Jan Pogue threw her own goodbye party last Friday evening, closing down the Vineyard Stories publishing business she and her late husband John Walter began in 2005. If they were initially fraught with anxiety about their startup, it turned out that Jan and John’s idea — working closely with Vineyard authors to help them put their cherished projects in print and on public view — made an admirable success of their imprint from the outset. Some 46 beautifully crafted and lovingly written, illustrated, and edited books, reflecting all manner of Island life and Island living, came out of this rare collaboration with Vineyard writers. Jan has decided to end Vineyard Stories’ run on her own terms, and move on to her next life, as she has put it.
For books to live, they need to be read, and to be read they need to be published, a heroic challenge in today’s chaotic and hostile commercial publishing environment. Vineyard Stories brought skill, experience, rigor, and also love to local authors and projects, and turned manuscripts (or cartons of unorganized material) into beautiful objects. It must have seemed a miracle for authors to find the talent and passion, and perhaps most of all the abundant class, that Jan and John brought to Vineyard Stories.