Greensboro Arts Alliance/Mirror Repertory will present “The Diary of Anne Frank” for three performances only, August 20-22, at the Hardwick Townhouse on Depot Street in Hardwick, VT.
Of course you’re familiar with The Diary of Anne Frank. And you might know the name Judith Jones. If you are a fan of Julia Child (“Mastering the Art of French Cooking”), you may know that editor Jones is credited with bringing Child’s groundbreaking first book to publication.
In the 1950s the very same Judith Jones, then a young editor at Doubleday, rescued a copy of Anne Frank’s diary from the “slush pile,” a stack of manuscripts that had already been rejected for publication. Jones couldn’t stop reading it, and insisted that the book would find an audience, especially in the United States. She was correct. Over 30 million copies of the book have been sold, translated into 70 languages. Jones more than fulfilled the 13 year-old Anne’s dream of becoming a famous writer.
It turns out that Judith Jones had close ties to Vermont. She graduated from Bennington College and spent summers in Montpelier and Greensboro. She died in her longtime home in Walden, Vermont in 2017. And to close the circle, she served on the advisory board of GAAR/Mirror Repertory, the company that is bringing “The Diary of Anne Frank” to the stage in Hardwick. This production has been dedicated to the memory of Judith Jones.
Read more of the story, with ticket information, here. Judith Jones’s obituary, with many literary tales to tell, replete with names of the many famous authors whom she shepherded, can be found here.
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.