“Cittandino in Villa” Or “The Economy of the Citizen in the Country” By Lancelot Schaubert is the story of Vincenzo Tanara, an obsessive collector of rare plants who often resorts to theft to obtain his prize specimens. He encounters kudzu, a vine native to Japan that had been released into the up-time USA and had run rampant, overtaking and strangling out native vegetation. Vincenzo steals some cuttings and begins to sell them to rich garden owners, a decision he later comes to regret . . .

“A Troubled Journey” By Mark Roth-Whitworth sees the return of Marianne the lace maker as she leaves Paris to help her best friend Beatrix visit her ill mother in the distant village of Mieux. The way is fraught with danger, an attack by vagabonds slows their progress, King Gaston’s thuggish Musketeers create chaos along the road, and trouble lurks at every turn! Come follow these brave women as they make their way across a nation in the throes of political upheaval.

Grantville’s self proclaimed resident philosopher Jimmy Dick finds that shooting his mouth off is finally going to have some consequences as the clansmen ‘War Leader Lord Jimmy’ invited to Grantville begin to actually show up and he has to deal with them! Big hearted Jimmy does his best to make things right, see how it all shakes out in Terry Howard’s “Clan MacDonald”.

William Shakespeare’s legacy lives on through his grandsons, young travelling playwrights and performers who concoct a merry mix of classic material and up-time themes to entertain down-timer audiences in “The Play’s the Thing” By Virginia DeMarce.

In George Grant’s “Waving Goodbye”, the geological repercussions of the Ring of Fire event’s unearthly ring walls take an unexpected turn that has a dramatic effect on the local populace from both times.

Sometimes, you just want the kids to go to sleep. Bethanne Kim explains how that turns into an entire project in “Johann and the Purple Pencil.”

Gorg Huff’s scholarly article “Economics are not Abstract” explores the unique economic challenges that Grantville’s presence in the 17th century both causes and solves.

Finally, we proudly welcome the debut of our first regular column, “The Mannington Minute” by Jackie Britton Lopatin, 1632 author and an actual resident of the West Virginia town that Granvtville is based on! The column promotes the many interesting things that are happening in Mannington these days, and will give our writers fresh inspiration for stories.