Shore Lit’s Fall Kick-Off: An Intimate Book Talk with Christopher Tilghman at Avalon Theatre

Shore Lit Invites Community to Fall ‘24 Kick-Off

Shore Lit invites the community to join us for our Fall ‘24 kick-off—a free book talk with author Christopher Tilghman at the Avalon Theatre on Sunday, September 8 at 2 pm.

Tilghman’s new novel, On the Tobacco Coast (April ’24, FSG), is the final installment in his decorated Mason family series, which is set on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and based on the Queen Anne’s property that has been in his family since the 17th century. Grappling with the legacy of slavery, the book addresses themes of history, race, and inheritance that are deeply relevant to our local community.

Following Tilghman’s discussion with Shore Lit Founder Kerry Folan, the event will conclude with a panel featuring artists and writers working with Eastern Shore history. Author Carole Boston Weatherford, multi-media artist Jason Patterson, and photographer/filmmaker Jonna McKone will discuss their work and process.

This program is free and open to the public, though reservations are required through the Shore Lit website. For more information about Shore Lit and the artists and writers speaking at this event, please see below.

Christopher Tilghman was born and raised in Boston but his life has revolved around his family’s farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Three previous novels, Mason’s Retreat, The Right-Hand Shore, and Thomas and Beal in the Midi tell the multigenerational story of a farm on the Eastern Shore called Mason’s Retreat. His new novel, On the Tobacco Coast, concludes the quartet in the present day. Chris is a Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia. He and his wife, writer Caroline Preston, divide their time between Charlottesville and the Eastern Shore.

Carole Boston Weatherford has authored 80-plus books that have garnered 2 NAACP Image Awards and 18 American Library Association Youth Media Awards. Her young adult novel KIN re-imagines in illustrated verse the lives of her ancestors who were enslaved on the Eastern Shore. She collaborated on KIN and three other books with her son, illustrator and rapper Jeffery Weatehrford. Her career achievements have been recognized with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Nonfiction Award from the Children’s Book Guild, and induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. A retired English professor, she lives in Baltimore.

Jason Patterson is an African American history–based artist whose work focuses on the Black history of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. His work is focused in portraiture, historic documents, and woodworking. A native of east central Illinois, Patterson came to Chestertown in 2018. At Washington College, Patterson has worked as an adjunct professor in the art department, a visiting fellow and interim Deputy Director of Washington College’s Starr Center for the study of the American Experience. He has also served as the interim Director of the college’s Kohl Gallery. Currently, Patterson’s work on 1960s Civil Rights protests in Chestertown and Cambridge are on display in the exhibition Revisit/Reimagine: The Civil Rights Era in Maryland and Parallels of Today at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis.

Jonna McKone is an artist, photographer and filmmaker whose work combines documentary, narrative, archives, and materials-based photography processes to explore legacies of empire, the fragility of truth, and the land and body as vessels of memory. Her photography project Slow Drift, which is on view at Adkins Arboretum through September 1, 2024, explores the ways the legacy of colonial tobacco plantations reverberates across the landscape, soil, property ownership, and waterways. Alongside her studio practice, McKone is a producer and filmmaker of award-winning documentary films as well as an educator. She is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Duke’s MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts. She lives in Baltimore.

Shore Lit is based in Easton, Maryland, and aims to enhance local cultural offerings with free literary events open to the public. Our programs are designed to explore relevant ideas, foster literary conversation, and build inclusive community. For updates, sign up for our monthly newsletter at shorelit.org.

This event is produced in partnership with the Academy Art Museum, Adkins Arboretum, Conversations on Race, Needle’s Eye Academy, Talbot County Free Library, Talbot Historical Society, ShoreRivers, and the Water’s Edge Museum.