Following in the Footsteps of Hawthorne & Lovecraft: A Place-Based Writers Workshop

The House of the Seven Gables and the Cape Ann Museum is partnering with three professors from Salem State, J.D. Scrimgeour, Peter Sampieri, and Peter Walker, to present a weekend-long place-based writer’s workshop!

For hundreds of years, writers have flocked to New England and to Essex County in particular inspired by the geography, culture, and architecture. This workshop highlights the historic place-based literature of the area, starting with Nathaniel Hawthorne and H.P. Lovecraft and continuing through today. The settings of H.P Lovecraft’s fictive universe were inspired by New England cities and towns like Gloucester, Marblehead, Salem, and his hometown of Providence, R.I. Despite his own overt racism and xenophobia, his universe of horror has been expanded by others to include a wide variety of diverse voices, far beyond anything he could imagine. His work now travels across genres into short stories, music, graphic novels, board games, and an HBO series. During the first day of the workshop, come discuss Lovecraft’s work and its relationship to place, as we dissect one of his short stories, The Music of Erich Zann.

<< Purchase NOVEMBER 5 tickets for the Cape Ann Museum >>

$75 for members and $95 for non-members, $25 for students of Salem State. Individual Registration is required for both days.

Salem native Nathaniel Hawthorne set most of his fiction in and around the Massachusetts locales he knew so well, especially Boston and Salem. His fiction often wrestles with the legacy of 17th- and 18th-century Puritanism in New England, a legacy that is still lived history for residents of Cape Ann and especially of Salem. During the second day of the workshop, come participate in a discussion of one of Hawthorne’s most intriguing and enigmatic fictional treatments of this legacy, a story based on a historically true incident where a village preacher confounded his congregation: “The Minister’s Black Veil.”

<< Purchase NOVEMBER 6 tickets for The House of the Seven Gables >>

$75 for members and $95 for non-members, $25 for students of Salem State. Individual Registration is required for both days.

Workshop Schedule Saturday, November 5, 2022 at the Cape Ann Museum:
10:00 am – Opening
10:15 am – Hopper Houses Walking Tour
11:30 pm – Lovecraft Discussion with Peter Sampieri
12:30 pm – Lunch Break
1:30 pm – Writing Workshop with J.D. Scrimgeour
Wrap up at 3:30 pm

Sunday, November 6, 2022 at the House of the Seven Gables
10:00 am – Openingy
10:15 am – Tour of the House of the Seven Gables
11:00 am – Tour of Hawthorne Birthplace
11:30 pm – Hawthorne Discussion with Peter Walker
12:30 pm – Lunch Break
1:30 pm – Writing Workshop with J.D. Scrimgeour
Wrap up at 3:30 pm