(Searsport, ME) Left Bank Books launches its fourth annual "Winter Lyceum," a series of informal Sunday afternoon talks, with "Eudora Welty's Garden," a talk by landscape historian Jane Roy Brown, on Sunday, February 12th from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. The programs are a revival of the historic lyceum tradition that was popular in Belfast and other parts of the country throughout the 1800s. Six different programs will be held from Sunday, February 12 through Sunday, April 29, and all are free and open to the public.

According to Belfast Historical Society President Megan Pinette, the lyceum program of 19th-century Belfast had as its goal "the diffusion of useful knowledge" and featured such local and nationally-known speakers as Joshua Chamberlain talking about the Battle of Gettysburg and Frederick Douglass speaking about his "Reminiscences of Slavery."

Brown's talk will focus on an iconic American writer, Eudora Welty, and her garden, telling their story against the backdrop of some of the most significant events of the 20th century. A Pulitzer Prize winner and the first living writer to have her work published by the Library of America, Welty was born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi and died there, in the house she was born in, in 2001. From the beginning, she wove images of southern flowers and gardens into her writing, although few outside the author's personal circle knew that these were drawn from her own passionate connection to the garden in her backyard. In the last decade of her life, Welty recounted memories of that lost garden to a local garden designer, Susan Haltom--a conversation that sparked an unprecedented effort to bring the garden back to life. By the time of the author's death in 2001, the garden's restoration was well underway (it was completed in 2004) and slowly revealing its profound place in the writer's artistic life –a place, Brown explains, of sanctuary and inspiration. In 2006 both house and garden were named National Historic Landmarks and opened to the public as a museum.

A resident of Conway, Massachusetts, Jane Roy Brown grew up in Belfast and is an award-winning travel and garden writer whose work has appeared in such magazines as Horticulture, Preservation, Garden Design and Landscape Architecture. She is also the director of educational outreach for the Library of America's Landscape History series. Sunday's talk will be based on her newest book, One Writer's Garden: Eudora Welty's Home Place, co-authored with Sue Haltom. In addition to passages from Welty's writings, both published and unpublished, One Writer's Garden features letters, planting plans, images from early seed catalogs and advertisements, and historic and modern photographs. It also draws connections between Welty's gardening and her fiction, and places the garden within the context of wider trends in American life: Progressive era optimism, prosperity, a rising middle class, street car suburbs, and the growth of interest in women's clubs, garden clubs, and civic beautification. The book has been honored with a listing in "25 Years of Great Gardening Books," just chosen by the British garden journal Hortus for its upcoming 100th issue.

Left Bank Books Winter Lyceum Schedule of Talks:
February 26: Kate Miles, professor at Unity College, on 19th-century Irish "famine" ships
March 11: Stephen Costanza, author/illustrator of the new children's book, "Vivaldi and the Invisible Orchestra"
March 25: Kate Shaffer, artisinal chocolatier from Isle au Haut and author of "Desserted"
April 15: Melissa Coleman, author of "This Life is In Your Hands", a memoir of her parents' 'back to the land' experience
April 29: Samantha Appleton, Camden resident and a member of the White House photography staff from 2008 through 2011.

All of the talks are informal, with questions and discussion at the end as well as warming refreshments. There is no charge for the series and the entire community is invited to attend all six of the programs or just a few. Seating is limited, and winter weather or unexpected illness sometimes requires a change in schedule. To reserve a seat, or for more information on the programs, please call Left Bank Books at 548.6400. The shop is located at 21 E. Main Street in downtown Searsport and is open daily.

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