THE CONCORD WRITERS... Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work

The 1850s were heady times in Concord, Massachusetts: in a town where a woman's petticoat drying on an outdoor line was enough to elicit scandal, some of the greatest minds of our nation's history were gathering in three of its wooden houses to establish a major American literary movement. The Transcendentalists, as these thinkers came to be called, challenged the norms of American society with essays, novels, and treatises whose beautifully rendered prose and groundbreaking assertions still resonate with readers today. Author Susan Cheever stands in awe of the monumental achievements of such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Louisa May Alcott, her personal, evocative narrative removes these figures from their dusty pedestals and provides a lively account of their longings, jealousies, and indiscretions. Through the pages of her best-selling book, American Bloomsbury, she reminds us that the passion of Concord's ambitious and temperamental resident geniuses was by no means confined to the page. Join us as she brings the books pages alive through conversation, diving deep into the Concord writers... their lives, their loves, their work!

Susan Cheever is an acclaimed, best-selling author whose sixteen published books and dozens of essays have built on the brilliant legacy of her father, the novelist and short story writer John Cheever whose stories will be the subject of her upcoming book When All the Men Wore Hats. She has published five memoirs, three additional biographies including the best-selling American Bloomsbury: Louisa  May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, their lives, their loves, their work, and My Name is Bill, Bill Wilson--His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous, and five novels.  Her book about American history as seen through the lens of alcoholism Drinking in America. Our Secret History was published in 2015 and longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for nonfiction.

Susan's biography of the poet E.E. Cummings was published in February of 2014. Her biography of Louisa May Alcott was published in November 2010. She has written for many magazines and newspapers including The New Yorker, The New York Times and Newsday where she contributed to winning a 1997 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. She has also taught at Yale, Sarah Lawrence, Brown University, the New School and Bennington.  Her other awards include a National Book Critic Circle nomination, the Associated Press award for investigative reporting, the Boston Globe's Winship Medal, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She's on the board of the Yaddo Corporation and the Author's Guild Council.