 What We’re Up To This Month: I discovered Lawrence Weschler in 2006 while interning at McSweeney’s, the indie house that had just published his award-winning essay collection Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences. In it, he explores images, forms, and compositions found in life that seem also to repeat throughout art history: Rothko’s 1969 black and white colorblocks mirroring newspaper covers from that year’s moon landing; Joel Meyerowitz’s photograph of a 9/11 first responder echoing Valezquez’s rendering of the god of war. Art, imitating life, imitating art. The interns at McSweeney’s are not paid, or they weren’t then, but they are invited on their last day to help themselves to a few books from the office stock, which is how I came to own that volume (which is, sadly, now out of print). I flipped through it, fascinated, and then put it on my bookshelf for a decade. It wasn’t until grad school that I truly got to know his writing, when a professor assigned his seminal essay “Vermeer in Bosnia.” In it, he draws connections between the Vermeer paintings he observed hanging in the Mauritshuis Museum and the Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal he was covering nearby in The Hague. He concludes, startlingly and convincingly, that these apparently incomparable things are in fact remarkably similar: they are both about finding interior peace in the face of ravaging violence. This is, I now know, Weschler’s specialty: pairing seemingly unrelated things to revelatory effect. I was stunned by the power of his insights as well as the openness of his prose. In refreshing contrast to the tight-fisted academic exegeses I was used to, Weschler’s essays are rangy conversations, brilliant and accessible, illuminating and human-scaled. I had found my new favorite essayist.  Of course, I’m not alone there. Lawrence Weschler is a legend. He was a staff writer at the New Yorker for more than twenty years, twice winning the George Polk Award for reporting, and the author of more books than I can name. His work has won the National Book Critics Circle Award and been shortlisted for the Pulitzer, and in forty-plus years of trying to make sense of the comedies and tragedies of this world through his writing, he has yet to slow down. His new biweekly substack, Wondercabinet, is fantastic, and he continues to write books, articles, and exhibition catalogues at a dizzying pace. (His article on the record-breaking Vermeer exhibition at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam is due out this week or next in the Atlantic.) So imagine my surprise to find an email from him in my inbox a few months ago. He had, apparently, stumbled across an essay about his work I had written some years ago for the Los Angeles Review of Books and reached out to introduce himself. It was like getting a letter from Santa Clause, or the President. Elated, I asked him if he would consider coming to Easton as a Shore Lit visiting writer, and—I can still hardly believe this—he said yes. A huge thank you to the Academy Art Museum and George Mason University for making this program possible. Seeing Lawrence Weschler speak about his work in person is a bucket-list moment for me, and I am beyond thrilled that it is happening here, on the Shore. He'll be lecturing at 6:00, Friday, March 3 at AAM; I hope you are all able to join us for what’s sure to be an incredible evening.  What Else I’m Reading this Month: Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty. Set on a Penobscot reservation in Maine, this story collection has been racking up award noms. Talty combines gritty materiality with humor, offering an irreverent Indigenous narrative that rejects sentimentality—even as it examines the complexities of addiction, poverty, and intergenerational trauma. This Time Tomorrow, Emma Straub. Reliably, Straub hits that sweet spot between clever and warm-hearted. In this novel, 40-year-old Alice time travels back in time to her 16-year-old life and is given the chance to change the trajectory of her father’s future. Still Pictures, Janet Malcolm. The legendary journalist looks back at her own life through a series of snapshots, which function more as metaphor than documentary. Though spare, Malcolm’s memoir is relentlessly elegant. To wit: “The events of our lives are like photographic negatives. The few that make it into the developing solution and become photographs are what we call our memoirs.”  What Else I’m Looking Forward to on the Shore this Month: Film: Women Talking @ Regal Cinema, Salisbury March 4-9, various showtimes $12-$18 Sarah Polley stacked her film adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel with serious heavy hitters: Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley. Skipping the Shore entirely in its original release, it’s playing on just a few dates this month in the run-up to the Oscars. Reading & Workshop: Meredith Davies Hadaway, Sophie-Kerr Poet-in-Residence, Rose O'Neill Literary House, Washington College, Chestertown 5:30 Tuesday, March 7 Free Meredith Davies Hadaway has published three collections of poetry, including At the Narrows, winner of the Delmarva Book Prize, as well as essays and reviews for anthologies and journals. She'll read from her work, and then lead a generative writing workshop. Music: Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra March Concert, Easton Church of God, Easton 7:30 Thursday, March 9 $50 Elizabeth Song, winner of the Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition, will be the featured soloist for performances of Johannes Brahms's Tragic Overture and Florence Price's Symphony No. 1 in E Minor. Exhibition Opening: “State of the Art” and "Bill Wolf Sculpture," Dorchester Center for the Arts, Cambridge 5:00-7:00 Saturday, March 11 Free Dorchester Center for the Arts presents the exhibit State of the Art in partnership with the University of Maryland Global Campus and the American Poetry Museum. Bill Wolf: Sculpture will be on display in the upstairs performance hall. The Sagacious Traveler will be performing at the opening reception, part of Cambridge's Second Saturday arts celebration. Theater: Fun Home @ Black Box Theater, Salisbury Thursday, March 9-Sunday, March 12 $20 general public (discounts for students, seniors, faculty) Adapted from Alison Bechdel’s extraordinary graphic memoir of the same name, this Tony Award-winning musical charts young Bechdel’s relationship with her closeted homosexual father, who runs a funeral parlor out of the family’s home. Exhibition: Fractured Modernities: Contemporary Turkish Art @ Academy Art Museum, Easton On view through April 16 Free Turkish-born curator Mehves Lelic has selected four contemporary artists whose work collectively demonstrates the exhaustion and joy of living and making art under authoritarian rule. Support Shore Lit's Programs:One of our core values is building inclusive community. For that reason, Shore Lit events are always free. To keep them that way, we are grateful to newsletter subscribers like you who help fund our programs. If you have the means and you value our mission of bringing literary authors to the Eastern Shore, please consider a $25 gift to support our programs. If you have more or less to offer, we are grateful for your generosity; no gift is too big or too small. If you aren’t in a position to offer monetary support, you remain a crucial part of this community, and we thank all of you for your consideration. Shore Lit aims to enhance cultural offerings on the Eastern Shore with free community author events. This newsletter is written by Shore Lit Founder and Director Kerry Folan.
 Reserve Your Seat for Jung Yun @ AAM!What I’m Up To This Month: Next week, for our first event of the spring season, Jung Yun will be in town to discuss her fantastic novel O Beautiful. I couldn’t be looking forward to this book talk more. This was one of my favorite reads of 2022 for a couple reasons, including the protagonist, who is unlike any fictional heroine I’ve met. A quick synopsis: Now in her forties, newly minted journalist Elinor Hanson returns home to North Dakota to write about the impact of the oil boom on the state. Elinor is complex—both tough and vulnerable, ambitious and self-destructive, like many women I know in real life, and I can’t wait to talk to Jung about how she managed to craft such a realistic and compelling heroine. I also love the way this novel refuses to make villains out of ordinary people, or to take sides in the complicated arguments over ownership and belonging the oil boom exacerbated in small towns suddenly overrun with itinerant workers. Race, class, gender, and violence are considered thoughtfully and with empathy for all involved, broadening the conversation, rather than shutting it down. For more pre-game chat, click through to my interview with Jung in the Talbot Spy. And don’t forget to reserve your seat!  What Else I’m Reading: The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett. This elegant novel is about twins, identity, racial passing, and choices you can’t take back. Trying desperately to finish in time for the TEDI bookclub meeting at the library on Thursday, Feb. 2! The Crane Wife, CJ Hauser. The title essay (which went viral in 2019) examines the ending of the writer’s engagement through the lens of the famous folk tale. This brainy, poignant collection expands beautifully on that theme. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin. 2022’s favorite novel lives up to the hype. Come for themes of friendship, collaboration, and creativity delightfully explored; stay for the ‘90s video game nostalgia. Bonus: The audiobook narrator is terrific.  What Else I’m Looking Forward To This Month: Lecture: “Bear Me Into Freedom” with Jeffrey C. McGuiness @ Talbot Historical Society, Easton 1:00 Wednesday Feb. 1 Free THS, $5 non-members The photographer discusses his project documenting Frederick Douglass’s Talbot County. Theater: Tree Avon Players presents Time Stands Still @ Oxford Community Center February 16-26 $25 general admission; $15 students This contemporary drama, which revolves around a photojournalist injured in the Iraq war and her reporter boyfriend, won Laura Linney a Tony nod back in 2010. Artist Talk: Cheryl Warrick @ Academy Art Museum, Easton 5:30 Saturday Feb. 18 Known for organic forms and abstract maximalism, the artist will discuss the work currently on view in AAM’s Abstract Surge exhibition. Film: African American Film Festival @ Cinema Art Theater, Lewes Feb 17-19 $10 per film general admission; $5 for students Back after a COVID hiatus, the AAFC screens feature-length and short documentaries spotlighting African American culture. Support Shore Lit’s Programs: One of our core values is building inclusive community. For that reason, Shore Lit events are always free. To keep them that way, we are grateful to newsletter subscribers like you who help fund our programs. If you have the means and you value our mission of bringing literary authors to the Eastern Shore, please consider a $25 gift to support our programs. If you have more or less to offer, we are grateful for your generosity; no gift is too big or too small. If you aren’t in a position to offer monetary support, you remain a crucial part of this community, and we thank all of you for your consideration. Shore Lit aims to enhance cultural offerings on the Eastern Shore with free community author events. This newsletter is written by Shore Lit Founder and Director Kerry Folan.
Announcing Our Spring Line-Up: Save the Dates! What I’m Up To: Happy new year! We are just about to enter the deepest, darkest part of winter—or, as I like to call it, reading season. As things slow down this time of year, the world seems to give us permission to get quiet, stay in, and cozy up with a good book. I find I read more in January than I do pretty much any other time of year. You know that Scandinavian saying, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing,”? My version would be something like, “no bad weather, only bad books.” As you prep your own TBR piles and select your book-club reads for the upcoming months, here are two I highly recommend: Jung Yun’s fantastic novel O, Beautiful and Lawrence Weschler’s mind-blowing book of essays, Everything that Rises. Shore Lit is hosting both of these incredible authors in partnership with the Academy Museum of Art this season and we hope to see many of you there! Also, please save the date for Saturday, April 22—Earth Day. We are working on a very special eco-poetry event, presented in collaboration with The Shore Poetry journal and Talbot County Free Library, featuring several fantastic poets. More details to come on that soon! For now, keep scrolling for more info on our spring events at AAM.  Jung Yun, O Beautiful 6:00 Thursday February 9 @ Academy Art Museum Free Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. Her first novel, Shelter (2017, Picador), was a Finalist for the 2016 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Good Reads Best Fiction Book of the Year, the Boston Authors Club's Julia Ward Howe Award, and long-listed for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her most recent novel, O Beautiful (2021, St. Martin’s Press), interrogates the North Dakota oil boom through the lens of Elinor Hanson, a half-Korean, half-caucasian journalist who returns home to write about changes in the Bakken. The book is a New York Times editor’s choice selection and one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s “15 Best Books of 2021.” Yun will be in conversation with Shore Lit Founder Kerry Folan.  Lawrence Weschler, Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences 6:00 Friday March 3 @ Academy Art Museum Free From a cuneiform tablet to a Chicago prison, from the depths of the cosmos to the text on our T-shirts, art historian and journalist Lawrence Weschler finds strange connections wherever he looks. Weschler, a staff writer at the New Yorker from 1981-2002, combines his keen insights into art, his years of experience as a chronicler of the fall of Communism, and his triumphs and failures as the father of a teenage girl into a freewheeling lecture based on his award-winning book Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences. This event is part of AAM’s Kittredge-Wilson lecture series, made possible by the generous support of Paul Wilson, and presented in partnership with Shore Lit.  What Else I’m Reading: At least once each winter, usually on a day when it’s particularly horrible outside, I make a fire, pour a bourbon, and indulge in reading a book in a single sitting. It’s a totally luxurious winter indulgence. The trick is to pick a book that is a) utterly compelling from start to finish and b) short enough to complete in an afternoon—which, for me, usually means a narrative-driven novel under 200 pages. Last year was John Banville’s Snow, which was perfect on all levels. From my TBR pile, here are this year’s contenders: Foster, Claire Keegan (92 pages)—A new novel from an Irish writer critics are comparing to Chekov (!) Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (108 pages)—Haven’t read it since high school and am inspired by the new opera to revisit Train Dreams, Denis Johnson (116 pages)—Never read it, but it was an absolute bible for the fiction writers in my MFA program Time Is a Mother, Ocean Vuong (113 pages)—Poetry, not fiction, but a buzzed-about book from last year that’s been on my coffee table for months Madder: A Memoir in Weeds, Marco Wilkinson (183 pages)—Also not fiction, but I was so impressed with Wilkinson’s Fall for the Book author talk I’m willing to make an exception Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, Lorrie Moore (148 pages)—A classic and a birthday gift from a friend, also been on my coffee table for months Kick the Latch, Kathryn Scanlan (129 pages)—Based on Leslie Jamison’s review in the New Yorker, this lyric, hybrid fiction-nonfiction book is right up my alley  What Else I’m Looking Forward To on the Shore this Month: White Noise @ Cinema Arts Theater, Lewes 2:00 Wednesday, January 4 $11.50 General Admission Bad news is I could only find one theater on the entire Shore screening Noah Baumbach’s highly anticipated adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel. Good news is it’s also available on Netflix as of this month. Mary Cassatt: Labor and Leisure Opening Reception @ Academy Art Museum, Easton 5:30 Friday, January 20 Free Some major loans give weight to this exhibition featuring everyone’s favorite American Impressionist. Enjoy drinks and snacks at the opening reception. Josh Christina Band @ Academy Art Museum, Easton 7:00 Saturday, January 21 $20 WHCP, Cambridge’s public radio station, will soon be expanding to serve the entire Mid-Shore. Hear more about that preceding a high-energy performance by young rockabilly star Josh Christina. Kameelah Janan Rasheed @ Washington College’s Kohl Gallery, Chestertown 5:30 Monday, January 30 Free A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, the multi-media artist kicks off the opening of her Smooooooooooooooth Operator exhibition and winter residency with an artist talk and reception. Support Shore Lit’s Programs: One of our core values is building inclusive community. For that reason, Shore Lit events are always free. To keep them that way, we are grateful to newsletter subscribers like you who help fund our programs. If you have the means and you value our mission of bringing literary authors to the Eastern Shore, please consider a $25 gift to support the Fall 2022 program. If you have more or less to offer, we are grateful for your generosity; no gift is too big or too small. If you aren’t in a position to offer monetary support, you remain a crucial part of this community, and we thank all of you for your consideration. Shore Lit aims to enhance cultural offerings on the Eastern Shore with free community author events. This newsletter is written by Shore Lit Founder and Director Kerry Folan.
 The Buzzed Word, Ocean City Bookstores vs. Amazon: |
| Writer Rion Scott reads from his short story collection The World Doesn't Require You at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, on June 3, 2022. Photo by Jenn Chrzanowski. |
What We’re Up To This Month:
It was wonderful to see so many of you at our kick-off event last month! More than eighty people gathered at the Academy Art Museum in June to hear fiction writer Rion Scott and historic preservationist Dale Green speak about their work. The presentations were illuminating and invigorating, and the Q&A got into some interesting questions regarding preservation vs. gentrification and the value of stories about ordinary African Americans. As Carlene Phoenix, one of the leaders of The Hill Community Project, put it to me, “I always knew about heroes like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, but when I heard about the free blacks living in Easton, just going about their daily business, I could relate that to my own life.” If you missed it, the Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Truck exhibition also offered some incredible vintage photos of the old Vita Foods pickle factory in Chestertown, which you can also browse on their website.
I’m planning two more events at the Academy Art Museum for the fall and will have more to announce on that front soon. In the meantime, I’m hoping to connect with readers like you in the community. Are you in a book club? What kinds of books do you enjoy? What kinds of author events would you like to see more of on the Shore? Do you have any thoughts or feedback on our last event? As I’m considering various authors to invite to Easton, I’m eager to hear your perspective on which writers and books will resonate. If you have any feedback (or just want to say hi!), I’d love to hear from you via the “contact us” page of the Shore Lit website.
What I’m Reading:
In honor of Juneteenth last week and Independence Day next week, I’m handing over the “What I’m Reading” section of this month’s newsletter to our June presenters, all of whom know a whole lot more about American history and independence than I do. (If you really want to know what I'm reading each week, follow along @shore_lit on Instagram.) I asked each presenter to recommend one book about America everyone should read. Here’s what they said:
Dale Glenwood Green, Historic Preservationist and Morgan State University Professor:
How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith*
“In light of America’s crisis to confront Critical Race Theory nationally, coupled with the ongoing paradox of navigating the history that made America versus the history that America made up, everyone should read Clint Smith’s book How the Word Is Passed. The author’s quote best sums it up: ‘The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories.’”
*Editor’s note: Check out Clint Smith’s 2020 essay on Easton’s Frederick Douglass monument in the Atlantic.
Rion Scott, Writer and University of Maryland Professor:
A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination by Clay Risen
“Clay Risen’s book connects the dots to show how much of our country’s present-day problems are just a logical continuation of all our original sins. It’s cinematically written and it’s a masterpiece.”
Pat Nugent, Historian and Deputy Director of the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College:
Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground by Barbara Jeanne Fields
Civil War on Race Street by Peter Levy
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
“So hard to choose*, but if I were to focus on books that bring unique and important perspectives to bear on the history of the Eastern Shore, I'd recommend Fields for a data-rich history on the complexities of slavery and freedom in 19th century Maryland (searchable by town and county). Published in 1984, it still stands up today. Read Levy for a rare twentieth-century history of the Eastern Shore with particular attention to the role that local African American communities played in the larger civil rights movement. Read Coates for a fictional (and magically surreal) account of the Underground Railroad that crosses Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, based on William Still's firsthand accounts of the Underground Railroad published in 1872 (or check out the 2019 reprint of Still's Underground Railroad with an introduction by Coates). And read Butler for a fictional account of slavery on the Eastern Shore that traces its impacts across time and geography.”
*Editor’s Note: Never ask an academic to pick just one book rec…
What Else I’m Looking Forward to in July:
Short Attention Span Theater @ Garfield Center for the Arts, Chestertown
Through July 10
$20 General Admission, $10 Students
Ten-minute plays by local playwrights. Stop for a vermouth at Casa Carmen on the way.
Fine Art Book Exhibition & Sale @ Vintage Books, Easton
Friday July 15–Sunday July 24
Free
In conjunction with Plein Air Easton, Vintage Books is curating a sale of second-hand art books: Frankenthaler, Hopper, Dali, Picasso, Degas, etc.
Twenty-Four Hour Video Race Screening @ Academy Art Museum, Easton
Friday, July 29, 6:00
Free
Sponsored by AAM and the Chesapeake Film Festival, participants will have twenty-four hours to create a short film based on a single word; the results will be on view at this screening.
What We’re Up To This Month:
I’m saying “we,” but Shore Lit is really just me, Kerry Folan—a reader, writer, and teacher passionate about literature in all its shapes and forms. My goal is to engage our community in conversation around a shared love of books. Eventually, I’m hoping Shore Lit will grow to be a resource for young adult literacy. Welcome! I’m so glad you are here for this journey.
Over the past month I have spent most of my time prepping for Shore Lit’s first official event: a conversation with author Rion Amilcar Scott and historic preservationist Dale Glenwood Green at Easton’s Academy Art Museum this Friday, June 3.
I’ve been following Rion’s work since I ran into him at the 2016 AWP Conference, just before his fantastic first story collection, Insurrections, was published to enormous acclaim. At that conference, I attended a panel he moderated titled “The Literary Genius of Kendrick Lamar” which examined Lamar’s storytelling at the intersection of hip-hop and literature. It was the most exciting and insightful panel I attended that year.
I had a weird sense of recognition when I saw Rion on the stage, and eventually I realized that I already knew him: We attended elementary school together more than thirty years ago. (It turns out we also attended the same MFA program at George Mason University, too, though at different times.) It was trippy and wonderful to re-meet that little boy, now grown into a father, husband, teacher, and exceptionally beautiful writer.
Both of Rion’s story collections, Insurrections (winner of the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers) and The World Doesn’t Require You (a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a “Best Books of the Year” per the Washington Post, NPR, Buzzfeed and Entropy) are set in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland—a free black settlement founded in 1807 after the only successful slave revolt in the United States. Each short story is told from the point-of-view of a different citizen, creating a dazzling kaleidoscope of perspectives and personalities. The lives Rion conjures are frustrated, hopeful, humorous, absurd, sublime, and very human. Even when the narrator is a robot. “Shape-Ups at Delilahs,” published in the New Yorker, will give you an idea of what I mean.
When Rion agreed to read here in Easton, I felt that the occasion was also an important opportunity to celebrate the non-fictional lives of the museum's neighbors in the Hill Community, which is one of the oldest free African American neighborhoods in the country. Dale Green, in partnership with local historians and Hill Community residents, has done incredible work over the past decade (literally) unearthing artifacts from backyards and preserving private documents that shed light on the lives of the free African American families who have lived here for more than two centuries.
Washington College’s Chesapeake Heartland Project will have their African American Humanities Truck on site starting around 5:00 pm. The formal talk will go from about 6:00-7:00. Rion will be signing books afterwards and Dale Green will lead a walking tour of the Hill Community around 7:30. Shore Lit events are always free and open to the public (reservations encouraged). I hope you will join us!
What I’m Reading:
I’ve read a string of great books this month. Johnny Sun’s touching book of essays Goodbye, again is about anxiety, tenderness, and house plants (perhaps my favorite thing about well-rendered nonfiction is that it can make even house plants riveting). Sun suggests a way of moving through the world with gentle attention for our loved ones, our objects, and ourselves. I walked away from this book a better human.
Deeshaw Philyaw’s The Secret Life of Church Ladies came out in 2020, but I didn’t discover it until just a few weeks ago when I saw Deeshaw read her startling flash essay “Milk for Free” at this year’s AWP conference. She said her first draft of this piece was 20-pages long. Her final is just 750 words, and yet somehow contains a whole complex lifetime. The short stories in this collection do the same.
I expected comedian Hannah Gadsby’s Ten Steps to Nanette to be a typical celebrity memoir about the path to fame and fortune. Instead, she has written a complex, experimental, essayistic autobiography that plays bravely and effectively with structure and form, and which—poignantly, humorously, shamelessly—expresses the workings of her autistic brain. Though I bought the hardcopy, I also ended up downloading the audiobook so I could listen on my commute. I loved hearing her story in her own voice.
Also: David Sedaris on the return to book-touring in the New Yorker (head’s up: he’s coming to the Avalon in October!); Courtney Brkic on family secrets in The Offing; Louise Erdrich on the creative life in T Magazine; Emily Lee Luan’s “I Put Tasks I Do for Free into a Folder Titled ‘Jobs’” in American Poetry Review (via Poetry Daily).
What Else I’m Looking Forward to on the Shore:
Guided Sculpture Walk with Howard & Mary McCoy @ Adkins Arboretum
Saturday, June 4, 2:00-4:00
Free
The artists behind the gorgeous, ephemeral sculptures scattered throughout the Arboretum are offering a guided walk and artist talk. There will also be a reception for artist Kit-Keung Kan, whose landscapes are currently on view in the gallery.
Delmarva Pride Party @ Hummingbird Inn
Friday, June 17, 7:00
Tickets Required
Drag show and dance party – yes please!
Juneteenth Celebration @ Academy Art Museum & Ashbury
Saturday, June 18, 12:00-4:00
Free
The folks at AAM, Building African American Minds (BAAM), Frederick Douglass Honor Society, and Talbot County Free Library are joining forces to host what looks to be a great afternoon of music, food, and art. Musicians Dat Feel Good and Julie Outrage will be performing.
I’m saying “we,” but Shore Lit is really just me, Kerry Folan—a reader, writer, and teacher passionate about literature in all its shapes and forms. My goal is to engage our community in conversation around a shared love of books. Eventually, I’m hoping Shore Lit will grow to be a resource for young adult literacy. Welcome! I’m so glad you are here for this journey.
Over the past month I have spent most of my time prepping for Shore Lit’s first official event: a conversation with author Rion Amilcar Scott and historic preservationist Dale Glenwood Green at Easton’s Academy Art Museum this Friday, June 3.
I’ve been following Rion’s work since I ran into him at the 2016 AWP Conference, just before his fantastic first story collection, Insurrections, was published to enormous acclaim. At that conference, I attended a panel he moderated titled “The Literary Genius of Kendrick Lamar” which examined Lamar’s storytelling at the intersection of hip-hop and literature. It was the most exciting and insightful panel I attended that year.
I had a weird sense of recognition when I saw Rion on the stage, and eventually I realized that I already knew him: We attended elementary school together more than thirty years ago. (It turns out we also attended the same MFA program at George Mason University, too, though at different times.) It was trippy and wonderful to re-meet that little boy, now grown into a father, husband, teacher, and exceptionally beautiful writer.
Both of Rion’s story collections, Insurrections (winner of the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers) and The World Doesn’t Require You (a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a “Best Books of the Year” per the Washington Post, NPR, Buzzfeed and Entropy) are set in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland—a free black settlement founded in 1807 after the only successful slave revolt in the United States. Each short story is told from the point-of-view of a different citizen, creating a dazzling kaleidoscope of perspectives and personalities. The lives Rion conjures are frustrated, hopeful, humorous, absurd, sublime, and very human. Even when the narrator is a robot. “Shape-Ups at Delilahs,” published in the New Yorker, will give you an idea of what I mean.
When Rion agreed to read here in Easton, I felt that the occasion was also an important opportunity to celebrate the non-fictional lives of the museum's neighbors in the Hill Community, which is one of the oldest free African American neighborhoods in the country. Dale Green, in partnership with local historians and Hill Community residents, has done incredible work over the past decade (literally) unearthing artifacts from backyards and preserving private documents that shed light on the lives of the free African American families who have lived here for more than two centuries.
Washington College’s Chesapeake Heartland Project will have their African American Humanities Truck on site starting around 5:00 pm. The formal talk will go from about 6:00-7:00. Rion will be signing books afterwards and Dale Green will lead a walking tour of the Hill Community around 7:30. Shore Lit events are always free and open to the public (reservations encouraged). I hope you will join us!
What I’m Reading:
I’ve read a string of great books this month. Johnny Sun’s touching book of essays Goodbye, again is about anxiety, tenderness, and house plants (perhaps my favorite thing about well-rendered nonfiction is that it can make even house plants riveting). Sun suggests a way of moving through the world with gentle attention for our loved ones, our objects, and ourselves. I walked away from this book a better human.
Deeshaw Philyaw’s The Secret Life of Church Ladies came out in 2020, but I didn’t discover it until just a few weeks ago when I saw Deeshaw read her startling flash essay “Milk for Free” at this year’s AWP conference. She said her first draft of this piece was 20-pages long. Her final is just 750 words, and yet somehow contains a whole complex lifetime. The short stories in this collection do the same.
I expected comedian Hannah Gadsby’s Ten Steps to Nanette to be a typical celebrity memoir about the path to fame and fortune. Instead, she has written a complex, experimental, essayistic autobiography that plays bravely and effectively with structure and form, and which—poignantly, humorously, shamelessly—expresses the workings of her autistic brain. Though I bought the hardcopy, I also ended up downloading the audiobook so I could listen on my commute. I loved hearing her story in her own voice.
Also: David Sedaris on the return to book-touring in the New Yorker (head’s up: he’s coming to the Avalon in October!); Courtney Brkic on family secrets in The Offing; Louise Erdrich on the creative life in T Magazine; Emily Lee Luan’s “I Put Tasks I Do for Free into a Folder Titled ‘Jobs’” in American Poetry Review (via Poetry Daily).
What Else I’m Looking Forward to on the Shore:
Guided Sculpture Walk with Howard & Mary McCoy @ Adkins Arboretum
Saturday, June 4, 2:00-4:00
Free
The artists behind the gorgeous, ephemeral sculptures scattered throughout the Arboretum are offering a guided walk and artist talk. There will also be a reception for artist Kit-Keung Kan, whose landscapes are currently on view in the gallery.
Delmarva Pride Party @ Hummingbird Inn
Friday, June 17, 7:00
Tickets Required
Drag show and dance party – yes please!
Juneteenth Celebration @ Academy Art Museum & Ashbury
Saturday, June 18, 12:00-4:00
Free
The folks at AAM, Building African American Minds (BAAM), Frederick Douglass Honor Society, and Talbot County Free Library are joining forces to host what looks to be a great afternoon of music, food, and art. Musicians Dat Feel Good and Julie Outrage will be performing.
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