I have been an editor and writer at Yankee for 45 years, and there has never been a writer with a more passionate readership in the magazine’s nearly 90 years than Edie Clark.

Her essays, first “The Garden at Chesham Depot” and then “The View from Mary’s Farm,” brought her everyday world into the homes of strangers with a touching intimacy. Her seemingly casual yet exquisitely crafted essays, often only a page or two, made readers see what she saw, feel what she felt.

Edie lived and wrote from her “Mary’s Farm” homestead on a dirt road on the outskirts of Harrisville. She described it this way: “If you could look out my front window, you would see a broad, humped hay field. Beyond it is a stretch of forest, mostly tall oak trees and some pine. And then rising above both is the mountain, Mount Monadnock, a long stretch of rock much wider than it is high, its rocky peak exposed like the blade of an old knife.”

Readers followed along with Edie’s daily life as she wrote about the changing weather, the wild animals who visited and the misadventures of her dogs: Dune, Mayday and finally Harriett. She once wrote, “I find that writing the next essay is my best day.” Each time she sat down to write, it affirmed that her farm was her “sanctuary from a world that sometimes changes too fast for me.”

But her range also included people and places throughout New England. Her feature stories touched on issues like land development and water pollution; her exploration of the Connecticut River needed 20,000 words and five issues of Yankee to share all that she had discovered. Edie possessed the rare gift of finding people whose lives were virtually unknown but whose stories, she felt, needed to be told – whether a small-town librarian or a sheep farmer or a master carver of tombstones.

“I listen to people’s stories and I never tire of it,” she once wrote. “I am constantly amazed at people’s lives, how the most ordinary people come alive with the most unusual stories.”

For years, it was the rare issue of Yankee that did not feature an Edie Clark portrait of a person or place, but also writing as tender as when she wrote about caring for her mother in her final days.

When a series of small strokes seven years ago forced Edie from her life at Mary’s Farm and into a small room in a local nursing care facility, she found solace in her friends, who took her out for what she called “jailbreaks.”

And Edie’s readers never forgot what she meant to them. Whenever Yankee reprinted one of her essays and urged readers to write her, they responded. Hundreds of cards and letters poured in, which Edie’s friends would read to her; these notes could make her smile and tear up at the same time. Readers would tell Edie about their own lives, often writing, “Although we have never met, I feel like I know you in so many ways.”

On Saturday, Sept. 28, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, writers who have long admired Edie’s work will give her a goodbye she would have loved. Authors including Sy Montgomery, Howard Mansfield, Richard Adams Carey and Katrina Kenison will share their own story of knowing her, and then read a favorite selection from her lifetime of memorable words.

There will be light refreshments and a display of her books – some of which have recently been reprinted – which will be available for sale.

This event will honor Edie Clark’s ability to make readers feel that the Monadnock region they know through “Mary’s Farm” is a magical place they will never forget. Join us to hear stories that will endure as long as people treasure writing so clean, crisp and heartwarming.

Mel Allen is editor of Yankee magazine.