For more information about the store and events, visit www.northshire.com, or call 518-682-4200.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Academy of American Poets announced this week it is awarding a combined total of $1.1 million to its 2023 Poet Laureate Fellows. 

Joseph Bruchac, earlier this year selected as the first Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs, is among the 23 recipients across the nation chosen to receive $50,000 each to lead public poetry programs in their respective communities in 2023–24.

Bruchac will work with students at Saratoga Springs schools to create a poetry anthology that draws on Indigenous history, connecting them with Native students at the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation and the Onondaga Nation School. He will also arrange visits to Saratoga Springs and reservation schools by contemporary Native poets, provide poetry books to students, and bring together Native and non-Native students to read at Saratoga Arts. 

Bruchac has authored more than 186 books in several genres and is a member of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation Elders Council. He is the founder of the Greenfield Review Press, a pioneering publisher of Native American and African writers and bilingual (English/Abenaki) books. 

“The Academy of American Poets celebrates the unique position poets laureate occupy at state and local levels, elevating the possibilities poetry can bring to community conversations and reminding us that our national spirit can be nourished by the power of the written and spoken word,” said Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the Academy, in a statement. “We are inspired by these projects—which include intergenerational workshops, city- and statewide festivals, community-generated publications, and more—that the 23 Fellows will carry out, and grateful to the Mellon Foundation and the nonprofit organizations supporting this life-affirming work.”

Through its Poet Laureate Fellowship program, the Academy of American Poets — a leading financial supporter of poets in the United States — has awarded a total of $5.45 million in fellowships to one hundred and four poets’ laureate since 2019, plus more than $360,000 in matching grants to secure project support from forty-seven local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. 

ALBANY — Squeeze kick off their Fall North American Tour with the Psychedelic Furs Thursday, Sept. 7 at The Egg. The tour continues with an appearance at Radio City Music Hall the next night.  

The band – then known as U.K. Squeeze – made their first indentation upon the music scene in the spring of 1978, with the release of their debut album (on red vinyl) and a string of weekend shows at CBGB’s, immediately following a similar three-day engagement at the Bowery Club by the B-52’s – themselves riding the buzz of their small label debut single “Rock Lobster.”  

Squeeze debut L.P. featured “Take Me I’m Yours,” and was followed by a cadre of U.K. hits, including “Cool for Cats,” “Up the Junction,” “Pulling Mussels From A Shell,” “Black Coffee in Bed,” and “Labeled With Love,” and made an indelible mark on the U.S. in the early 1980’s with the release of their classic hits, “Tempted,” “Hourglass,” and “853-5937” (from East Side Story.) 

Squeeze disbanded in 1999, then reunited in 2007. In addition to Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, Squeeze currently features keyboardist Stephen Large and drummer Simon Hanson (since 2007), percussionist/backing vocalist Steve Smith (since 2017) along with pedal/lap steel guitarist Melvin Duffy (since 2019) and Owen Biddle, former bassist for The Roots, (who joined in 2020.)

The Psychedelic Furs, led by vocalist and songwriter Richard Butler and his bass-wielding brother Tim, quickly developed as one of the premiere bands at college and alternative radio, scoring hits with “Love My Way,” “Pretty In Pink,” “Heaven,” “The Ghost In You,” and “Heartbreak Beat.” In total, the Furs have released eight studio albums, spawning several compilations, a boxed set, a live concert DVD, and inspiring one of the most iconic motion picture soundtracks of all time. 

Ticket info, go to: theegg.org.