Bluffton author, Elaine Sommers Rich, who recently celebrated her 89th birthday, will hold a book signing and reading at Book ReViews, 123 S. Main St., Bluffton, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 25, according to Dr. Christina Walton, store manager.

The book, published in 1966 by Herald Press was released earlier this year by Wipf and Stock Publishers and is titled: “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow: Youth Serve in a Mental Hospital.”

Rich gave three summers of her college years to Mennonite Central Committee-sponsored project, including volunteering in a mental hospital. The book’s ISBN: 978-1498218986.

Rich describes her book this way:
"I wanted to tell a story about adolescents who knew what they were doing and why," she said, concerning the book. Along with Esther Miller, a voluntary service unit member, Rich’s book takes readers onto the receiving ward of a state mental hospital in the summer of 1948 following her freshman year in college.

"The charge attendant on Esther's ward has a treat 'em rough attitude toward the mentally ill, an attitude which immediately poses serious problems for Esther.

"Her emotional life is further complicated when she becomes infatuated with tall, blond Philip Landis 'from the East.' One of Esther's dreams comes true when she gets to set up an art project for patients as part of a therapy program initiated by the VS unit.”

About the author
A prolific writer, she has 48 composition journals of daily writing reflections and 12 volumes from her other writings. For over 40 years she contributed biweekly columns to the Mennonite Weekly Review in addition to hundreds of poems and articles.

She is still an active frequent contributor to numerous religious journals, for example, Timbre, Christian Living, The Mennonite, Mennonite Life, Youth’s Christian Companion, and international journals Poet (Madras, India); Japan Christian Quarterly (Tokyo, Japan) and a poem “For an Uncle” in International Poetry of the International Writers and Artists Association.

Rich edited Breaking Bread Together: A Devotional for Women (1958); authored Hannah Elizabeth (1964), Am I This Countryside? (1980); Mennonite Women: A Story of God’s Faithfulness 1683 – 1983 (1983); Spiritual Elegance: A Biography of Pauline Krehbiel Raid (1987); Prayers for Everyday (1990) and Pondered in her Heart - Hannah’s Book: Inside and Outside (1998).

Rich contributed a chapter “Stewardship of Intellect” for A Farthing in Her Hand (1964); chapter “I Am a Debtor” in They Met God: A Number of Conversion Accounts and Personal Testimonies of God’s Presence and Leading in the Lives of His Children (1964) by J.C. Wenger (editor).

She contributed numerous poems to edited volumes and anthologies, for example: Born Giving Birth: Creative Expressions of Mennonite Women (1991) poem “Woman Song”; and in Prayers of Women (1965) “Morning Prayer.”

She is a Goshen College graduate and holds a master’s degree from Michigan State University. She was an instructor in English and Speech at Goshen College and Bethel College and an English lecturer at the International Christian University (1966) where co-sponsored a student poetry circle in Tokyo, Japan.

She was a founder of the Bluffton Creative Writers in 1979.