Hook ‘em with the lead. Hold ‘em with laughter. Exit with a quip they won’t forget.
So goes beloved humorist Erma Bombeck’s old adage; those words changed Marcy O’Brien’s writing, and now the longtime columnist for three local newspapers — The Post-Journal, The Dunkirk Observer and the Warren Times Observer — has published her first book.
Released in November 2023 through Shorehouse Books, Rounding Third … is a collection of O’Brien’s favorite columns throughout the years. Rounding Third … is available at the Chautauqua Bookstore, and O’Brien will be signing copies from noon to 1:30 p.m. today in the Author’s Alcove.
To open Rounding Third …, O’Brien shares how she rediscovered her love of writing, and the call in the Warren Times Observer seeking area residents interested in contributing monthly columns. O’Brien applied, was hired, and soon the monthly columns became bi-monthly. And then weekly. And then expanded to the two other papers in the region. She was developing a following, and enrolled in writing classes for five summers here at Chautauqua Institution to hone her craft.
Since then, O’Brien has become a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and written feature articles for numerous publications, including The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, The Washington Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Yankee Magazine, Shipmate Magazine and The Chautauquan — all while still writing her weekly columns.
The columns that Western New Yorker turn to every week encompass a range of topics that could only come from the pen of a writer with a lifetime of experiences and a knack for seeing — and celebrating — the elegant in the everyday. With great warmth, O’Brien writes about holiday traditions, family legacies, love and loss; she centers unforgettable characters — sometimes, those characters are cherished pets. She connects current events to memories of her youth, and reflects on aging and romance — and with her warmth comes great wit, as she gives everything from kosher dill pickles to ZsaZsa Gabor’s breakfast mink their due.
That combination of warmth and wit has garnered O’Brien numerous accolades from the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition, named for the prolific, popular American humorist. Since she first started attending the biennial Erma Bombeck Writer’s Conference and entering her work into the competition, O’Brien has garnered honorable mentions in 2006 and 2010 and, just this year, was awarded first prize in the human interest category.
In October 2021, O’Brien wrote a column she titled “A Philosophical Look at Many Birthdays.” It appears toward the end of Rounding Third … and opens with gratitude: “This week another birthday arrived. Thank you, God,” O’Brien wrote.
Thousands of small “weekday happenings” add up to a lifetime, she wrote — “Yes, I do understand you have the flu, but what’s for dinner?,” or “Mom, the doctor can sew this up … right?”
O’Brien takes her reader decade by decade in her lifetime of moments, closing her piece with a list of “journeys of joy” — a trove of deep friendships, a good partner, children, grandchildren.
“My best lifelong travel companions have been Good Friends, Good Fortune, and Love. The usual sorrows, hurts, and disappointments along the way — merely baggage,” she wrote. “The journey is everything.”
