SATURDAY MORNING
Rocky Neck Cultural Center and Rocky Neck walk

Rocky Neck is a small island in Gloucester Harbor connected to East Gloucester via a causeway. Bayliss lived there from 1968 until 1991 and wrote much of his fiction during that time. In the novels, Rocky Neck is “Mother’s Neck.”

■  ROCKY NECK MEMORIES Talks about Rocky Neck in the 1950s-1990s by Liz Sibley Fletcher, George Sibley, and Mern Sibley,  who spent much of their childhood in this Gloucester presqu’isle. Their parents, Bill and Peggy Sibley, are fictionalized in GLOUCESTERMAN as the fisherman Wat Cibber and his wife, Teddi.
■  Guided walk, seeing Rocky Neck sites from the novels including the house where Bayliss lived.
■  Guided tour of the Gloucester Marine Railways (Bayliss’s “Simon’s Point Marine Railways”).

■  Bag lunch with glorious views of Gloucester Harbor from the former Tarr & Wonson Paint Manufactory, a historic building and key landmark on the Gloucester waterfront, now the headquarters of Ocean Alliance (the “Dogtown Net & Twine Manufactory” where Caleb and Lilian meet at night in the chapter “Stormcloud” in Gloucestertide).

SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Cape Ann Museum, downtown Gloucester

■  ROCKY NECK IN THREE DIMENSIONS: ART COLONY, MARINE RAILWAYS, AND THE RUDDER, 1950s-1990s* including a slideshow of vintage photos and talks by six women with rich memories and intimate knowledge of Rocky Neck’s history: Judy Walcott, who will provide a brief introduction touching on Bayliss and his writer friend Peter Anastas, who grew up on Rocky Neck; Sally Bradshaw and Suzy O’Hara Kadiff, daughters of the painters Robert Bradshaw and Tom O’Hara, who were active in the summer art colony; Viking Gustafson, former general manager of the Gloucester Marine Railways; Susan Baker and Paula Parsons, who ran the famous Rudder restaurant (Bayliss’s “Starboard Gangway”) on Rocky Neck for many years.
* “Rocky Neck in Three Dimensions” is a free program sponsored by the Cape Ann Museum, the Jonathan Bayliss Society, and the Rocky Neck Art Colony, Registration is required; register here. 

■  FATHER F. HASTINGS SMYTH AND THE SOCIETY OF THE CATHOLIC COMMONWEALTH Talk on Father F. Hastings Smyth by retired Anglican Bishop Terry Brown (joining the conference by Zoom from Canada), with an introduction by Liz Fletcher Sibley. (Bayliss’s character Father Duncannon is modeled on Father Smyth, leader of a high-church Episcopalian group that held socialist economic views. It was headquartered in East Gloucester on Ledge Road during the late 1950s.) A slide show and audio recording will accompany the talk.