(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Author and humorist Roy Blount Jr will speak to Columbia County Habitat for Humanity supporters at a brunch on Sunday, August 4, 2013, at 11:30am at Helsinki Hudson. The celebrated author of 23 books will speak about his latest, Alphabetter Soup — The Joy of Text. The brunch will benefit Habitat’s next project, the construction of its sixth home on Mill Street in Hudson.
Brenda Adams, Habitat executive director, noted that the new build “will complete our Mill Street Campaign, begun in 2006. The five homes already there and the families who own them have created a real community. Owners of the non-Habitat houses on the block have also improved their properties.”
Tickets for the brunch, which begins at 11:30 a.m., are $40. There will also be a raffle with lots of local items. For information and reservations, call Habitat at 518-828-0892.
Blount’s accomplishments are as varied and extensive as his interests. Among his more recent books are Hail, Hail Euphoria: Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup; Alphabet Juice, the prequel to Alphabetter Juice; Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South; and Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans. The New York Times said the New Orleans book “delivers the goods — a wild, unpredictable ramble through a wild, unpredictable town.”
The author doesn’t confine himself to a single medium or genre. In addition to being a panelist on the public radio game show, Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me, Roy Blount is an ex-president of the Authors Guild, a member of Pen and the Fellowship of Southern Authors, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, a Boston Public Library Literary Light, a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary and an original member of the Rock Bottom Remainders. He’s also a contributing writer of The Oxford American and a regular columnist for Garden and Gun.
Raised in Decatur, Georgia, he and his wife, the painter Joan Griswold, live in Great Barrington, Mass.
Columbia County Habitat for Humanity is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, building affordable housing for working families while strengthening communities across the county. This spring, the organization completed the Columbia Passive Townhouses, New York State’s first affordable homes built to the stringent, energy-saving Passive House standards. Designed by Dennis Wedlick of BarlisWedlick Architects, the revolutionary Columbia Passive Townhouses need 90% less heating energy and 70% less energy for all other household uses.
The passive townhouses are Phase III of Habitat’s Columbia Street Campaign, launched in 2010. Campaign volunteers built two townhouses each year on Columbia Street, converting empty, often derelict lots into six homes. This program was designed to extend the revitalization of Hudson’s commercial core, Warren Street, to the neighborhood to the north. Residents attest to the impact of the new homes on Columbia Street, which is now safer and more welcoming for pedestrian traffic and all the families who live there.
The new house on Mill Street will be Columbia County Habitat’s 17th home. Habitat also operates a ReStore, where new or gently-used building materials, appliances, tools, furniture, lighting and other home goods are sold.