Join us for a discussion with Jo Radner about her book "Wit & Wisdom", a historical documentation of the generational wisdom of the region.

Whatever did New Englanders do on long winter evenings before cable, satellite and the internet? Throughout the nineteenth century, our ancestors in tiny villages across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont created joyful neighborhood events to improve their minds. Men and women held debates and composed and read aloud homegrown, handwritten literary newspapers. Sometimes serious, sometimes sentimental and often very funny, these "papers" revealed the hopes, fears, humor and surprisingly daring behavior of our forebears.

Jo Radner (Lovell, Maine) is professor emerita of literature at American University, holds BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University, and is enjoying a second career as an oral historian and professional storyteller. Past president of the American Folklore Society and the National Storytelling Network., she has published books and articles on subjects ranging from early Irish historiography and Anglo-Irish drama to women’s folklore, Deaf culture, and New England social history.