A Program in Partnership with the Thoreau Society
Author talks and writing workshops that encourage critical thinking and perceptive writing about the world and ourselves.
Explore the List of Past Programs Watch Recordings of Past Programs
Fall 2025
The Radical Relevance of Thoreau: William Homestead in conversation with David Gordon
Sunday, September 21
2pm
At Thoreau Farm
Join author and educator William Homestead for an afternoon exploring the radical relevance of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the face of today’s intertwined educational, ecological, and moral crises. In dialogue with David Gordon, board member of the Thoreau Society, Homestead will reflect on his two latest works, which illuminate the enduring legacy of Transcendentalism as a source of resistance, renewal, and reform.
Co-sponsored by the Walden Woods Project.
We are delighted to also offer this program on Zoom. Please register here to join us virtually.
Telling the Wampanoag Story: Writing Race to the Truth in Troubled Times
Sunday, September 28
2:00 PM
Goodwin Forum,
Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main Street, Concord, MA, 01742
Register for the IN PERSON event at Concord Free Public Library
Join Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag) as she discusses her ground-breaking Young Adult book, Colonization and the Wampanoag Story, part of the Race to the Truth Series published by Penguin Random House that seeks to correct some of the long-standing myths about American history. The book has attracted many readers for its compelling story of a young girl’s life in a Wampanoag family and community long before any contact with Europeans. This is juxtaposed in the following chapters with documented accounts of European exploration, settlement, the institution of colonization, as well as its many impacts, which carry through to the present day. The book has also attracted controversy, including a book ban in Texas. Coombs will discuss her work with the Wampanoag scholar Joyce Rain Anderson as part of the broader project of Native American revitalization.
Co-sponsored by the Concord Free Public Library.
But was he Autistic? Thoreau’s Walden as a Self-Help Guide for Readers on the Spectrum
Dr. Julie Brown will share her ideas about Thoreau’s place on the autism spectrum. She believes that his neurobiology influenced the content, themes, and style of his writing. Walden functions not only as a type of autistic memoir, but as a “self-help” guide that could be of great value to others on the spectrum.
We are delighted to also offer this program on Zoom. Please register here to join us virtually.
Writing Your Story in the Woods
October 11 & 12, 2025
$200/person
No story is like yours — and your telling it is powerful and necessary. Join this workshop to find your woods and tell your story.
In this two-day workshop, national memoirist & distinguished teacher Dr. Barbara Mossberg invites you “to the woods” — a place to find focus, inspiration, connection, and support for developing your memoir. Experiments, prompts and exercises in this workshop are designed to invite, inquire, and invoke your own “woods” through Thoreau’s lens of living purposefully.
Finding Your Walden: How to Strive Less, Minimize More, & Embrace What Matters Most
A Book Talk with Jen Tota McGivney
November 9
2pm
At Thoreau Farm
In Finding Your Walden, Jen Tota McGivney invites everyone—both serious Thoreau fans and the merely Thoreau-curious—to learn how five of Walden’s messages can make life a little easier and a little happier today.
Join Jen as she shares her new book, as well as her mission to put a little less striving and a little more Thoreau into modern life.
Co-sponsored by the Walden Woods Project.
We are delighted to also offer this program on Zoom. Please register here to join us virtually. Register to Attend Virtually
The World That We Are: A Conversation with Andrew Furman
Thursday, December 4, 2025
7:00 pm
Free Zoom Event
In 1837, a young Henry David Thoreau sets out to lead an extraordinary life in Concord, Massachusetts, combating formidable obstacles. He struggles to find work as a teacher, to discover his voice as a writer, and to realize true friendship and romantic love, battling all the while against the “family disease” that threatens his health. When a captivating young woman arrives in town, she ignites a tumultuous love triangle with Thoreau’s brother, forcing matters to a crisis. Meanwhile, David Hertzog, a Thoreau scholar in present-day Maine, embarks on a reflective journey in the autumn of his life upon the unexpected return of his estranged daughter. Her reappearance in town forces him to grapple with their painful shared history and seek a new path forward. Alternating between these two timelines, The World That We Are delves into enduring themes of love, family, the quest for meaningful work, and the search for a true home in the spinning cosmos.
All registration fees for Write Connection at Thoreau Farm programs are non-refundable.
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