It’s Beginning to Read a Lot Like Christmas …
For us at Bay Weekly, this week’s paper arrives like Christmas.
The wait has been long and ticklish with anticipation. Preparation has kept us busy for days and nights, our keyboards ringing like tools in elfish workshops. Visions of what’s to come have danced in our heads.
Now the wait is over.
With this week’s paper, Christmas arrives.
In this season of sharing, it falls from our hands into yours.
The 48 heavy pages of Season’s Bounty have already escaped your November 21 Bay Weekly, opening your way to six weeks of good cheer.
Excuse us for rushing the season. But the fun is already starting, and we don’t want you to miss any of it.
Perhaps Illuminations — opening the Bounty book on page 4 — forwards you a week or 10 days too fast, what with Thanksgiving’s turkey not yet cooked and this year’s blessings left to be counted. If so, here’s your solution. Skip to page 12 and follow our Day by Day calendar through the Thanksgiving feast. As your turkey digests — if the tryptophan allows you to stay awake — begin your Season’s Bounty anew in full savor of all that’s to come.
But don’t delay too long! Opportunities you won’t want to miss abound on every page. November 21 is the only day you get to walk — not ride — your dog through Sandy Point State Park, illuminated by Lights on the Bay (already open when Season’s Bounty comes to hand).
Timely ads can’t be missed, either. You’ll have to have turned to page 17 to find Vera’s Beach Club’s Thanksgiving Eve seafood buffet. To 9, 10 and 14 to find Black Friday specials at Dickinson Jewelers, Alexander’s Salon and Day Spa and The Cottage in Severna Park.
Your best bet is to drop all else you’re doing this very moment, find a highlighter and a tablet of tiny Post It notes and sit down to mark up your Season’s Bounty. When events suggest rsvp, make your plans and reservations early. You may find some favorites have already sold out. Others are sure to now that Season’s Bounty is on the street.
You’ll be using Season’s Bounty throughout the winter holidays. But it’s distributed only in this issue, and only in the print edition. You won’t find it online. So treasure your copy as you do Christmas.
Every copy is packed with delights. You won’t know what you’ve missed — Invasive Wreath Making at Jug Bay, the Santa Speedo run in Annapolis, Tuba Christmas at Solomons — until you’ve missed it.
Yes, it’s beginning to read a lot like Christmas.
New Writers Are Wishes Come True
As a regular reader, you’ve noticed my recruitment ads wanting News Hounds to “bring to life stories of people, places and things in Chesapeake Country.”
My wishes are coming true. And now you, curious reader, are getting to the good part of the story. Those ads have brought us some three dozen inquiries.
I read each one thoughtfully. Conversation follows, by email and often in person. And, if we’re lucky, a spark strikes, turning into a story.
Lots are nowadays.
This week you read new writer Diane Burt’s first feature story, Farming the Bay. Burt wrote me at the end of October. Then our exchange went missing, and had she not called I’d have lost her. Without either of us knowing, she and I have been Fairhaven neighbors for close to 30 years. She’s a horsewoman, but living so close to the water she’s fascinated with its ways. This story on the changing stage of oystering grew out of our shared fascination. More, we agree, are to come.
Barks and Books is new writer Heidi Schmidt’s second story. Heidi and I had been talking since June, but she has a new baby … and a part-time PR job (that was her field before motherhood) … and her work for Junior League … and her blog. Heidi’s an Annapolitan, a reader, a book club member and a dog lover, so this one on the SPCA book club and dog-and-me memoirist Janet Gary was a natural.
As was Andrew Wildermuth’s last week’s Riding the Beckerman Express. Andrew, still a teen, loves sports and music. He suggested this story way back when; when he finally delivered it — and it read well — I was delighted. As always, we sat side by side and edited it. Lo and behold! We got a cover story. A couple of other good ideas are now in the works.
A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to still another new writer, Bob Melamud, and he, too, is working right now on stories you’ll read in the weeks ahead.
Next week, you’ll be reading more new writers, a pair who took my Thanksgiving bait.
Yes, Santa Clause has come to Bay Weekly.
As this is the season of sharing, we’ll enjoy his gifts together.
Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]