If one goes back in time and looks at the history of some of the most important cultural institutions on the Mid-Shore, one will typically find that many of these treasured establishments began with the singular vision of one or two people.
Driven by their passion for art and a raw determination to bring that joy to a broader audience, these founders began the tedious task of bringing outstanding talent to the Mid-Shore’s rural location while fundraising for those programs on only hope and a prayer there would be an audience.
The founder and director of Shore Lit, Kerry Folan, has been experiencing this first phase since she launched Shore Lit based in Easton when not working at her “real” job at George Mason University in Virginia where she is an English professor.
Inspired by her distinguished career as a writer and editor at such notable publications as ARTNews, Atlas Obscura, the Baltimore Review, BOMB, The Cut, Glamour, Hippocampus, Literary Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ninth Letter, River Teeth, and the Washington Post among others, Kerry instinctively felt her new community on the Mid-Shore would greatly benefit from local cultural offerings with regular, free book talks open to the public. The goal was to explore relevant ideas, foster literary conversation and build an inclusive community to support and celebrate the written word.
Starting in 2022, her organization has already made a distinctive mark with events at the Academy Art Museum and the Talbot County Free Library with such acclaimed national writers as Christopher Tilghman, Maud Casey, and Rion Amilcar Scott. And 2023 promises to be even more exciting with novelist Jung Yun and New Yorker writer and art critic Lawrence Weschler scheduled this spring.
In her first Spy interview, Kerry talks about her background, her vision for Shore Lit, and how her position at George Mason helped attract these gifted writers to the Eastern Shore
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Shore Lit and its 2022 programs, please go here.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.