Kate Dike Blair and Don Zancanella: Two Novels of Concord

A continuation of the Transcendentalist discussion begun in December with Robert Gross’ The Transcendentalists and Their World, Kate Dike Blair and Don Zancanella, historical fiction authors with new books set in mid-19th century Concord, talk about their research into this remarkable period and its people.

Blair’s The Hawthorne Inheritance and Zancanella’s Concord both feature a who’s who of the New England Transcendentalist scene—Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Hawthorne, Alcott, and Peabody families. Their conversation about these larger-than-life historical figures is not to be missed. This event will be on Zoom. Event link will be sent 30 minutes before program start.

Kate Dike Blair grew up in The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, VT. She fondly remembers hiding under the best-sellers table and guessing customers’ identities by their shoes; spending Sunday mornings reading Little Women while her father, processed special orders, and lunching with Robert Frost. She graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in English Literature in 1975 and clerked in Boston book shops before earning her Certificate of Medical Assisting in 1979. Specializing in occupational health, she created with two partners the company Health Research Associates. When her father died in 2009, she discovered in his effects his research regarding their Hawthorne and Dike ancestors and the Henry Clay steamship disaster. While her father focused on straightforward history, she envisioned a complicated love story, and her quest to determine cousin Louisa Hawthorne’s true fate began.

Don Zancanella has won the John S. Simmons/Iowa Short Fiction Award and an O.Henry Prize. One of his stories was cited as a distinguished story of the year in the 2019 Best American Short Stories, and another has been nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prizes. He has published widely in literary magazines. Born in Laramie, Wyoming, he has lived in Virginia, Colorado, Missouri, and New Mexico, where he taught at the University of New Mexico. He studied with John Edgar Wideman, Thoreau and Emerson scholar Robert D. Richardson, and John Williams. He now lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and their rescue dogs.

Suggested Donation: $10 Members; $15 Non-members
Signed copies of both books are also available for order.

Register: www.salemathenaeum.net