Six or seven years ago the town center was empty. The Harvard General Store was closed; the library had moved; and Mass Ave traffic sped by because the right of way had changed to favor Route 111. Even dog walkers were avoiding the Common— it was difficult to cross traffic.
How the vitality of the town center has changed! Art and music are alive at the Center on the Common. Coffee, conversation, wine, sandwiches, and ice cream enliven the revived General Store. Dogs and their walkers are back. And, now, a literary component will join this vibrant scene when Four Stories comes to Harvard on May 18.
Dillon Bustin. (Courtesy photo)
Linda Hoffman. (Courtesy photo)
Pagan Kennedy. (Courtesy photo)
Lauren Slater. (Courtesy photo)
Four Stories is a Greater Boston literary series of gatherings that bring writers, readers, and the generally curious together in a social setting to hear authors read from their works and to answer questions from the audience.
Missing the Boston writing scene
Writer Lauren Slater has helped bring Four Stories, started by her sister Tracey Slater in 2005, west to Harvard. Since Slater and her family moved to Harvard from Somerville almost two years ago, she has missed the active writers scene she was used to. She is hoping Four Stories will kick start a similarly cohesive, cross-pollinating atmosphere in the Nashoba Valley.
After the May 18 Four Stories event, Slater has plans for a series of arts and writing classes and functions open to the Central Massachusetts community. She envisions a Nashoba Valley/Central Massachusetts literary and arts magazine and a writer’s retreat in the near future.
After the first Four Stories event, Salter and fellow organizers Sarah Von Conta and Laura Vilain will begin a series of creative writing classes. Another of Slater’s goals is to start a writer’s retreat next summer.
“The vision is big and broad,” she writes in a recent email. “My plan in Harvard is to start a vibrant literary/arts community that is multi-dimensional, multi-generational, and cross-disciplinary.”
Four accomplished authors
In Four Stories style, the Harvard version will feature four accomplished writers reading a selection of their works, chosen to fit the evening’s theme, “Beneath the Surface: Confessions, Guilt and Redemption,” in a relaxed setting at the General Store. An invitation to sample the wine at the General’s Saturday tasting beforehand should help set the scene.
The four authors will be familiar to many.
Former Harvard resident Dillon Bustin is a playwright, folklorist, and singer/songwriter. He is Artistic Director of Hibernian Hall in Boston.
Poet and sculptor Linda Hoffman is the founding editor of “Wild Apples, a Journal of Nature, Art and Inquiry.” She is also known for the organic apples and raspberries she grows on her land, Old Frog Pond Farm.
Author of “Confessions of a Memory Eater” and “Spinsters” and several non-fiction books, Pagan Kennedy, is a columnist for The New York Times Magazine and a winner of a National Endowments for The Arts Fellowship in fiction.
Slater, also a National Endowments for the Arts fellowship recipient, is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including “The $60,000 Dog: My Life with Animals” and “Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harpers, Elle, Self, and National Geographic, with eight inclusions in The Best American Essays series.
“Four Stories goes West” on Saturday, May 18, will take place at the Harvard General Store at 7 p.m., following a wine tasting and light fare offering at 6 p.m. The event is free, but space is limited. Visit www.fourstories.org to reserve a seat.
