Who We Are

Wyn Snow and Eric Hart formed SnowHart Publications, LLC™ in order to publish both our own writing and that of friends.

Wyn Snow

Wyn Snow’s love of reading goes back as far as she can remember. The local library was eight city blocks away—roughly two-fifths of a mile. When she was nine, her parents gave her permission to go by herself.

She happily trekked there twice a week, carrying as many books as her youth-reader card would allow. For her young legs and short arms, this was quite an expedition! Each time, she devoured that pile of books and returned for more.

Her favorite books included Winnie the Pooh, Charlotte’s Web, The Velveteen Rabbit, and especially the Pogo cartoons, which poke fun at people’s self-aggrandizing foibles.

Then there was the Nancy Drew series—which was revolutionary for the 50’s despite having been in print for twenty-plus years. A girl detective! Back then, women’s careers were limited to nurse, secretary, teacher, actress, librarian, stewardess, and “lady of the night”. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem were still several years in the future.

Wyn’s forays into fiction writing began as a child, sitting on the floor of her bedroom and making up stories about her dolls and their interactions. Fast forward three decades, she was laid off from a job and decided to spend a week immersed in writing fiction—and loved it!

Unfortunately, self-confidence issues prevented her from finishing several novels over the ensuing decades. However, she has persisted, and plans to finish and publish at least one of these. Her memoir, In the Shadow of the Rage Monster, is the first of her books that we will publish.

Eric Hart

Eric Hart grew up steeped in theater. His dad and an uncle were both actors, along with several members of previous generations. This inspired his love of theater, where he spent much of his career as an actor, lighting director, and tech person.

During his boyhood, Eric lived with his grandfather, whose outer persona was rather stern, but Eric was fascinated by the man’s storytelling—and the apple has not fallen far from this tree. Eric has become a storyteller himself. That and a passion for gaming resulted in decades of scenarios for his players in D&D and Cyberpunk. He has written sourcebook material for BattleTech.

Over the past two decades, Eric has been extensively involved in local theater. He has produced, directed, and acted in several plays at the Pasture Prime Players in Charlton. He also served as lighting and technical director, and was a member of its board for over a decade. More recently, he has also directed and acted in plays at the Gateway Players Theater in Southbridge.

How We Got Here

Classic Greek plays are in the public domain, so anyone can produce them, right? Wrong—when it comes to translations!

Translations are still protected by copyright, or at least they were when Wyn’s parents were involved with the Soho Repertory Theatre in New York City. The theatre owners wanted to produce Aristophane’s Assemblywomen, but back then, Soho Rep was an off-off Broadway venue (fewer than 100 seats). Small budgets were the norm, so they hoped to avoid paying royalties.

“We can translate that for you,” the Snows said, despite not knowing a word of Greek.

They compared several published versions of the play. When the words matched, they kept those. When the words didn’t match, they looked them up in translation dictionaries—and found that Aristophane’s original script was far more bawdy than the modern ones! So they used the bawdy variety. The result was a rip-roaringly funny production of the classic play.

This innovative outlook on life taught Wyn to think outside the box in dealing with life’s challenges. Thus, since it typically takes years to (a) find an agent, (b) have that agent succeed in selling a book, and then (c) go through the production process, whereupon (d) one has to market the book oneself anyway, Wyn and Eric decided to self-publish. Hence, SnowHart Publications.

Our Passions

Eric is especially committed to supporting the work of local, contemporary playwrights. Even when Covid throws a monkey wrench into the process!

In the spring of 2020, Eric and Ed Humphries, author of Dad’s Dance, were on schedule to begin rehearsals for the play being produced at Pasture Prime Players of Charlton. Eric was the director, and Ed was producer as well as the playwright. The two had already collaborated during the writing process, and had a read-through of the script-in-progress.

In the following year, a glitch in scheduling at Pasture Prime sent Dad’s Dance into limbo. Whereupon Old Sturbridge Village expressed interest in doing the play as a dinner theater event. This sounded marvelous!

Unfortunately, this arrangement fell through as well. Luckily, the Gateway Players Theater in Southbridge heard of Dad’s Dance’s plight. Within 48 hours, a new deal was struck to produce the play there. The resulting performances in 2022 earned a rave review at METRMAG.

SnowHart Publications gives us the opportunity to publish play scripts by our friends and family. The first such scripts will be the Snows’ translation of Aristophane’s Assemblywomen, together with Billie Snow’s The Cyberspace Vampire.