Newburyport Literary Festival

A Celebration of Literature, Readers, and Writers
• In-Person & Virtual Events • April 26–28, 2024

Listed in alphabetical order

Anthony AmoreAnthony Amore

The Art of the Con — Saturday 2:30 PM Anthony Amore is an expert in security matters, especially those related to cultural property and homeland security. Presently he is Director of Security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where he is charged with the ongoing efforts to recover thirteen works of art stolen from the museum on March 18, 1990. In 2011, he co-authored the Wall Street Journal true-crime bestseller Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists. His next book, The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fake, Frauds and Forgeries in the Art World came out in 2015. In addition, he is a lecturer in homeland security at Fisher College and provides analysis on issues related to security and terrorism for Fox 25 News in Boston. http://www.anthonyamore.com

Kate BolickKate Bolick

Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own by Kate Bolick — Saturday 1:00 PM Kate Bolick’s first book, the best-selling Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. A contributing editor for The Atlantic, Bolick is also a freelance writer for The New York Times, Slate, and Vogue, among other publications, and host of “Touchstones at The Mount,” an annual literary interview series at Edith Wharton’s country estate, in Lenox, MA. Previously, she was executive editor of Domino, and a columnist for The Boston Globe Ideas Section. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

John BradyJohn Brady

Frank and Ava: In Love and War — Saturday 11:00 AM John (“Jack”) Brady is a writer, editor, author and biographer. His dual biography of Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra – Frank & Ava in Love and War — will be published by St. Martin’s Press in October 2015, which is Frank’s centennial. Brady is the author of five books, including the investigative biography Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater (Addison Wesley/Perseus). Christopher Buckley called the book “A riveting account of the most unlikely Republican in the history of American politics.” Brady was editor-in-chief at Writer’s Digest and Boston magazine, and founding editor of The Artist’s Magazine. His byline has appeared in New York magazine, New Times, Esquire, American Film, The Sunday New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine and numerous other publications. He has taught journalism at Boston University, Emerson College, the Scripps School of Journalism (Ohio University) and was Hearst Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri Journalism School. John has edited and conducted hundreds of interviews during his publishing career, including the Playboy interview with television host Jerry Springer. His interview with author Evan Connell appeared in the March 2011 issue of The Writer magazine. He is currently working on a book about Marilyn Monroe.

Kate ChristensenKate Christensen

How to Cook a Moose by Kate Christensen — Saturday 10:30 AM Kate Christensen’s most recent books are How to Cook a Moose and Blue Plate Special: An Autobiography of My Appetites. She is also the author of six novels, including The Epicure’s Lament and The Great Man, which won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She writes about food, drink, life, and books for numerous publications, most recently the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Cherry Bombe, Vogue, Food & Wine, the Wall Street Journal, and many anthologies. Christensen lives in Portland, Maine, and the White Mountains, and is currently at work on a new novel. Katechristensen.net.

Deborah CramerDeborah Cramer

The Narrow Edge: A Tiny Bird, an Ancient Crab, and an Epic Journey — Saturday 11:00 AM Deborah Cramer lives at the edge of a salt marsh with her family, where she eagerly awaits the return of horseshoe crabs in the spring and the passage of shorebirds. In addition to The Narrow Edge, she’s written two books about the sea – Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage, and Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water Our World, the companion to the Ocean Hall at the U. S. National Museum of Natural History, the nation’s most heavily visited museum. Her writing, about the migration of shorebirds, has most recently appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Andre Dubus IIIAndre Dubus III

Essays by Andre Dubus III — Saturday 11:00 AM Why Fiction Matters — Saturday 2:30 PM Andre Dubus III is the author of six books: The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days (soon to be a major motion picture) and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times “Editors Choice”. His work has been included in The Best American Essays and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies, and his novel, House of Sand and Fog was a finalist for the National Book Award, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and was made into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. His new book, Dirty Love, was published in the fall of 2013 and has been listed as a New York Times “Notable Book”, a New York Times Editors’ Choice”, a 2013 “Notable Fiction” choice from The Washington Post, and a Kirkus “Starred Best Book of 2013”. Mr. Dubus has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, Two Pushcart Prizes, and a 2012 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His books are published in over twenty-five languages, and he teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Fontaine, a modern dancer, and their three children.

Dr. G. William FreemanDr. G. William Freeman

The Holy Terror: Captain William Nichols from Newburyport — Saturday 1:00 PM Dr. Freeman recently published the book, The Holy Terror: Captain William Nichols. From early childhood, he heard the stories about the bravery of Captain William Nichols, a sixth generation ancestor. He later conducted considerable genealogical and historical research about Captain Nichols, a Newburyport native and naval war hero in the War of 1812. He has had a long professional career as an independent and consulting psychologist. In addition to his writing, he currently works part-time conducting evaluations with student-athletes at the University of Kansas. He was a General Motors Scholar at the University of Denver and holds graduate degrees from Harvard and Boston Universities. Dr. Freeman is presently writing a narrative about Benjamin Hale, another Newburyport native and sixth generation ancestor, who manged the large Eastern Stage Company, and who, at one point, owned the Wolfe Tavern. Benjamin was a friend of Captain Nichols, and his son married Captain Nichols daughter. For many years, Dr. Freeman lived in the Haverhill-Newburyport area, and he now resides in Lawrence, KS with his wife, Dr. Juliette Loring, a Newburyport native, who works at the University of Kansas, and their son, Benjamin, an artist.

Tim HayesTim Hayes

How and Why Horses Heal Humans — Saturday 10:00 AM Tim Hayes is the author of RIDING HOME ~ The Power of Horses To Heal ~ St. Martin’s Press 2015. He is an internationally recognized Natural Horsemanship Clinician and with http://www.hayesisforhorses.com conducts clinics throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Mexico. He is a visiting instructor at The University of Connecticut & The University of Vermont Departments of Animal Science, a Contributing Expert Consultant & Columnist for Equus and Equine Journal Magazines and a Contributing Columnist for The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-hayes To learn more about Riding Home – The Power of Horses to Heal please visit: www.ridinghome.com. Every book ordered will help to benefit veterans with PTSD, at Risk Youth, children with autism and children of families in need.

R. Marc KantrowitzR. Marc Kantrowitz

Old Whiskey and Young Women: American True Crime tales of Murder, Sex and Scandal — Saturday 2:30 PM R. Marc Kantrowitz has served as an assistant district attorney, private counsel and a judge, first on the juvenile court and then the Massachusetts Appeals Court, the second highest court in the Commonwealth. As an attorney, he handled thousands of cases, trying over a hundred to a jury. He was also lead attorney on two dozen first degree murder cases. He is the most highly published author on state law, co-writing books on criminal law, civil law, juvenile law, evidence and mental health. He publishes a column, “Law ‘n History”, for Lawyers Weekly. Old Whiskey and Young Women is his fourth history related book. He is also an adjunct professor at the School of Law at Northeastern University and was, most recently, a visiting scholar at Ohio University, where he lectured and taught a course centering around his book.

Daniel KorschunDaniel Korschun

We Are Market Basket: The Story of the Unlikely Grassroots Movement that Saved a Beloved Business — Saturday 9:00 AM Daniel Korschun is an Associate Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and a research fellow at LeBow’s Institute for Strategic Leadership. His latest book, We Are Market Basket (co-authored with Grant Welker, AMACOM), tells the true story of a grassroots movement to reinstate a beloved CEO and save a $4.5 billion supermarket chain. The book was named in Forbes as one of the top 15 business books of 2015. Dr. Korschun works with companies to develop innovative Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices that generate value for both the company and society. Some of these innovative practices are profiled in his first book, Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Business and Social Value (co-authored with C.B. Bhattacharya and Sankar Sen, Cambridge University Press). His work also appears in leading academic journals such the Journal of Marketing, Academy of Management Review, MIT-Sloan Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of Business Ethics. Find Dr. Korschun @danielkorschun or on LinkedIn.

Susan KulkinSusan Kuklin

Exploring Gender Identity in LGBTQ Literature for Teens — Saturday 10:30 AM Susan Kuklin’s years in theater trained her to interpret a character. She adapted that knowledge to author more than thirty nonfiction books from the point of view of the participants. Her passionate belief in one’s freedom of expression led her to write and photograph young adult nonfiction about human rights and the creative arts. She is the author and photographer of Beyond Magenta, Transgender Teens Speak Out, a 2015 Stonewall Honor and the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for Nonfiction, as well as the ALA Best Book, No Choirboy: Murder, Violence and Teenagers on Death Row. Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery also received the Straus Award. Dance, coauthored with Bill T. Jones, was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. Susan’s photographs have appeared in major newspapers and magazines, including Time and The New York Times, and have been featured in several documentary films. For more information, please visit: www.susankuklin.com.

Carl LittleCarl Little

Opening Night Ceremony — Friday 6:00 PM Art of the Acadia — Saturday 1:00 PM Carl Little is the author of Winslow Homer and the Sea, Edward Hopper’s New England, and The Watercolor of John Singer Sargent. He has published monographs on a number of artists, including Francis Hamabe, Joel Babb, William Irvine, and Jeffery Becton. His 2012 book Eric Hopkins: Above and Beyond won the first John N. Cole Award from the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Little edited his brother David’s book, Art of Katahdin (2013) and contributed to Art in Maine: Contemporary Perspectives, forthcoming from the University of Maine Press. He and David are working on a new book, Art of Acadia, due out in summer 2016 to coincide with the centennial of the founding of Acadia National Park. Little has written essays and appreciations for numerous exhibitions. He lectures widely, with talks presented at the Bates College Museum of Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, and the Acadia Summer Arts Program. Little writes for Art New England, Hyperallergic, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors and Ornament. His poetry appears in Ocean Drinker: New & Selected Poems and three anthologies edited by Wesley McNair, the poet laureate of Maine. A native New Yorker, Little moved to Mount Desert Island in 1989. He holds degrees from Dartmouth, Columbia, and Middlebury. He directed the public affairs office and the Blum Gallery at College of the Atlantic for eight years before joining the Maine Community Foundation as director of communications and marketing in 2001. PHOTO CREDIT GABE SOUZA

George MitchellGeorge Mitchell

Opening Night Overture — Friday 4:00 PM Senator George Mitchell has had a long and distinguished career. He served for several years as Chairman of DLA Piper, now Chairman Emeritus. Before that he served as a federal judge; as Majority Leader of the United States Senate; as Chairman of peace negotiations in Northern Ireland which resulted in an agreement that ended an historic conflict; and most recently as U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East. In 2008 Time Magazine described him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Senator Mitchell is the author of five books. The most recent, a memoir entitled The Negotiator: Reflections on an American Life, was published in May 2015.

Genevieve MorganGenevieve Morgan

How to Cook a Moose by Kate Christensen — Saturday 10:30 AM Writers in Wonderland — Saturday 2:30 PM Genevieve (G. A.) Morgan is a writer and editor living in Portland, Maine. She was the managing editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco for five years before co-founding a book packaging company that produced a variety of work. She has written and edited books for Smith & Hawken, Williams-Sonoma, Starbuck’s, The Nature Company, Harper Collins, Chronicle Books, Borders Books, and Hay House publishers, and was the wellness editor for Maine magazine. She was the editorial producer and weekly co-host of Love Maine Radio during its inaugural year and is a Time Warner Cable “Our Magazine” regular contributor. In addition to Undecided: Navigating Life and Learning after High School (Zest Publications/April 2014), she is the author of a YA fantasy-adventure trilogy called The Five Stones (Volumes 1 and 2/Islandport Press 2014/2015), and a Maine Literary Awards finalist. Currently she is writing the final volume of the trilogy to be published in 2016, and works as the senior editor of special editions at Islandport Press. For more information about G. A. Morgan visit www.GA-Morgan.com.

Dane MorrisonDane Morrison

True Yankees: The South Seas & the Discovery of American Identity — Saturday 11:00 AM Dane Morrison is professor of early American history at Salem State University. He is the author of A Praying People and True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of American Identity, acclaimed as an “immensely significant work.” He has edited four other works, including the award-winning Salem: Place, Myth and Memory. He has served as president of the New England Historical Association and New England Regional World History Association. He lives in Newmarket, NH with his wife and daughter.

Skip and Marge MotesSkip and Marge Motes

Newburyport Harbor Range Lights and the Emerging Industrial Waterfront — Saturday 9:00 AM Skip and Marge Motes, of Newburyport, have been researching Newburyport’s history since moving here in 1995. Skip has given lectures for the Newburyport Preservation Trust, Custom House Maritime Museum and the Newburyport Public Library Lecture Series. Marge answered queries for fourteen years for the Museum of Old Newbury, and has published North End Papers, 1618-1880: Newburyport, Massachusetts—Development of the North End of the City, a compilation of the writing of Oliver B. Merrill, and has transcribed the newly discovered Newburyport Revolutionary War records for the Committee of Safety, Correspondence and Inspection. Their earliest book, published in 1994, was Laurens & Newberry Counties, S.C.: Saluda and Little River Settlements, 1749-1775, which won the National Genealogy Society prize for methods and sources. They are currently writing a book on the maritime history of Water Street from which the history of the range lights has been taken.

Joanna RakoffJoanna Rakoff

My Salinger Year — Saturday 11:00 AM Joanna Rakoff is the author of the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Fiction, and the memoir My Salinger Year, an international bestseller. She has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Guardian, and many other publications. [clearboth]

Jack SantosJack Santos

Newburyport Sacrifices: The Wheelwright Family in the Revolution — Saturday 2:00 PM Jack Santos is a Vice President of Research at Gartner, Inc. during the day and a local amateur historian at night; during the day he speaks internationally about technology, and its impact on society and business. At night, he skulks about research libraries for information on former residents of his 230 year old home – like Abraham Wheelwright, a Newburyport ship captain. When not visiting Belfast, London, Paris, Hong Kong, or Sydney, he resides with his lovely wife, Astrid Lorentzson, in the best small city in the world. More info at websites Jacksantos,com, Wheelwright.us, or at his blog at blog.jacksantos.com

Mike TougiasMichael Tougias

So Close to Home: An American Family’s World War II Story of Survival — Saturday 2:30 PM Michael Tougias is the author and co-author of 24 books, including Fatal Forecast: A True Tale of Disaster and Survival at Sea (Scribner, 2007), which was praised by the Los Angeles Times as “A breathtaking read, Tougias spins a marvelous and terrifying yarn.” He also wrote Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do (St. Martin’s Press, 2005). Ten Hours became a Boston Globe bestseller and was selected by the American Library Association as “One of the Top Books of the Year.” Michael is the co-author of The Finest Hours (Scribner 2009), which hit #4 on the New England Booksellers Association Bestseller list for non-fiction hardcover. The Disney Corporation made a major motion picture of The Finest Hours, to be released in January 2016. His latest books are Rescue of the Bounty, A Storm Too Soon, Overboard!, and The Cringe Chronicles: Mortifying Misadventures with My Dad, a humorous memoir co-authored with his daughter. In May 2016, Tougias’ WWII book, So Close To Home, will be released. So Close to Home tells the story of an American family’s survival after their ship was sunk by a U-boat off the coast of New Orleans. The book is available for pre-order in December 2015. See http://www.michaeltougias.com/ for more information about the author.

Quincy WhitneyQuincy Whitney

American Luthier: Carleen Hutchins—the Art and Science of the Violin — Saturday 3:30 PM Quincy Whitney was the primary arts journalist for The Boston Sunday Globe New Hampshire Weekly for fourteen years; and Newsletter Editor for the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and the American Textile History Museum. Whitney was a Eugene O’Neill Theater Center Critic Fellow and a two-time Salzburg Seminar Fellow attending “The Modern Novel” (1998) and “Biography as a Mirror on Society” (2006). Her upcoming biography is American Luthier: Carleen Hutchins—the Art and Science of the Violin (ForeEdge, April, 2016), the art-science-music-woman story of the pioneering 20th century American who contributed more to the field of violinmaking than anyone since Stradivari, despite the fact that she was a lone female in three male-dominated fields of lutherie, acoustical physics, and classical music. During 2004-2006, Whitney was a Research Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the department of Musical Instruments, home to one of seven violin octets made by pioneering violinmaker Carleen Hutchins. Whitney is co-founder of the Boston Biography Group, a support group for New England biographers that emerged from the 2006 Harvard University Schlesinger Library Seminar “Writing Past Lives: Biography as History.” She is the author of Hidden History of New Hampshire (History Press, 2008), winner of New Hampshire Center for the Book “Book of the Week” Award in December, 2008. She was also a 2013 Hosking Houses Trust Fellow (UK). She is a graduate of Wake Forest University.