Join Nerd Nite Wilmington at Wilmington Brew Works. Wednesday, October 22 | 6-8 p.m.
About this month’s talks:
THE SATOR SQUARE: Where wordplay, witchcraft, and Christopher Nolan meet to get creative with author Matt Lake
Matt Lake is the author of Weird Pennsylvania, Monsters of Maryland and Delaware, and How Computers Work. He has been writing books about topics that interest him since 1993, and his tastes keep changing so you never know what is around the corner.
The Poison Book Project with Ashley Vernon and Brayden Moore
Are arsenic and other heavy metals really found in old books? How common are they? How dangerous are they? Why were they used at all? Ashley Vernon and Brayden Moore, project assistants for the Poison Book Project, will share the colorful history of Victorian bookbinding and its legacy on our bookshelves today.
Haunted History of Delaware with author Josh Hitchens
Josh Hitchens was born and raised in Sussex County, Delaware. He has been a storyteller for the Ghost Tour of Philadelphia since 2007. Josh is also a theater director, actor, playwright, and teaching artist who has been called “Philadelphia’s foremost purveyor of the macabre” by local press. His first book, HAUNTED HISTORY OF DELAWARE, was released in July 2021 by Arcadia Publishing, followed by HAUNTED HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA in 2022 and EERIE DELAWARE: CHILLING TALES FROM THE FIRST STATE in 2024. His fourth book, GOING DARK: HAUNTED PLACES, UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, AND HORRIFIC HISTORY will be published in 2026.
The Poison Book Project is an interdisciplinary research initiative at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and the University of Delaware. This ongoing investigation explores the materiality of Victorian-era publishers’ bindings. Research focuses on identifying potentially toxic pigments used in bookbinding components and how to handle and store potentially toxic collections more safely.