What’s New
A Valentine Jazz Brunch
FEB. 12: Dana Lauren opens our fourth Jazz Brunch series -- a rising young vocalist with a stunning voice who at 23 has already recorded two albums and shared a stage with famed trumpeter Arturo Sandoval -- as Japanalia Music Presents Sunday Jazz Brunches at our Murasaki Cafe.
"Vocalist Dana Lauren has a command of her instrument that many professional singers twice her age would envy," says AllAboutJazz's Dan Bilawsky.
The brunch performances in the Twain House's acclaimed Murasaki Cafe continue through the season with a Sunday lineup that includes the Sinan Bakir Trio, Karen Frisk, Napua Davoy and the XY Eli Band.
Seatings for the Dana Lauren Jazz Brunch are at 11:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, February 12. The $35 admission includes the performance, full brunch, soft drinks and hot beverages. Alcoholic beverages are available at an additional charge. Call 860-280-3130 for reservations.
Murasaki Music is famed for its "classy" and "red-hot" concerts (as the Hartford Courant's Owen McNally describes them). Café Eiko's musical tastemaker and Japanalia fashion designer Dan Blow has curated a series of musical programs to delight and entertain.
Ghost Tours, Winter Chills Edition!
FEB. 24 & 25: Our Graveyard Shift Ghost Tours return, Winter Chills Edition. Reserve early to get a spot on these limited and popular tours -- they're routinely sold out in advance.
Reports of ghostly apparitions, mysterious bangs, cigar smoke and other unexplained phenomena, featured on Syfy's Ghost Hunters, have led us to reprise these popular tours. Hear these creepy tales -- and learn about Mark Twain's own interest in the supernatural. Spiritualism and ghostly tales were a big part of the Gilded Age, an age of uncertainty, rampant materialism and credulity much like ours. Tour times are 6:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m.; and 9:00 p.m. Graveyard Shift Ghost Tours are by reservation only, and sell out quickly. Call early: 860-280-3130. Tickets are $20 for adults 17 and up; $15 for members of The Mark Twain House & Museum; and $13 for children 16 and under. Tours are not recommended for children under 10.
Graveyard Shift Ghost Tours will also be held March 30 and April 27 and 28.
The tours are tsponsored by Tsunami Tsolutions.
Memoir Class Deadline
REGISTER BY FEB. 15: Our memoir class with Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine, designed for novices and veterans alike, goes into its third year.
Bloom and Levine will offer A Class in Memoir starting Wednesday, March 7, through Wednesday, April 25. There is a fee of $600 for the eight-week course. The registration deadline is Wednesday, February 15.
The class runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Mark Twain Museum Center, 351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford. One session will be held in Mark Twain's library in the historic house.
To participate, a serious interest in the memoir form is the only requirement; beginners are welcome. To register, please send a brief letter or email of interest to Steve Courtney at steve.courtney@marktwainhouse.org or call 860-247-0998, Ext. 243.
A Class in Memoir offers writing instruction and workshops at the home of one of the American masters of the craft. The class will include intensive, hands-on work on the craft, with the goal of producing a short work by the end of the session to be published on the Writing at the Mark Twain House Blog. It will explore such aspects of the memoir craft as scene-setting, dialogue, character development and narrative.
It's a particularly appropriate genre for the home of Mark Twain, whose Autobiography, released recently after a century under wraps, became a surprise bestseller.
Twain's ideas about memoir reflect Bloom's and Levine's: "An autobiography that leaves out the little things and enumerates only the big ones is no proper picture of the man's life at all," Twain wrote; "his life consists of his feelings and his interests, with here and there an incident apparently big or little to hang the feelings on."
Compare reviewer Carolyn Alvfin's comments on Bloom's style: "Seasoned editor Lary Bloom knows what any good screenwriter knows -- people love stories. Stories that include honest detail, true emotion, conflict, a point of view, and that show ordinary people's struggles and journeys. ...He encourages journalists and non-fiction writers to take the time to explore the human drama behind the obvious bullet points of their works-in-progress."
Lary Bloom is a legendary figure in the Connecticut literary world, known nationally as a pioneer of the New Journalism.
For 20 years, he edited Northeast magazine at The Hartford Courant, fostering a new kind of work that used the tools of fiction to tell the stories of ordinary people -- while maintaining strict truthtelling. He nurtured writers from Wally Lamb to Cindy Brown Austin (both of whom first pubished in Northeast), and turned the magazine into a Connecticut literary incubator for nurturing creativity of all types. His much-read weekly column -- unusual and unpredictable takes on unsung Connecticut characters and their achievements -- today find a home in the pages of Connecticut magazine.
During his two decades at Northeast he wrote essay collections and The Writer Within, which provides lessons in nonfiction writing learned from his years as a Sunday magazine editor. He produced the Twain's World series, essays on Hartford's cultural heritage that were collected in a book of that name. But many achievements took the magazine outside its traditional boundaries of its cover.
He was a founder of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, which featured many of America's greatest poets, including Stanley Kunitz, Sharon Olds, James Merrill and Lucille Clifton; Art For All, a public art project featuring work by Katharine Hepburn, Dave Brubeck, and many visual artists; and Mark Twain Days, a citywide celebration that featured the music of Ray Charles and the Kingston Trio, and the comedy of the Smothers Brothers, as well as activities such as jousts and Gilded Age baseball games. Another major public project was Connecticut Voices, during which 50 distinguished state authors (including Arthur Miller, William Styron, and Annie Dillard) were profiled, and then read from their books on public radio.
Since leaving Northeast, he has collaborated with former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge on his controversial memoir, The Test of Our Times, and wrote, with Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Letters from Nuremberg. The teaching he did as an editor has continued in tandem with Levine: classes at The Mark Twain House & Museum, at the Florence Griswold Museum, and the renowned literary bookstore R.J. Julia in Madison, Connecticut. He is on the faculty of Fairfield University's MFA writing program.
Suzanne Levine, a noted poet, may seem an odd choice for a teacher of memoir, but a closer look -- particularly at her acclaimed Haberdasher's Daughter, a work of "razor-sharp observations, crystal-clear imagery and quietly startling observations," in the words of Wally Lamb. The book makes clear the connections between the worlds of poetry and memoir, There is the matter of defining one's life through memory, which the reminiscent style of poetry she excels in provides generously. And there is the ability to make music with words, which can be applied to any kind of prose, when in the hands of a master. Haberdasher's Daughter was published by Antrim House Books in 2010 and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in California Quarterly, Passages North, Interpoesia, Permafrost Quiddity International Literary Journal, Southern California Review, The Chaffin Journal, Stand Magazine UK and Whiskey Island Magazine among others. A Pushcart nominee, she was a finalist in the 2009 Midnight Sun Chapbook Competition and a contributor to the anthology Forty Fathers (2009). She holds an MFA from Vermont College.
Next Week: A Love-Chase
FEB. 10 & 11: Susy Clemens' s short play A Love-Chase will be performed for the first time since 1889 in the drawing room of the Mark Twain House, where Susy -- the writer's daughter -- and her troupe performed.
The event is presented by The Mark Twain House & Museum and The Hartford Children's Theatre.
Each show will be part of a romantic Valentine's package that also includes a romantic concert by Israeli guitarist Shay Bachar and a champagne and chocolate reception in the museum's cafe.
Performances are February 10 at 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. and February 11 at 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. The play and a guitar concert are one hour long, followed by the reception.
Tickets are $28 ($23 for Mark Twain House & Museum members.) Because champagne will be served, attendees must be at least 21 years old.
The Mark Twain House drawing room only holds 30 people. Because of the limited seating, reservations are essential. Call 860-280-3130 for tickets.
On Thanksgiving night, 1889, the three daughters of Mark Twain stepped from behind a curtain in the drawing room of their home in Hartford.
Susy Clemens, 17 years old, was dressed in white classical robes as the figure of Music. Clara, 15, was Art. Jean, 9, was Cupid. The play, A Love-Chase, tells what happens when Music, Art and their cohort Literature (played by a neighbor girl) fell for a local shepherd boy, Julius (played by another neighbor girl). The result: a love chase.
The play was performed for what Twain called "a charmed housefull of friends." Susy was not only the main character in the play -- she was the author, giving herself the longest speeches and even a song to sing. It was typical of Susy's prolific creativity: This was a girl who when she was 13 years old wrote the first biography of her father.
Twain quoted with approval a friend's comment: "She is the most interesting person I have ever known."
Under the direction of Julia Pistell, the museum's Communications Associate and a founder of the acclaimed Sea Tea Improv, the Hartford Children's Theatre performers will bring Susy's delightful tale to life. It's a rare opportunity not only to see the play performed in the original spot, but to see any kind of performance in the intimate setting of the Mark Twain House's drawing room.
Attendance is strictly limited because of the historic nature of the room, so be sure to reserve at 860-280-3130.
Wednesday: Denis Horgan
WED., FEB. 8, 5 p.m.: Denis Horgan has delighted Connecticut readers with his mixture of gentle musings, subtle but rapier-like wit, and occasional rage against the insanities of our world.
For more than two decades he did this in the pages of the Hartford Courant, providing a place you could quickly turn to for a twice-a-week fix of insight. For the past nine years this work has been online (www.denishorgan.com), and in recent times he's turned his hand to fiction.
On Wednesday, February 8, at 5:30 p.m., Horgan brings his compelling skill in relaying information to the stage at The Mark Twain House & Museum.
It's an appropriate place. Horgan combines the laidback, self-effacing qualities of Sam Clemens' neighbor, journalist and essayist Charles Dudley Warner, with the fire that led Twain himself to warm up his pen in hell.
Horgan's latest book is Ninety-Eight Point Six ...and Other Stories (Ladder Press), a collection of tales that relate to the story of human identity -- how people are "defined by happenstance, by odd decisions and accumulations in their lives." He will read from the book and speak on the subject "Storytelling: Our New Golden Age."
"Yes, I will read from the book as well as discuss writing," says Horgan: "both my own richly varied experiences and the opportunities now open to everyone that simply didn't exist a few years ago. As traditional publishing lumbers along in some Dickensian business model, the world of the Web and its razzle-dazzle gear has created a golden age for storytellers."
The event is free, and will be preceded by a reception at 5:00 p.m. A booksigning will follow the talk.
Ninety-Eight Point Six includes 13 brief, O. Henry-esque tales of human beings finding out, in odd ways, who they are -- or wondering if they'll ever know. The driver of a junker loaner car finds people treat him with a new respect, if not fear. A man meets his identity thief. A woman sets up a new life for herself on Facebook.
Says Blogger Emily Rosenbaum: "By far, my favorite story was 'The English Aisles,' the story of a grocery store manager who torments his customers by moving items all around the store. I kept trying to read lines aloud to my husband, but I was laughing too hard to do so. If I were organizing a grocery store, that's exactly how I'd do it."
Denis Horgan says he was "born in a Boston taxicab during a Thanksgiving snowstorm which didn't quite make it to the hospital on time. Whether auspicious or merely suspicious, such a beginning is likely to shape how you look on the world."
After college and the Army, he started as a copyboy at the Boston Globe, and worked as reporter, editor, columnist for publications including the Bangkok World, the Washington Star and the Courant. He is the author of the essay collections Sharks in the Bathtub and Flotsam: A Life in Debris and the novel The Dawn of Days. He has won many awards and honors for his work, and says his "principal vice is an addiction to the Boston Red Sox."
Horgan's appearance launches a spring series of events in the Writing at the Mark Twain House program. These include a novel-writing workshop by Susan Schoenberger on March 2, our popular eight-week memoir class taught by Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine starting March 7, and a Writer's Weekend keynoted by famed Harper's editor emeritus Lewis Lapham on April 20-1.
A Spring for Writers
A Class in Memoir. A Writers' Weekend. Our programs are blossoming this spring with a new events added to the ever-popular March-April memoir class.
The Writers' Weekend runs April 20-21 and will be keynoted by the legendary editor of Harper's magazine, Lewis Lapham, an essayist whose work has been compared to Twain's -- he has provided incisive commentary on the passing scene for many decades and fostered the work of many of America's best-read writers.
Leading up to the weekend will be three important literary events: an appearance by longtime columnist and author Denis Horgan, celebrating the stories that are in us all, innovative ways of publishing, and his own new short story collection (Wednesday, February 8, 5:00 p.m.); an afternoon writing workshop with novelist Susan Schoenberger on "Getting Started" and "The Big Idea" (Saturday, March 3, at 1:00 p.m.); and of course, the acclaimed memoir class taught by longtime editors, authors and teachers Lary Bloom and Suzanne Levine (starts March 7, registration deadline February 15).
Watch this space for updates and details, or call Steve Courtney at 860-247-0998, Ext, 243, for details.
Closed Tuesdays through March
We're on our winter schedule -- open Wednesday-Monday, the Murasaki Cafe open Thursday-Saturday! Come and enjoy the warmth of Mark Twain's home in winter.
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