Tingley to speak at Crandall Library on Tuesday

Ken Tingley, the retired editor of The Post-Star, will be speaking about his new book - The Last American Editor, Vol. 2 - at Crandall Public Library on Tuesday, December. 12 at 7 p.m.

The book is a follow-up to Tingley’s first collection of columns published in 2021 by Something or Other Publishing.

Tingley, who retired from The Post-Star in 2020 after a 32-year career at the newspaper, published The Last American Editor in 2021.

The follow-up includes 90 more columns written over a 30-year period. The book is once again divided into six sections - People; Hometown, USA; Life & Death; Sports; The World; and My Life.

Will Doolittle, another retired editor from The Post-Star, has written the foreword for the second volume.

“Readers will find in this book stories of men and women from the upstate Glens Falls, N.Y. region that resonate with universal human feeling — horror and grief, altruism and inspiration, disappointment and loss,” Doolittle writes in the foreword. “Ken’s reporting unearths what lies beneath the surface of the community, a model of journalism that is vanishing.”

This is Tingley’s third book and follows up on The Last American Newspaper published in 2022. It explored the impact great journalism had in making Glens Falls and its surrounding communities better places to live.

“Ken Tingley's powerful writing crackles with the type of confidence that grows from a deep immersion in his own community,” Former Sports Illustrated writer Tim Layden said about the new book. “The unspoken truth in his work is that his style of local writing is a dying art; read him to understand its power."

Tingley continues to write a column three times a week on the substack platform - The Front Page (kentingley.substack.com) - while speaking to groups and at events all around the region.

“The columns compiled here reveal a committed journalist serving his community - by exulting in its triumphs, taking note of its shortcomings and always advocating for its hopes,” former Times Union editor Rex Smith said. “Ken's sensitive and insightful probing of the daily lives of people in the southern Adirondacks turns into heartfelt storytelling of the sort that is too often missing from contemporary American journalism.”

Tingley will be speaking about the role that columns, editorials and commentary contribute to the discussion of community issues.