Blue Hill literary festival to feature writers A.O. Scott, Jennifer Egan
A writer’s festival on the Blue Hill peninsula, which already is known for having hosted well-known authors over the years, will feature two well-known writers this month.
A.O. Scott, a critic at large for the New York Times Book Review, and Jennifer Egan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” will be among the writers who will talk about writing or present workshops at Word, an annual literary festival in Blue Hill scheduled for October 19-22.
This year’s event will be the seventh edition of the festival, which aims to build upon a local “literary tradition of great thinkers and artists that extends over two hundred years,” according to festival organizers.
Among the wordsmiths, illustrators and other artists who hail from or lived seasonally on the Blue Hill Peninsula are Jonathan Fisher, one of Blue Hill’s first ministers, early 20th-century writer Mary Ellen Chase, E.B. White, and longtime New Yorker essayist and editor Roger Angell.
Writers who have appeared at the festival in past years include Phuc Tran, Joe Hill, Baron Wormser and Emily Nussbaum, among many others.
Laura Miller, a books and culture columnist for Slate and a member of the festival planning committee, will interview Egan at this year’s festival. Alicia Anstead, an arts journalist and educator and a former writer for the Bangor Daily News, will interview Scott.
Aside from the appearances and talks with Scott and Egan, the festival also will include workshops, one of which will be about songwriting and will be led by Noel Paul Stookey of former folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary and by composer George Emlen. There will be a panel discussion about podcasting and other workshops that focus on writing memoir, poetry, screenwriting, book arts and overcoming writer’s block.
With the exception of the workshops, which require advance registration, all events at the festival are free and open to the public. Information about how to register or about the festival schedule can be found on the festival’s website, wordfestival.org.