Marshall helps unveil Literary Cultural District

Associate Professor Megan Marshall, who won the Pulitzer Prize this year for her biography on Margaret Fuller, helped usher in Boston’s new Literary Cultural District in a ceremony at the Park Plaza on October 5.

The Literary Cultural District, the first in the nation, is a cultural, compact, walkable area of Boston highlighting locations of literary history, according to a description from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which has been instrumental in creating the district.

Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre is one of 10 locations in the cultural district, which surrounds Boston Common. (See detailed location descriptions below.)

Marshall, who is on teaching sabbatical and is currently a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, returned to Boston to read a passage from Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” at a ceremony unveiling the “Poe Returning to Boston” sculpture at Charles and Boylston streets.

Emerson’s Writing, Literature and Publishing program was involved in ArtWeek Boston, which ended this weekend and was a weeklong series of arts and cultural events to celebrate the launch of the Literary Cultural District. The emersonWRITES program offered free creative writing instruction as part of ArtWeek Boston last week.

Literary Cultural District locations (Source: Boston Metro):

·      Poe Returning to Boston Sculpture: Corner of Charles and Boylston streets

·      Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre: 106 Boylston Street. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the title song to Oklahoma! in the lobby and later won a special Pulitzer for the play.

·      Newspaper Row: Largely on Washington Street but also on some surrounding streets, once included the offices of the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Advertiser, Boston Post, Boston Journal, Boston Traveler, and the Associated Press. Plaque at 1 Devonshire Place between 266 Washington Street and Devonshire Street.

·      Home of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.: 3 Bosworth Street. He was a poet and book writer (autocrat of the Breakfast Table).

·      Henry David Thoreau’s childhood home: 4 Pinckney Street. Wrote Civil Disobedience and other seminal 19th-century works.

·      Nathaniel Hawthorne’s residence: 54 Pinckney Street. He wrote The Scarlett Letter, Young Goodman Brown, and other famous 19th-century works.

·      Robert Frost’s residence: 88 Mount Vernon Street. He was an American poet and poet laureate.

·      Make Way for Ducklings Sculpture: In the Public Garden near Charles and Boylston streets. Created by Nancy Schon in 1987 as a tribute to Robert McCloskey’s Caldecott medal–winning children’s story.

·      John Updike’s residence: 151 Beacon Street. He was a 20th-century novelist, poet, short story writer, and literary critic.