Join us as Cyntha McVay presents her book A Field of My Own: A Memoir of Place. McVay chronicles her intimate, two-decade relationship with a flagging orchard in the Hudson Valley. As a single working mother, she was looking for a weekend escape from New York City, a piece of green, a place to call her own. One blustery winter day, she falls in love with a meadow and her life is forever altered. She renovates the modest cottage, builds a pondish-pool, creates pollinating, native gardens from orphans and strays, learns to forage and runs the tractor. A decade in, as architect and general contractor, she moves an enormous 180-year-old hand-hewn Amish barn to the property to make her sustainable home. Snarky contractors, a tippling partner, puzzling neighbors, concerning caretakers, black rat snakes and coyote chases are minor setbacks; each day brings joy and serenity. This engaging memoir of place is generous and honest, packed with useful know-how and humor. McVay’s writing is vibrant and her photos evocative.
Cynthia McVay grew up in the woods outside Princeton. After decades as a strategy and management consultant, she returned to writing short stories, poetry and essays. Her work appears in dozens of literary journals and anthologies. A lifelong creative and environmentalist, this is Cynthia's first book, a love story and tribute to the Hudson Valley where she has lived for a quarter century.
Mimi Schwartz’s most recent book, Good Neighbors, Bad Times Revisited- Echoes of My Father’s German Village, has just been published in a German edition. Her essays have appeared in Lilith, Ploughshares, Gray Love, The Boston Globe, Assay, Agni, The Missouri Review, and Tikkun, among many others. She is Professor Emerita in Writing at Stockton University and lives in Princeton.
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