Elyssa East Views
Elyssa East received her B.A. in art history from Reed College and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. She has received awards and fellowships from The Corporation of Yaddo; the Ragdale, Jerome, and Ludwig Vogelstein Foundations; Columbia University; the University of Connecticut; and the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum. Elyssa's book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, interlaces murder, legend, and history in a Massachusetts ghost town. It was recently awarded the 2010 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award for the best work of non-fiction about New England. Dogtown was also named a... Read full bio
Elyssa East received her B.A. in art history from Reed College and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. She has received awards and fellowships from The Corporation of Yaddo; the Ragdale, Jerome, and Ludwig Vogelstein Foundations; Columbia University; the University of Connecticut; and the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum. Elyssa's book, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, interlaces murder, legend, and history in a Massachusetts ghost town. It was recently awarded the 2010 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award for the best work of non-fiction about New England. Dogtown was also named a... Read full bio
Elyssa East fell in love with Dogtown, the desolate, thickly forested highlands shared by Gloucester and Rockport, from afar. While living in Portland, Maine, the Georgia native became entranced by Marsden Hartley’s stark paintings of Dogtown’s enormous glacial rocks. To the writer, the boulders in Hartley’s paintings looked like “colossal macaroons’’ or “giant chewed fingernails.’’
Elyssa East Images
