Culture
‘Growing Up Athens’ Release Party Planned for Nov. 25
< < Back to ?p=204511Saturday, Nov. 25 will mark the official launch party for the release of Growing Up Athens, a book that chronicles the experience of coming of age in the region through the documentation of over 250 individual stories. The event is planned from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Southeast Ohio History Center (24 W. State Street) and will include readings from the book, a slide show of pictures, and even a very special video of local musician Bruce Dalzell who wrote a song for the book.
The volume is over three years in the making, having been painstakingly planned by a group of volunteers and co-edited by Jan Hodson, Janice Huwe and Linda Philips.
![](https://woub.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Screen-Shot-2017-11-20-at-4.03.45-PM-1024x705.png)
“I’ve been telling people for a while now that this whole thing is like birthing a huge baby,” Hodson said in an interview with WOUB a little over a week prior to the launch party.
Bringing the book to fruition has taken some major doing, like raising some $32,000 for the publisher, and managing to sell some 350 copies pre-sale.
The release party for the book was planned for the weekend after Thanksgiving precisely because it is a holiday weekend, a time when Athens High School graduates traditionally come back to the area to celebrate the season.
![](https://woub.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Screen-Shot-2017-11-20-at-4.04.30-PM-1024x811.png)
“We’re so happy with the book,” said Hodson. “It really is a high quality publication, and one that I think people are really going to have for a long time. It’s been a great project all the way around.”