Blue Fountain

A dozen travelers meet at a crossroads and begin swapping tales. One story begets another, and soon the stream is flowing. The result is Blue Fountain, a collection of stories by the Crossroads Writers Club of Fontainebleau, France.

The authors of Blue Fountain come from seven different countries, and their twenty-three stories circle the globe. In them, you will meet a Japanese salaryman, a Colombian planter’s wife, and an African trickster. You will travel to Yorkshire, England; a Corsican village, and a Welsh mining town. You will encounter a woodland prophet who quotes Shakespeare and a London widower who falls in love with a Kosovar seamstress. What the stories have in common is the native curiosity that drives both the storyteller and the traveler.

The book’s title is a reference to the magnificent Forêt de Fontainebleau, the group’s meeting place, a region steeped in history. Home to several generations of French kings, the forest has cast its spell over royal huntsmen, nineteenth-century landscape painters, and modern rock climbers. Small wonder that it would bring together this eclectic group of writers and inspire their debut volume.