Reading is fundamental

Written by Glen Hughes on July 17th, 2008 1 Comment

Ed Asner said it in the 70s “reading is fundamental“, and with everyone plugged into their iEverything, watching HD talking heads and txting their BFF there is no better time to pick up some pulp and start flipping the pages.

Salem is home to a few great bookstores, bunches of library’s both public and private and a gem known as the Salem Athenaeum. The Salem Athenaeum was formed in 1810 by the union of the Social and Philosophical libraries. By 1837, it boasted a collection of around 9,000 volumes. It’s located in a beautiful brick Palladian and Federal building (modeled after Homewood) at 337 Essex Street just down the road a piece from the Salem Library.

Now with over 50,000 volumes the Salem Athenaeum has current and historical information, offers regular salons, readings and gatherings.

If you’re going to have books you need writers.

For all you aspiring writers out there a new group has formed, The Parlor is a new nonprofit creative writing center in Salem, Massachusetts.

Our mission is to foster the creative development of individual writers, to cultivate a local writing community, and to build an audience for literature on the North Shore of Massachusetts. We’ll do this by providing affordable creative writing workshops to writers of all experience levels, by hosting events of interest to the writing community, and by continuing to publish the
national literary journal Quick Fiction.

The Parlor Hosts Novelist Hannah Tinti at The Salem Athenaeum

Now that you know about the Anthenaeum and the Palor it’s time to meet Novelist Hannah Tinti. Hannah Tinti, a Salem native now living in New York will be coming home before embarking on a national book tour to promote her new novel The Good Theif. Her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories 2003. Her short story collection, Animal Crackers, has been sold in sixteen countries and was recently a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway award.

While in Salem you can meet Ms. Tinti on Saturday, July 19th at 2:30 pm, when The Parlor will host their first annual Creative Connection held at The Salem Athenaeum.

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