Author! Author!

Michael Cunningham’s The Hours won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1999. He was the Literary Society’s guest speaker in January 2000.

The written word, one of man’s greatest accomplishments, has been evolving for thousands of years. How fortunate, then, that we have a society in Indian River County that exists solely to celebrate the literature of our time.

The beginnings of the Indian River Literary Society can be traced to the sale of the Beach Bank of Vero Beach to Northern Trust in 1995, when Bob Bauchman came up from Coral Gables to assume the presidency. Bob was familiar with the Brickell Avenue Literary Society in Miami which was established in 1986 as the first Northern Trust-sponsored society.

When not involved in banking matters, Bob is an avid reader and began entertaining thoughts of a literary society in Indian River County. He was well aware of the popularity of the Miami society and was sure that a similar organization would flourish here. He was further encouraged by Chuck and Terry Pistole who had been members of the Brickell Avenue Society before moving to Vero Beach.

In May 1997 an advisory committee was formed consisting of Bauchman, Charlie Cooper, an adjunct professor of English at Indian River Community College, developer Lenora Gonzales, retired businessman Chuck Pistole, Larry Reisman, editor of the Press Journal, local realtor Charlotte Terry and Mary Beth Vallar, vice president of marketing at the bank.

Read the entire article in the November 2006 issue