Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding

Our Third Speaker is:

Brent M. Colley
Historian

Brent's presentation is a visual Top Ten List of why Mark Twain's time in Redding is of importance.

84 slides filled with rare photos and commentary on everything you ever wanted to know about Twain's time in Redding.

You have to be there to see and hear it. :)

The 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference at Redding, Connecticut is Saturday, August 18th from 1pm to 5pm.

Meet the Speakers at our 1st Annual Mark Twain Conference in Redding

In the Lead-off Spot...

Steve Courtney
Publicist and Publications Editor

Mark Twain House & Museum Publicist and Publications Editor Steve Courtney won the 2009 Connecticut Book Award for Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain’s Closest Friend (University of Georgia Press, 2008). His most recent book, published to acclaim in the fall of 2011, is ‘The Loveliest Home That Ever Was’: The Story of the Mark Twain House in Hartford (Dover), with a Foreword by Hal Holbrook and photographs by John Groo.

In the past decade, Courtney has frequently written and spoken on Samuel Clemens’ friend Twichell and his role in literary and social history. He co-edited, with Peter Messent, The Civil War Letters of Joseph Hopkins Twichell: A Chaplain's Story (University of Georgia Press, 2006). He founded and leads an annual eight-mile walk in the Hartford area commemorating similar autumn and spring walks Twichell and Clemens took.

Courtney is also a freelance editor and researcher, having worked in this capacity on a major new biography of William Gillette, the American stage portrayer of Sherlock Holmes; a work on the ethical basis of American political philosophy; a history of the Ensign Bickford corporation; and a major biography of inventor and industrialist Joseph Gerber.

He has been a journalist for 36 years, more than twenty of them at The Hartford Courant in Hartford, Connecticut. There he was a bureau chief, copy editor, book reviewer, interviewer and writer on scientific, historical and literary subjects, including an acclaimed series on the then-little-known work of Yale biologist Thomas Steitz, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Courtney was Deputy Editor of Northeast, the Courant's Sunday magazine, for five years, and served as President of Sunmag, the national organization of Sunday magazine editors.

Courtney received his Bachelor of Science degree in History from Charter Oak State College in 1997.

Mark Twain Event- Saturday, August 18th

Saturday, August 18th, starting at around 1:00 at The Mark Twain Library a wonderful free to the public Mark Twain Immersion.

• Steve Courtney from The Mark Twain House will talk about his book, 
  
• James Nicoloro director/Producer will talk about and show his Film Trailer of his upcoming Documentary, "Mark Twain and Redding". 
  
• Brent Colley Redding/Twain Historian will give another wonderful talk about Twain/Redding History,
• A Mark Twain Scholar from Elmira College will talk,
• Pitzer College President, Laura Twombley is coming all the way from California to give a talk about her book "Mark Twain's Other Woman" and 
  
• Susan Boone Durkee will share her knowledge of Isabel Lyon.

Then after the Library event...in the evening, The Redding Road House will be having its Mark Twain Room in full Twainiac decoration...with a dinner and guest speaker Mark Twain himself, (famed Mark Twain interpreter Alan Kitty).

Space is limited to only 70 for the Road House dinner event so make your reservations now..contact: Jan Kardys, President Unicorn Writers Conference: jan.kardys@gmail.com

This event is a fundraiser for the Unicorn Writer Conference, a 501 non-profit

 

 

Stormfield Photos

These are some images I scanned this summer from the Mark Twain Library collection.



Clemens and Angelfish in October 1908 at the Mark Twain Library Dedication event.

Stormfield in the days prior to Clemens arrival.

Stormfield ready for the grand entrance of its owner.

Stormfield from the back. View of Clara's Cage on the right.

New Mark Twain Library building with Stormfield in the background.

Below are photos of the Lobster Pot before and after renovations.

Isabel V. Lyon was forced to return this house and 20 acres to Clemens on 07-17-1909.


Stormfield

Grantor: William F. & Catherine Kearney 03-24-1906- 75 Acres

Grantor: Albert B. & Arthur S. Hill 05-07-1906- 110 Acres

Grantor: Estate of Sarah E. Jones 09-04-1906- 10 Acres

Grantor: Stephen E. Carmina 04-10-1909- 125 Acres (Jean's Farm)

Grantor: Isabel V. Lyon Ashcroft 07-17-1909- 20 Acres

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