A community discussion of the Vermont Reads book, Charity & Sylvia by Tillie Walden. Facilitated by Ben Hewitt. This discussion will take place at the Craftsbury Community Care Center, which is ADA accessible.

About Charity & Sylvia:

Weybridge, Vermont in February 1807 is small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. As an unwed woman with few prospects, Sylvia Drake resides with and cares for her sister’s rambunctious family. But today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant.

So opens Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden, the award-winning, Vermont-based cartoonist and author of Spinning and On a Sunbeam.

Created by Walden from archival materials at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury, and other primary and secondary sources, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America.

For 44 years Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake lived together as life partners in small town Vermont. And in Walden’s graphic novel, America grows alongside these women. We see the arrival of railroads, the terms of 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, and plagues.

About Ben:

Ben Hewitt was born, raised, and currently lives in rural Vermont. He is the author of six books, and a contributing writer to Yankee Magazine, where he authored the popular “Life in the Kingdom” column for over 10 years. He’s taught creative writing at Sterling College in Craftsbury, Vermont, and hosted numerous writing sessions through Writers For Recovery.

When he’s not reading, writing, or cutting firewood, he loves to backcountry ski, ride bicycles and dirt bikes, and cook over an open fire.