Email updates

If you would like to be kept up-to-date about JBS activities, send your contact information in an email to info@jonathanbayliss.org and we will add you to the JBS email list. Not all events are listed here.

Gloucester Harbor - The Soul of Cape Ann September 2025

The focus of this year's annual conference is Gloucester Harbor. On the weekend of September 5-7 we'll be offering multidisciplinary talks, readings, and guided tours. The venue for the Friday and Saturday readings and talks will be Maritime Gloucester - the perfect setting for a conference about Gloucester Harbor! In conjunction with the conference, we'll be offering a jazz-filled meal on Saturday evening and a sail on the Schooner Adventure on Sunday afternoon. For full details, please click here.

PAST EVENTS

Granite and the Sea September 2024

"Granite and the Sea: Exploring the History, Nature, and Arts of Cape Ann's Rocky Coast" was the subject of the Jonathan Bayliss Society's annual conference on September 6-8, 2024. One of many themes running through Bayliss's wide-ranging GLOUCESTERMAN novels is the granite foundation of Gloucester and Rockport, adjacent communities on the Atlantic seaboard.

Multidisciplinary events included talks on Cape Ann's granite quarries and their workers, the area's geology and ecology, and art and literature inspired by Cape Ann's granite shores as well as readings from a wide range of authors, guided tours, walks with spectacular views, and stories and music relating to Cape Ann's unique history and geography.

courtesy Cape Ann Museum On Friday afternoon, Monica Lawton led a walk exploring the shore of Pigeon Cove, the north village of Rockport, with sweeping views of its working harbor and seascape, including its granite breakwater and the start of the Atlantic Path. Next was a gathering at Breakwater Avenue's Pigeon Cove Circle for an entertaining evening of "Quarry Stories." Martha Fox, Rosalie Hughes, Monica Lawton, Chris Leahy, Peter Littlefield, Theo MacGregor, Susanna Natti, Gerard Roy, and George Sibley looked back, through readings from a variety of sources, on the profound impact of the granite-quarry industry on lives and landscapes at the tip of Cape Ann. The evening concluded with a talk and slideshow by Leslie Bartlett, “Cape Ann Women in the Quarries.”

Above: From the Alexander R. Cheves Photograph Collection of the Cape Ann Museum Library & Archives

Saturday began at Halibut Point State Park's Visitor Center with a reading by Lisa Hahn from the chapter "Rock Dance" in Bayliss's novel Gloucestertide and talks by Susanna Natti ("The Paving Cutters"), Linda Brayton ("My Finnish Quarryman Heritage"), and Martin Ray ("Capt. Poland and the Granite Sloop Albert Baldwin").

After a tour of the Babson Quarry by Halibut Point's Mark Murray-Brown and a picnic lunch, Chris Leahy spoke about "Treasure Islands: The Natural Wealth of Cape Ann's Granitic Islands" and Robert Buchwaldt on "A Landscape That Inspires: The Geologic History of New England Written in Stones"; then Leahy and Buchwaldt led a walking tour of the geological and natural history features of the park.

On Saturday afternoon, attendees were invited by Leslie Bartlett to an open house of the Sandy Bay Historical Society of granite-industry exhibits, including historic documents detailing the history of Rockport's ill-fated "Harbor of Refuge" breakwater.

Saturday ended at Pigeon Cove Circle with dinner, silent auction, and entertainment by Michael O'Leary. Michael, who describes himself as a "singer, song-searcher, and tunesmith," had been delving into the history of the quarries and dory fishing on Cape Ann and treated the audience to songs based on a variety of poems by and about quarry workers and fishermen, set to original music. He closed with “Remember the Stone,” his poem inspired by a story about Cape Ann's granite historian Barbara Erkkila when she was a girl.

On Sunday morning Monica Lawton led a walking tour, under a cloudless blue sky, from Rockport's Granite Pier to Flat Ledge Quarry, passing below the historic Keystone Bridge.

In the afternoon, the conference moved to the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, where attendees were introduced to the Museum's granite gallery (Monica Lawton) and the story of Maria Bray, the lighthouse keeper's wife (Suellen Wedmore), followed by a slideshow by Paul St. Germain from his book Cape Ann Granite, a talk by Rebecca Reynolds on “Granite Appeal: How the Rock of Ages Inspired Artists,” and Gary Grieve-Carlson on "‘it is elements men stand in the midst of’: Jonathan Bayliss and Charles Olson.”

The weather continued to smile, permitting the planned sail on the schooner Ardelle, with commentary by Chris Leahy and Capt. Harold Burnham, which closed out our very well attended sixth annual conference.

The conference was supported in part by grants from the Gloucester and Rockport Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, and from the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation. Conference partners were Cape Ann Museum, Friends of Halibut Point, Gloucester Writers Center, Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Pigeon Cove Circle, Rockport Public Library, Sandy Bay Historical Society, and Sawyer Free Library. Sawyer Free Library provided this list of resources for those who would like to learn more about Cape Ann's connection with granite and the sea.

Walking Gloucester: In the Footsteps of Anastas Bayliss Ferrini Garland Olson September 2023

Our 2023 annual conference, "Walking Gloucester: In the Footsteps of Anastas Bayliss Ferrini Garland Olson," took place September 8-10. The weekend's events explored some of the city's diverse neighborhoods through talks, walks, and readings highlighting the work of five friends who lived in Gloucester and wrote about its history, its geography, its neighborhoods, and its people: the novelists Peter Anastas and Jonathan Bayliss, poets Vincent Ferrini and Charles Olson, and historian Joseph Garland.

The conference began with a Friday early-evening walk led by John Day exploring sites in the Rocky Neck section of Gloucester of importance to the writers. Viking Gustafson gave a short tour of the Gloucester Marine Railways, a favorite haunt of Bayliss's. Next was a program of readings at the Rocky Neck Cultural Center: "From Rocky Neck to Lane's Cove: Gloucester Neighborhoods in the Writing of Anastas Bayliss Ferrini Garland Olson," introduced by Rocky Neck resident George Sibley, with readings from the five writers' prose and poetry by Benjamin Anastas, Mary John Boylan, Henry Ferrini, Ken Riaf, and Ben Wildrick.

On Saturday at the Lanesville Community Center, short talks about the writers' lives in Gloucester were presented by Benjamin Anastas, John Day, Liz Sibley Fletcher, Peter Littlefield, and Ben Wildrick. These were followed by nearby walks led by Ed Becker of two Greenbelt properties, Kleimola and Harvey reservations. The afternoon began with presentations by Ed Becker ("The Geology of the Kleimola Reservation: Granite, Ice, and Boulders") and Monica Lawton ("100 Years in 20 Minutes: The Story of Quarrying on Cape Ann"). Then Jay McLauchlan shared with Peter Littlefield his memories of the five writers starting in the 1960s. A late afternoon walk led by Chris Leahy explored the "Cut Bridge" area of Gloucester, including Peter Anastas's childhood home and a maze of streets leading up to Governor's Hill, with its view of the city and harbor. After a conference dinner, an informal collection of video clips and photographs were shown highlighting different aspects of the writers' lives.

Sunday morning began with walks through downtown Gloucester: one led by Peter Littlefield which included a stop at Olson's residence at 28 Fort Square and one led by Judith Walcott of side streets known to the five writers but unknown to many current Gloucester residents. The conference ended on Sunday afternoon at Cape Ann Museum with "Anastas, Bayliss, Ferrini, Garland, Olson: Writers Writing to Each Other." CAM Head Librarian & Archivist Trenton Carls provided an overview of the Museum's literary archives, and John Day explored the correspondence among the five writers, with portions read aloud by Sharon Day, Monica Lawton, Theo MacGregor, Mern Sibley, and Suellen Wedmore.

Recordings of the Friday and Saturday readings and talks are available on Youtube. The Sunday talk at the Cape Ann Museum is available here.

The conference was in partnership with Gloucester 400+, which celebrates Gloucester’s 400+ years of cultural, social, ethnic, and economic diversity. The year 2023 marks four hundred years since English colonizers first attempted to settle in Gloucester. The conference was supported in part by grants from the Gloucester Cultural Council, the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation, and the Mass Cultural Council. We are grateful for the support of conference partners Cape Ann Museum, Common Crow Market, Gloucester 400+, Gloucester Writers Center, Greenbelt, Rocky Neck Art Colony, and Sawyer Free Library. A bibliography of conference-related resources available at the Sawyer Free Library is included here, courtesy of the Library.

2022

Celebrating Dogtown Common: A Special Place Fourth Annual Conference, September 10-11, 2022

Dogtown Common was the theme of the JBS fourth annual conference, held in what Jonathan Bayliss's fiction calls "Cape Gloucester" on the weekend of Saturday-Sunday, September 10-11, 2022.

Dogtown Common ("Purdeyville" and "Tir-na-Dog" in the novels) is a wild area in the middle of Cape Ann, which is, as Bayliss says in Gloucesterbook, "next to the harbor itself our most precious public possession." Check out a trail map.

Dogtown's history, ecology, legends, and influence on writers and painters were the subject of conference walks, talks, readings, and more.

Saturday's talks, lunch, and dinner were held in the beautiful Dogtown-like landscape of the Windhover Center for the Performing Arts, founded by Bayliss's friend Ina Hahn and now run by her daughter, Lisa Hahn. Speakers included Mark Carlotto ("Place and Times: A Spatial History of Dogtown"), John Day ("Dogtown and the Fiction of Jonathan Bayliss"), Cindy Dunn ("Dogtown Preservation"), Chris Leahy ("The Nature of Dogtown"), and Mary Ellen Lepionka ("The Archaeology and Indigenous History of Dogtown"). The Saturday program included options for a guided walk in Dogtown to Whale's Jaw and/or a visit to Sandy Bay Historical Society's "Dogtown Artifacts" with Leslie D. Bartlett.

Saturday evening, after the conference dinner, Windhover Center for the Performing Arts presented an exciting new production based on Percy MacKaye's poem Dogtown Common, adapted and directed by Peter Littlefield - with readings by Peter Berkrot, Judy Brain, Duncan Hollomon, Cass Tunick, Brian Weed, and Deirdre Weed, and music by Kathleen Adams. Grace Schrafft gave an introductory talk about the history of witches in Gloucester.

On Sunday morning, attendees had the option to join one of several Dogtown walks led by experts in various aspects of Dogtown.

Sunday afternoon included a program on Dogtown-inspired art and literature at the Cape Ann Museum. In conjunction with the conference, the Sawyer Free Library produced a bibliography about Dogtown, and the Gloucester Writers Center offered a Friday evening reading and social event to kick off the weekend.

More information about the conference is included in the program PDF. Videos of the conference talks are available on the JBS YouTube channel.

This program was supported in part by a grant from the Gloucester Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

A Cambridge Kid in the '30s and '40s June 17, 2022 Houghton Library, Harvard Yard

"A Cambridge Kid in the '30s and '40s: Scenes from the Life and Work of Jonathan Bayliss" - held at Houghton Library on June 17, 2022 - featured talks and readings about growing up in Cambridge during the Great Depression. A few early papers and drawings from Houghton's Bayliss collection were on display for the event.

John Day, Peter Littlefield, Theo MacGregor, and Victoria Bayliss Mattingly read passages about Cambridge and Harvard from the "Book of Ruth" chapter of Prologos. Leslie Morris, curator of modern books and manuscripts, described Houghton Library's extensive Bayliss collection. Talks were "Cambridge as a Point of Departure" (Paul McGeary); "Bayliss Childhoods in Cambridge" (David Bowditch); and "Jonathan Bayliss at Harvard" (John Day). Attendees gathered outdoors for a box lunch and walked past Lowell House (where Bayliss spent his freshman year during WW2) to the Larz Andersen bridge over the Charles River to see where the fictional Michael Chapman sailed his toy schooner during his Cambridge childhood in the 1930s.

Some previously unpublished material is included in the PDF of the program, as well as the PDF of the map booklet given to attendees.

Third Annual Conference September 11-12, 2021

One of the 2021 conference themes was Rocky Neck, the peninsula-island attached to East Gloucester via a causeway. Bayliss lived on Rocky Neck for more than twenty years and did much of his novel-writing there. Conference events are listed here. Recordings:

"Rocky Neck Memories": George Sibley, Mern Sibley, and Liz Sibley Fletcher video (60 mins)
Gloucester Marine Railways tour by Viking Gustafson video clips (12 mins)
"Rocky Neck in Three Dimensions: Art Colony, Marine Railways, and The Rudder" live stream (58 mins)
Father F. Hastings Smyth 1950s audio, with slide show (8 mins)
Bishop Terry Brown on Father F. Hastings Smyth video (48 mins)
Introduction to Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay by John Day video clips (15 mins)

A PDF booklet (download here) includes speakers' notes: George Sibley (Rocky Neck Memories), Sally Bradshaw and Suzy O'Hara Kadiff (Art Colony), Viking Gustafson (Gloucester Marine Railways), Susan Baker and Paula Parsons (The Rudder), Bishop Terry Brown (Father F. Hastings Smyth and the Society of the Catholic Commonwealth), and John Day (introduction to Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay). It also includes the map of Bayliss's "Mother's Neck" that appeared in the conference program.

Second Annual Conference September 11-12, 2020 (Zoom)

The September 2020 Zoom readings entitled "From Cats to Seagulls: A Bayliss Bestiary" and "Gloucester Quintet: Five Writers, Five Friends" are on YouTube.

First Annual Conference September 7-8, 2019

David Rich and Ken Riaf read passages from the novels Gloucestermas and Gloucesterbook relating to downtown "Dogtown" at the first annual conference in September 2019 - the videotapes are available here.

Other Events

A video of a September 2015 reading on labor-related themes in the novel Prologos is on YouTube, courtesy of the Gloucester Writers Center. Readers were David Adams, Peter Anastas, Thorpe Feidt, Henry Ferrini, Doug Guidry, Victoria Bayliss Mattingly, Martin Ray, Ken Riaf, and David Rich. On Bayliss's birthday, September 7, 2013, the Gloucester Lyceum and Sawyer Free Library sponsored "Dogtown's Acropolis," a reading with commentary by Peter Anastas and David Rich. See the video recording. A 1990 student production of Bayliss's stage play The Tower of Gilgamesh is available on the JBS YouTube channel.