Dinner & Auction Presented by Friends of Edgar Lee Masters Memorial Museum Saturday, April 6, 2024 ~ 6:00 PM Indian Creek Farmstead, 19468 Curtis Blacktop, Petersburg Tickets ~ $50 Guest Speaker ~ Catherine Masters, Edgar Lee Masters' granddaughter Silent and Live Auction Items All proceeds go to preserving the memory of Edgar Lee Masters and… Read More »Party with the Poet
Dr. Ethan Stephenson, an English professor at Richland Community College in Decatur and the visionary behind the Masters Back Porch Chautauqua summer series, will inaugurate the event with his captivating presentation titled "Homegoing" from Edgar Lee Masters's renowned work, Spoon River Anthology. Stephenson will delve into Masters's celebrated work, drawing parallels with Homer's Odyssey, as… Read More »Masters’ Back Porch Chautauqua May 2024
The ELM Back Porch Chautauqua Summer Series continues! Dr. Michael Wiant presenting: This Land Was Our Land…“Thousands of years before Illinois … these Indians…hunted and fished the Illinois, the Sangamon, and the Spoon Rivers” (Edgar Lee Masters 1942:13). In a single two-page document, The Treaty with the Peoria, ETC. 1818, the land that would become… Read More »Masters’ Back Porch Chautauqua June 2024
Herbert K. Russell is one of the foremost authorities on Masters’ life and works. His 2001 Edgar Lee Masters: A Biography published by the University of Illinois Press is the first book-length biography of the poet and is widely considered the definitive story of the poet’s life. Russell is the retired Director for College Relations… Read More »Masters’ Back Porch Chautauqua July 2024
Wild Columbine plays parlor music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Drawing on Celtic, English, and American traditions, the quartet performs the history of early American music, both entertaining and educating audiences on the roots of our national songbook. Members include Sally McDaniel-Smith, Emily Wheeler, Megan Turner Thornberry, and William “Bill” Furry, all residents… Read More »Masters’ Back Porch Chautauqua August 2024
Dr. Bailey Shaw is a professor of English at Lincoln Land Community College and author of a book chapter in #Metoo and Modernism published by Clemson University Press. Shaw will present "Memory and Understanding in the Poetry of Thomas Hardy". Thomas Hardy, a contemporary of Edgar Lee Masters, grew up in the rural English countryside… Read More »Masters’ Back Porch Chautauqua September 2024
