Saturday, April 11, 2009

Ice Cream and Books and Alan

The last post's mention of the Washington Post Magazine reminded me of an article I read a while back that is worthy of sharing here. The story is about Andrew Gifford, a D.C. publisher who's family founded and ran Gifford's Ice Cream and Candy, a franchise of old-fashioned ice cream parlors that once thrived in the D.C. area. Gifford's went from being the hottest spot on a Saturday night in the 1950s to bankrupt in 1985.

Despite suffering from a long-time painful chronic illness, in 2002 Gifford began a small literary press, the Santa Fe Writer's Project. Writer Ray Robertson is quoted in an interview, "Publishers like Andrew Gifford at SFWP are [expletive] heroes." The press published The Fires, written by GMU's own Alan Cheuse. Cheuse is mentioned and quoted in the article. (Also, interviewed here by SFWP, on his novellas.)

Check it out here:

4 comments:

  1. KVK! Glad to hear from ya!

    Wow, that was a good article. It makes me want never to complain about anything ever again. And . . . everyone should buy titles from Santa Fe Writer's Project.

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  2. Ah, awesome article. Ditto everything DH said, plus I want ice cream now.

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  4. (Whoops...I'm the typo king this morning.) Thanks for the mention!

    Priyanka, if you're in the DC area, check out York Castle (www.yorkcastleicecream.com). Started by the manager of the Silver Spring Gifford's (and with our family's help), it's the closest you can get to the original taste of Gifford's. Unlike the modern stores, York Castle does have the original recipes and uses some of the original production methods.

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