Author with local roots to host ‘Books and Bottles’ fair at Black Birch Vineyard

An author with Belchertown roots is celebrating the release of his debut novel – which also takes place in the Belchertown area – with two local book tour events this month.

Michael Parzymieso, the author of the new book “The Dale,” will host a book fair called “Books and Bottles 2025” at Black Birch Vineyard in Hatfield from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 17. The event will include readings by authors with local connections who will mix and mingle with guests, and guests will also be able to purchase wine and signed copies of the authors’ books.

“The Dale” is a supernatural thriller about a girl in Cold Springs (the original name of Belchertown was Cold Spring) who doesn’t know if she is possessed. As Parzymieso described it, the book is about “the power of faith and friendship in the face of malevolent evil, and it’s about that time in your life when the people you believe in most … will help you find the answers.”

“Long after the trauma of her kidnapping leaves her committed to the pediatric psychiatric ward, Caroline Sullivan is suddenly released. She is freed, but not free. Caroline’s psychiatrist insists she should be recommitted. Her priest fears that an ancient evil has infested her soul,” according to the press release.

Parzymieso, a writer and high school English teacher who now lives in Buffalo, N.Y., grew up in Belchertown from 1981 to 1988, when he was in middle and high school – the same age as Sullivan. The Quabbin Reservoir itself plays a key role in the novel’s plot as the setting of “The Dale” itself, said to be a hamlet left behind when the Swift River was dammed to create the Quabbin, flooding four towns, displacing several thousand people, and forcing thousands of remains to be moved from cemeteries and reburied.

“One place survived, long rumored but never found, a secret place far into the woods,” the book says. “A place they called, The Dale.”

The novel name-drops other area locations as well, (for example, “She made it all the way down Old Enfield Road and crossed Berkshire County Route 9, stopping only to look over the small bridge railing above Jabish Brook.”)

Parzymieso launched “The Dale” in May at what he called “a knock-it-out-of-the-park, as-good-as-it-can-possibly-get event.” The mark of success for a new book, he said, isn’t when a publisher or editor praises the work, but, rather, “when people you don’t know start putting five-star reviews [online] or start texting you or calling you and saying, ‘Man, that was a great book.’”

That gave him the confidence to reach out to the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley to put together a small book fair as a tour event. They connected him to the Straw Dog Writers Guild in Amherst, who suggested a number of local authors for him to reach out to.

“They were extremely gracious and said, ‘Of course we’ll join up,’” Parzymieso said. “... It was an event we’re just trying to break even with, and then all of a sudden, it becomes something very special.”

He knew Black Birch as a venue because he and a group of friends visit it on an annual trip to eastern New England, and its size and wines made it “a no-brainer,” Parzymiesko said.

Books and Bottles will feature readings from authors Ellen Meeropol, Jacqueline Sheehan, Mattea Kramer, Ed Orzechowski, Jordan Hall, Michael White, and Linda Cardillo.

Orzechowski will be reading from his most recent book, “Becoming Darlene: The Story of Belchertown Patient #4952,” which chronicles the traumatic experiences that an intellectually disabled woman named Darlene Rambeau experienced as a child at the Belchertown State School. The reason he signed up, even though he had never met Parzymieso before, was because “I just think it's a unique event. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it’s with other writers, so I think it’ll be fun,” he said.

After Books and Bottles, the next local event on Parzymieso’s tour – the last of the New England tour, in fact – will be a book signing and reading at Clapp Memorial Library in Belchertown on Wednesday, July 23, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. After that, Parzymieso hopes to expand his tour outside of the region. As an independently published author, he has to do the majority of the work in promoting his book, but, he said, “As long as you feel good about the book, as long as it’s a good book, and as long as it’s selling, it just makes sense to keep pushing.”

In any case, he said, the responses his book has gotten so far are “a testament to the artistic and literary community in western Massachusetts that’s making this thing fly.”

“The Dale,” published by NFB Amelia Publishing, is available for $16.95 via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.