Magazine’s Launch Party Drew A Crowd Ready To Celebrate

All Things Newtown In Arts & Literature

By Eliza Hallabeck

With smiles, and at least one flashing camera, the staff and editorial team of The Newtowner, a new arts and literary magazine focused on all things Newtown, welcomed guests to C.H. Booth’s meeting room on Saturday, December 11.

“The mission of The Newtowner,” Managing Editor Aimee Pokwatka at the event, “which is published by Literati Publishing, is to celebrate, showcase, and promote new and established writers.”

As seen each week in The Newtown Bee, Ms Pokwatka continued, people interviewed for Snapshots are likely to have an answer to “What do you like best about Newtown?” that speak to Newtown’s sense of community.

“As we gather here to celebrate The Newtowner,” Ms Pokwatka continued during the early evening event, “we are not just celebrating a new magazine or the local arts scene, but we are also celebrating our community and the ways that art can bring us all together.”

The premier copy of The Newtowner was issued at the start of December. The magazine had been in the works since the spring under the guiding hands of Editor-in-Chief Georgia Monaghan, six other founders, and the magazine’s staff. The Newtowner shines a light on local artwork, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, music, and photography. It is a quarterly publication.

When Ms Monaghan spoke to the gathered guests, she acknowledged Newtown’s unique literary, artistic and community spirit “dating back to the philanthropist Mary Hawley, who laid the foundation for Newtown’s excellence in education and the arts.”

Reading from her Editor’s Note in The Newtowner’s Winter 2010-2011 edition, Ms Monaghan asked how many town libraries have a section dedicated to its own authors and illustrators?

Ms Monaghan also thanked everyone, who has helped The Newtowner come to fruition, including the advertisers and publishers along with C.H. Booth Library.

“The library has just been a wonderful, wonderful, institution,” said Ms Monaghan, “and it’s really been the physical representation of the arts in Newtown.”

Ms Monaghan said she was more than thankful for the businesses that believed in The Newtowner before she could show them a printed representation.

“The magazine wouldn’t be what it is, without the wonderful artwork, writings, poetry, that are represented here,” said Ms Monaghan, while thanking the contributing writers and artists in the first edition of the magazine.

Copies of The Newtowner are available for $5 at C.H. Booth Library at 25 Main Street; Drug Center Pharmacy, 61 Church Hill Road; Villarina Pasta & Fine Foods, 187 South Main Street; and The Newtown Bee’s 5 Church Hill Road building.

More information on The Newtowner is available at www.newtownermagazine.homestead.com.