Tag: gloucester author

Headlines about pilot sleeping past Australian landing prompts my son to grab Off the Mark and Far Side

Posted on by Catherine

News headlines about a pilot sleeping past an Australian destination*  without any disastrous outcome prompted my son to show me several cartoons by Mark Parisi and Gary Larson. (This happens with Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes as well, mostly related to his take on fine art.)

Syndicated cartoonist and author, Mark Parisi, a Gloucester native, Off the Mark published 6/23/18: “…hope it didn’t wake you up like it did to us in the cockpit.” 

 

 

We enjoy an annual holiday tradition of grabbing the latest Off the Mark calendars at the Weathervane store on Main Street.

 

*”A commercial pilot is under investigation after falling asleep in the cockpit of a freight plane and overflying his Australian island destination by 29 miles (46km), officials have said. The pilot, who has not been identified, was the only person aboard the twin-propeller Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain and was flying on autopilot during the early morning flight on 8 November from Devonport, Tasmania, to King Island in Bass Strait, his employer, Vortex Air, said in a statement on Tuesday.” from the Guardian

Local author to speak at the Cape Ann Museum: best-selling author, Eric Jay Dolin, spotlights America’s history of pirates…including Cape Ann’s

Posted on by Catherine

Flag your calendars, next week at Cape Ann Museum:

Dolin Book Cover.jpg

Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates Local author to speak at the Cape Ann Museum

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (November 2, 2018) – The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to welcome Eric Jay Dolin, author of Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, for a book presentation on Saturday, November 10 at 3:00 p.m. Dolin’s latest book spotlights America’s history of pirates, including some from Cape Ann! This program is free for Museum members or $10 for nonmembers (includes Museum admission).

Books will be available for purchase in the Museum shop. For more information or to make a reservation visit capeannmuseum.org or call 978-283-0455 x10. Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”—spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s—when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and the Indian Ocean. In this talk and slide presentation, bestselling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of colonial solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them towering Blackbeard, ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters provides a wholly original account of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.

Eric Jay Dolin is the author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, which was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Providence Journal, and also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U.S. Maritime History; and Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, which was chosen by the Seattle Times as one of the best nonfiction books of 2010, and also won the James P. Hanlan Book Award, given by the New England Historical Association. He is also the author of When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail, which was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of 2012; and Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse, which was chosen by Captain and Classic Boat as one of the best nautical books of 2016. A graduate of Brown, Yale, and MIT, where he received his PhD in environmental policy, Dolin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his family. For more information on his background, books, and awards, please visit his website, ericjaydolin.com. You can also follow Dolin’s posts on Facebook on his professional page, @ericjaydolin.

black flags blue water flyer

About the Cape Ann Museum The Cape Ann Museum has been in existence since the 1870s, working to preserve and celebrate the history and culture of the area and to keep it relevant to today’s audiences. Spanning 44,000 square feet, the Museum is one of the major cultural institutions on Boston’s North Shore welcoming more than 25,000 local, national and international visitors each year to its exhibitions and programs. In addition to fine art, the Museum’s collections include decorative art, textiles, artifacts from the maritime and granite industries, two historic homes and a sculpture park in the heart of downtown Gloucester. Visit capeannmuseum.org for details. The Museum is located at 27 Pleasant Street in Gloucester. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is $12.00 adults, $10.00 Cape Ann residents, seniors and students. Youth (under 18) and Museum members are free. For more information please call: (978)283-0455 x10. Additional information can be found online at www.capeannmuseum.org

Hannah Kimberly at Gloucester House | Cape Ann Chamber Businesswomen’s Fall Event

Posted on by Catherine

Full house for author Hannah Kimberly’s talk at the 2017 annual Cape Ann Chamber Businesswomen’s signature fall event. Gloucester House is such a generous community venue. This stack of  A WOMAN’S PLACE IS AT THE TOP  hardcovers was GONE before the event was over, sold out by Charlie from the Chamber.

20171012_122508.jpg

Jenn Orlando, Cape Ann Savings Bank, chairs the Chamber’s businesswomen committee which oversees the Carolyn O’Connor Scholarship along with fostering connections through outreach like this Fall event. Orlando and Sara Young, President of the Chamber and director of Schooner Adventure, welcomed the guests and introduced featured speaker, Hannah Kimberly. Kimberly recounted tales and her rediscovery of 19th century feminist and adventurer, Annie Smith Peck.  Mayor Romeo Theken praised the writer, and was pleased that other Mayors are discussing this wonderful new book. She can relate! Kimberly shared a particularily competitive bit between the subject, Annie Peck Smith, and a famous male contemporary. (You’ll have to read the book to find out!) I will note that my table discussed that face-off sounding like a Bobbi Riggs vs Billie Jean King story of its time. Kimberly is working on a new book AND there is a documentary film in the works about Annie Smith Peck, the subject of  A Woman’s Place is at the Top. 

Mayor Romeo Theken complimenting Hannah Kimberly
Hannah Kimberly 2017 Cape Ann Chamber fall womensbusiness event
Donna Ardizzoni photographing Kimberly and supporting her friend
Craig Kimberly photographing and filming
(R) Jennifer Beloff Action Inc and (L) Allison Lex
Sara Young Schooner Adventure Chamber President
Cape Ann Chamber members: Left – physician Laura Jett, (R) Kaethe Flynn (owns CABI business and PT for 30 years, Rockport

from the Chamber- Businesswomen’s Events – Through the year, the Chambers Business Women’s Committee puts together a number of mixer, luncheons and other events geared towards the business women on Cape Ann.  Proceeds of these events help to fund the Carolyn O’Connor Scholarship Fund, which is given each year to a recipient who is looking to change career paths or re-enter the workforce.

Whew! Whew! Whew! Hannah Kimberly featured speaker for Cape Ann Chamber Business Women’s Fall Luncheon

Posted on by Catherine

Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce Annual Fall Business Women’s Luncheon, October 12, 11:30AM-1PM, Gloucester House, 63 Rogers Street, Gloucester, MA

The Keynote Speaker will be Hannah Kimberly. I was reading Hannah Kimberly’s biography, A Woman’s Place is at the Top, about Annie Smith Peck when I heard the news that Saudi women would be granted the right to drive sometime in 2018 (though they still  need a sign off to marry, divorce, travel, get a passport, open a bank account.) I remember when my mother could get a credit card without my father’s signature. An Annie Smith Peck quote from 1874 brought to light in Kimberly’s research shows Peck knew this pain of persistent lobbying for permission:

“I have reflected for years, I am reflecting, I shall continue to reflect. The longer I reflect, the more convinced I am that it would be wise to go to college. Years ago I made up my mind that I should never marry and consequently that it would be desirable for me to get my living in the best possible way and to set about it as any boy would do. I do not think it is my duty to sacrifice myself, my happiness, and all prospect of distinction, to say nothing of usefulness for the very doubtful pleasure of my parents. Should I remain at home, as some people would have me, I should then be utterly unfitted for active life and should only be a burden to my brothers, useless and unhappy. If I am ever to be anybody or do anything, the time is now…John (her brother) would not have me on par with college graduates? Whew! Whew! Whew! What an opinion must he have of his own and William’s attainments if he considers that I am superior to what they were when they graduated…Why did John not pursue such a course as himself? ‘Too good talents to give them the benefit of a collegiate education.’ Dare you say that aloud? What if you applied it to a young man? Are you crazy? I am not afraid that my fame would be lessened should I be Valedictorian of the class of ’78 (1878!) in Michigan.” -Annie Smith Peck 

Michigan State fans will be happy:

Kimberly writes that in 1874 Peck “wouldn’t be able to place her finger on it at the time, but somehow, within her first semester, like the handful of other women studying the classics, Annie was treated as if she were equal to the men in her class. Indeed it was a blip in the history of co-education — a golden decade — when some of the first groups of women attended the University of Michigan and were recognized as mysterious, capable, attractive, intelligent, and not yet too numerous to be a threat to male power.” – Hannah Kimberly

20170929_171219

Excerpt from JoeAnn Hart’s Latest Novel FLOAT

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

float JoeAnn HartTen Bells’ doors opened at 5:30 a.m. so that dock workers could get a quick snort before work, or to offer amber consolation if there was none. In the past, and perhaps even into the present, the bar was known as a place where captains, short of men for some dangerous journey or another, would troll for crew, make them paralytic with drink, then carry them on board on stretchers and lay them out like corpses in the hold. And that was exactly how Duncan felt the next morning.

“Sassafras,” he croaked, without opening his eyes. Thanks to several more oyster shooters after dinner, Duncan had already reached his waterline by the time they left Slocum’s apartment, then he took more onboard at Ten Bells. Bottom shelf bourbon, $3.05 a shot. He’d ended up, somehow, fully clothed on the sofa in his office and woke to the sound of a rally outside his window. Annuncia’s basso profundo voice blared through a loudspeaker. “A clean sea is a profitable sea!” she shouted. It was 10 a.m.

He curled tighter into the ball he was already in and pulled his windbreaker over his head. He’d forgotten that he’d told her that she could launch her Boat Garbage Project from Seacrest’s loading dock today, but it was coming back to him loud and clear now.  He had assumed she meant at the end of the workday, but of course, she would want to do it early enough to catch that evening’s news cycle.

The crowd started to chant, and the steady noise bore through his eardrums like seaworms. “Bring the garbage back to shore! Bring the garbage back to shore!”

Annuncia quieted them down and continued speaking. “We complain about the crap from outfall pipes and pollution on our fish, and then we throw our own garbage overboard. What’s up with that?”

The crowd emitted a low boo, and he could hear Wade’s voice leading the pack.  Even though Annuncia was at the microphone, this project was really his baby. On Earth Day that spring, instead of cleaning beaches with the other volunteers, he decided to motor from boat to boat asking for garbage. When they saw how successful he’d been, a group of kids started making the rounds every weekend in a pedal-driven barge built from plastic water bottles, and it wasn’t long before some of the fishermen and pleasure boaters started to bring it in on their own.  The problem was, as always, that there was no place to put it.  Often the bags were just left on the docks at the mercy of the gulls and crows, and that meant debris scattered everywhere, on land and water. Annuncia hadn’t realized the extent to which everyone had been throwing their trash overboard before that.  It was against the law, but they had to catch you first, and the ocean was a mighty big place.

Visit JoeAnn’s website to purchase your copy of Float.

JoeAnn Hart

Local Author and Blogger Kat Valentine Is Kicking Steven King’s Ass On Horror Sales of Her Kindle Book

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

"The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic" by Gloucester writer Kathleen Valentine is a psychological horror novelette available for Kindle. It has been selling well and last night hit a new high:

image

Novelette (15k words) Psychological horror. – The townhouses on serene, elegant Beacon Hill in Boston are some of the most lavish and expensive in the country. When Stan and Mattie take up residence in the dark and crumbling five-story house that Mattie grew up in, and has just inherited from her grandmother, their plans are to clean it out, fix it up, sell it, and return to their quiet life on Cape Cod. Mattie is overwhelmed by the gowns, furs and jewels in GrammyLou’s bedroom. Stan is amazed by the fifth-floor ballroom which has been locked up since the night of Mattie’s father’s thirtieth birthday party — the party that ended in the car wreck that killed both of her parents. Now, as they set about sifting through GrammyLou’s endless possessions they find mysterious things: a closet full of still-wrapped presents, a marked passage in her grandfather’s Bible, and a secret drawer with disturbing content. Mattie soon learns that her entire life has been built on a foundation of lies… that she was raised in a house of horror, by a monster.

Patrick Doud Book Signing at The Bookstore Of Gloucester

Posted on by Joey Ciaramitaro

Patrick Dowd is having a book signing at The Bookstore of Gloucester Sunday March 21,2010 at 3:00PM.  In this interview he talks about what makes Gloucester special, his new book and more.