PolishFest Book Fair Announces 2020 Author Line-up

Every year the Latham, NY PolishFest showcases novels, memoirs, non-fiction, poetry and cookbooks that celebrate Polish, Polish-American and Slavic culture. Authors travel from around the world to share their stories and sell their books. Throughout the day on Saturday, June 13 and Sunday, June 14 authors will be doing mini-readings in the PolishFest Demonstration Tent. You can also meet the authors and purchase signed copies of their books each day of PolishFest in the Vendor Hall.

PolishFest is proud to announce its 2020 line-up of authors:

Craig Czury will be presenting various works of poetry. Craig is a poet, editor, and arts advocate who earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from Wilkes University, where he was awarded the prestigious Norris Church Mailer Fellowship. He spent 15 years hitchhiking North America, working in carnivals, warehouses, canneries, construction crews, restaurant kitchens, and organizing community poetry readings. Czury is the author of over 20 books of poetry, and his poems have been translated into 11 languages. He was the 2011 Laureate of the Ditët e Naimit International Albanian Poetry Festival in Macedonia and served from 2010-2012 as Poet Laureate of Berks County, Pennsylvania. His work has won numerous significant awards and fellowships. You can peruse Craig’s 20 titles and order books from his web site.

John Guzlowski will be presenting his crime novel, Suitcase Charlie, which takes place in a hardboiled Polish-American neighborhood in Chicago. John has had a writing career that spans more than 40 years, amassing a significant body of published work in a wide range of genres: poetry, prose, literary criticism, reviews, fiction and nonfiction. Born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, John came to America with his family as a Displaced Person in 1951. His parents had been Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany during the war. Growing up in the tough immigrant neighborhoods around Humboldt Park in Chicago, he met hardware store clerks with Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish cavalry officers who still mourned for their dead horses, and women who had walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians. In much of his work, John remembers and honors the experiences and ultimate strength of these voiceless survivors. John’s work has appeared in numerous top journals and he has won many prestigious awards. To learn more about John’s work and order books, visit his Amazon author’s page at amazon.com/author/johnguzlowski

Tom Schalata will be presenting his novels The Trunk, an historical fiction that chronicles an immigrant family’s journey from Poland to Philadelphia in 1902, and Kolęda: A Polish Christmas Carol, a novel focusing on how a small congregation’s effort to keep their parish from closing in the village of Humniska, Poland. Tom is a 40-year newspaper veteran, who worked for the following Pennsylvania newspapers: The Guardian, Pottstown; The Daily Republican /The Phoenix, Phoenixville; The Daily Local News, West Chester, and The Tri-County Record, Morgantown. He currently resides in Stevens, PA and is a member of St. Stephen's Polish National Catholic Church in Reading, PA. His novels are available on www.amazon.com.

Rebecca Thaddeus will be presenting Coming to Be, is a self-discovery novel about Carly, a Polish-American woman whose parents own a Polish restaurant. As she faces the end of her marriage, she relies on the wisdom of her mother and the help of her two best friends to survive, thrive and succeed in ways she never could have imagined. Rebecca will also discuss her earlier novel, One Amber Bead, is a historical fiction about two cousins, one in the USA and one in Poland, during WWII. Rebecca taught English for 38 years (mostly at the university level) and during that time co-authored three textbooks and a number of journal articles. Now retired, Rebecca writes, edits and assists beginning writers, facilitating writers’ retreats. Her novels are available on www.amazon.com.

David Trawinski will be presenting his novel, The Life of Marek Zaczek: Volume I - Under the Wings of Eagles. It is the story of a peasant child born into a Duke’s Galician estate during the times of the Partitions of Poland, the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The history of the Bar Confederation, Kazimierz Pulaski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko will also be explored as this fictional story is told of a peasant boy's passage to adulthood in the ever-changing world surrounding him and his family. It will be available for purchase later this spring. David is a writer of historical fiction with a distinctly Polish twist. His previous works include the Chopin Trilogy consisting of the volumes The Willow’s Bend, Chasing The Winter’s Wind, and War of the Nocturne’s Widow. These novels tell the story of CIA agent Stanley Wisniewski, and explores his parent’s survival in Poland during World War II, his own career as a spy during the Cold War, and his own involvement in the events leading up to the fall of Communism. David’s novels are available through Amazon (including Kindle), Barnes & Noble (including Nook), Apple iBooks, and through the Polish American Journal bookstore. David’s web site is https://DavidTrawinski.com.

In addition to the authors participating in the PolishFest Book Fair, PolishFest will host numerous authors, journalists, historians and story tellers as part of our rich and varied historical, cultural, and culinary presentations.

PolishFest 2020 will be held Friday, June 12 trough Sunday, June 14 at 250 Old Maxwell Road in Latham, NY. For more information, please visit www.PolishFest-NY.org or follow us at Facebook.com/PolishFestNY and on Twitter and Instagram @PolishFestNY.