PETER GOULD TO READ FROM HORSE-DRAWN YOGURT

PETER GOULD TO READ FROM HORSE-DRAWN YOGURT at Putney Public
Library

Peter Gould will read from his new non-fiction book about
the Vermont back-to-the-land movement, _Horse-Drawn Yogurt: Stories from
Total Loss Farm, _at Putney Public Library on Thursday, July 13th at
7pm. Marlboro musician Dan MacArthur will also be present at this very
special event to play some songs with Peter. Admission is free. There
will be a donation
basket, and baked goods by donation: for the benefit of Cynthia
Payne-Meyer, a beloved Putney resident and storyteller friend of
Peter’s, who sustained a very serious injury in April. Half of Peter’s
book sales for the evening will also go to Cynthia. Peter will also
auction a complete set of all his published books, from _Burnt Toast_ to
_Horse-Drawn Yogurt!_

Gould was a founding member of the 1970’s “Back-to-the-Land”
commune movement in Vermont, a story he has told in various ways in his
two nationally-known novels, _Burnt Toast _(Alfred A. Knopf, 1971) and
_Write Naked_ (Farrar Straus, 2008), which won the 2009 National Green
Earth Book Award.

_Horse-Drawn Yogurt, _from Green Writers Press, is his first
published non-fiction book. It’s a collection of true-life stories of a
young man’s life on a Vermont farm commune at the height of the utopian
movement.

In _Horse-Drawn Yogurt,_ you’ll learn how locals and
newcomers helped each other out in a pivotal moment of U.S. history, and
how young people, new to the land, learned to cut wood, clear fields,
tend organic gardens, and raise animals, while still belonging to a
national movement against the Vietnam war and for peace and justice
around the world.

“But, this book is _not_ a memoir,” Gould says. “It’s a
comforter. I didn’t throw all those old clothes away. I cut and pieced
them and sewed them together. Now they keep me warm.”

The Vermont Historical Society​ says, “​Peter Gould’s voice
and personality shine through all the stories with wit and incisive
insight.​ His perspective on life in Vermont’s 1970s counterculture is
an invaluable one…incredibly helpful, ​personal and emotional,”

Local timber-framer Dan MacArthur writes, “I read every last
word of every last page, and now I sit here dewy-eyed at your honesty,
insight, and superb use of the language of story. You got me!”

Vermont author and National Book Award Finalist Howard
Norman says, “Gould is the dramaturge of our wordly problems and sense
of wondrous possibility–he is a national treasure.”

The Putney performance is free, accessible, and open to the
public. Gould will read from the book, and will have copies for sale.
They are also available at Everyone’s Books, and at bookstores
throughout the country.

Across Vermont, Gould is known for more than his writing.
Peter received the 2016 Arts Education Award from the Vermont Arts
Council. In the 1970’s he was one of five growers who started the
Brattleboro Farmers Market, now a centerpiece of our community. He
founded and still runs the “Get Thee to the Funnery” youth Shakespeare
camp in the Northeast Kingdom, directs at the New England Youth Theatre,
and he will always be the smaller half of the legendary physical comedy
team of Gould & Stearns.

Putney Library is located at 55 Main Street in Putney, VT. This program
is free and open to the public.