 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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