Description Norwich Bookstore Author Talk 10/19/23 Rick Winston in Conversation with Steve R. Bissette -- Save Me A Seat! Rick Winston's lifelong love of movies led to the creation of one of Vermont's leading cultural institutions, the Savoy Theater in Montpelier, Vermont. With humor and heart, he takes us behind the scenes of the hard and rewarding work of building a film venue over decades in a grateful community. Save Me a Seat is the story of how a vibrant film culture took root in unlikely surroundings, and the story of how a boy from the New York City suburbs landed in Vermont and became a preeminent film programmer and historian in the Green Mountain State. Rick Winston grew up in Yonkers, New York, and became hooked watching old films on TV at a young age. He went to Columbia College and University of California, Berkeley, where there were many opportunities to catch up on films while putting off writing English Literature papers. He moved to Vermont in 1970 and shortly afterward founded the Lightning Ridge Film Society, which morphed into the Savoy Theater in 1981. He was one of the founders of Montpelier’s Green Mountain Film Festival and was its Programming Director until 2012. He is the author of "Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era 1946-1960." (2018, Rootstock Publishing). Stephen R. Bissette, a pioneer graduate of the Joe Kubert School, was an instructor at the Center for Cartoon Studies from 2005-2020. He is renowned for his work on Swamp Thing, Taboo (launching From Hell and Lost Girls), '1963,' S.R. Bissette’s Tyrant®, co-creating John Constantine, and creating the world's second '24-Hour Comic' (invented by Scott McCloud for Bissette). Comics creator (recently in Spongebob Comics, Paleo, Awesome ‘Possum), illustrator (Vermont Ghost Guide, Vermont Monster Guide), author (Teen Angels & New Mutants, short fiction in Hellboy: Odd Jobs, The New Dead, Mister October, co-author of Comic Book Rebels, Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman, The Monster Book: Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Bissette’s latest includes Cryptid Cinema™, Cryptid Cinema™: A Boggy Creek Primer, the ‘Midnight Movie Monograph’ David Cronenberg’s The Brood, sketchbooks Thoughtful Creatures and Brooding Creatures, and co-authoring Studio of Screams.