NEWS

Robert Richardson’s last book, Three Roads Back:  How Emerson, Thoreau, and William James Responded to the Greatest Losses of Their Lives, published posthumously with a Foreword by Megan Marshall has received enthusiastic reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, and The Brooklyn Rail


Read Megan Marshall’s recommendations for “Best Women’s Writing on Women’s Lives” at Shepherd.com

Megan Marshall receives the Walter Harding Distinguished Service Award from the Thoreau Society, July 9, 2022.

Megan Marshall profiled in Christian Science Monitor, June 14, 2022

Megan Marshall interviewed by Holly Van Leuven, editor of The Biographer’s Craft, April 2022

Megan Marshall to receive the 2022 BIO Award for “major contributions to the art and craft of biography.”

Megan Marshall’s essay “Without”praised in New York Times review of Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau, October 14, 2021.

Megan Marshall awarded Fellowship at T.S. Eliot House, Gloucester, May and October, 2022.

Scott Harney’s The Blood of San Gennaro, edited and introduced by Megan Marshall, launches on October 18 3PM
Register here

Megan Marshall elected 2020-2021 president of the Society of American Historians

 Boston Globe Sunday Magazine feature, “The Lost Poems of Scott Harney,” May 10, 2020, tells the story of Megan Marshall’s work on The Blood of San Gennaro

The Blood of San Gennaro: Selected Poems of Scott Harney available for purchase!

Read Megan Marshall’s Arrowsmith Journal essays,“Place of Rest,” and “Chalk Talk,” on walking in her neighborhood—Mt. Auburn Cemetery and the streets of Cambridge and Belmont, Massachusetts—during our time of contagion.

Megan Marshall has been awarded a fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation’s Study Center near Genoa to work on her new book, In Heaven’s Own Time:  The Women of Hawthorne’s Romances, September-October 2019.

Boston Globe Pick of the Week, June 2, 2019:
“Serena Longo at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, recommends Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall, ‘A thoughtful, compelling, and remarkably personal look at the life and work of one of our most beloved (and elusive) poets. Marshall boldly and deftly interweaves her subject’s story with brief bits of her own, lending a further touch of intimacy to this detailed, expertly researched, and beautifully narrated biography.’”

Megan Marshall interviewed as “one of the great biographers of women” by Joanne Mulcahy in Women’s Review of Books, March/April 2019

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast makes the short list for Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Christian Gauss Award for an outstanding book in the field of literary scholarship or criticism, August 2018.

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast among top ten finalists for BIO’s Plutarch Prize, “the only international annual literary award presented for outstanding work by a biographer by fellow biographers.” January 15, 2018
Commendation: "With extraordinary steadiness of voice throughout,  Megan Marshall depicts the complex life of Elizabeth Bishop.  She effectively and unobtrusively uses her own interaction as a student of Bishop's to shine light on  Bishop's character and ultimately to illuminate how the biographer is drawn to her craft. A brave, groundbreaking work.”

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
 on “Paperback Row,”New York Times Book Review December 24, 2017

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
 selected one of the best books of 2017 by Boston Globe:
An intimate and eloquent account of Bishop’s life, from a difficult childhood in New England and Canada to a tumultuous romantic life; Pulitzer-winner Marshall, a former student of Bishop’s, brings her own experiences of the poet’s later life into the story, to rich effect.” –Kate Tuttle

Elizabeth Bishop
 featured in Publishers Weekly, “Top Authors Pick Their Favorite Books of 2017”:
“A biography that is at heart about the art of writing, the way that scholarship and research (as much as poetry) can offer a way to integrate losses that might be otherwise too overwhelming and painful to bear,” writes Kim Phillips-Fein, author of the PW top-ten book Fear City.  December 8, 2017

“A Year In Reading”
: Kevin Young praises Elizabeth Bishop for “groundbreaking research” and bringing “the poet to life as well as her struggles.” The Millions, December 2017

“Garden, Temple, Tea, River, Miracle, Sun”:  Megan Marshall interviewed by Ann Slater at Huffington Post as she returns from a residency at Kyoto University, November 27, 2017.

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast due out in paperback, December 5, 2017

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast makes Washington Post 2017 Notable Nonfiction list, November 15, 2017.

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
 and The Peabody Sisters recommended by “Match Book,” The New York Times, August 8, 2017

Megan Marshall keynotes “Margaret Fuller Day” on Fire Island, June 10, 2017

Opening pages of Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast featured on Poetry Daily, April 24, 2017

Megan Marshall featured on MAKERS Blog, March 28, 2017

Elizabeth Bishop
 featured in “Ten New Books We Recommend This Week” by The New York Times!

Chelsea Clinton
is reading Marshall's Margaret Fuller!

Elizabeth Bishop reviewed by David Mason in the Wall Street Journal February 11, 2017. 

Elizabeth Bishop
 reviewed by Claudia Pierpont Roth in the New YorkerMarch 6, 2017

Elizabeth Bishop reviewed in The Economist, March 18-24, 2017

Elizabeth Bishop reviewed by Bishop scholar Heather Treseler in Worcester Telegram

Megan Marshall writes Vogue's "Nostalgia" column on Elizabeth Bishop in March 2017 issue.

Elizabeth Bishop featured in philosopher John Kaag’s LitHub essay, “Putting the ‘I’ in Biography”

Elizabeth Bishop reviewed in the Boston Globe, February 26, 2017

Megan Marshall interviewed on Elizabeth Bishop in Harvard Gazette

National Book Review names Elizabeth Bishop one of 5 Hot Books!

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
 is launched! Emily Avery-Miller on Marshall’s new book in The ARTery

“Elizabeth and Alice,”
excerpt from Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast in The New Yorker online

Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
 featured in Washington Post “Books to Read in 2017”

MARGARET FULLER wins the Pulitzer!


Megan Marshall’s essay,Biography Without Modifiers,” goes up on Pulitzer Centennial website!

Megan Marshall’s women biographers group celebrates its 30th anniversary, featured in The Boston Globe

Megan Marshall interviewed on Elizabeth Bisho
p by Literary Bennington

Margaret Fuller cited in discovery of Thoreau’s notes on the fatal shipwreck! Harvard Gazette July 31, 2015

Megan Marshall quoted in Boston Globe on new Thoreau manuscript, August 8, 2015

Megan Marshall describes her favorite song for Marc Myers’s Wall Street Journal “Play List” column

Megan Marshall speaks at Emerson CollegeMegan Marshall gives Graduate Commencement Address at Emerson College, May 18, 2015



Megan Marshall in a PEN New England discussion among writing mothers



Margaret Fuller: A New American Lif
e Discussed on Gloria Steinem's Blog

Megan Marshall talks about her current reading and favorite books in “Bibliophiles” for the Boston Globe

Margaret Fuller
chosen in Wall Street Journal’s FIVE BEST: Danielle Allen on loneliness

Megan Marshall quoted in Slate on historical books for children

Megan Marshall selected as the Gilder Lehrman Fellow of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Margaret Fuller
 has been on the Boston Globe bestsellers list for paperback nonfiction for eighteen weeks so far!

Margaret Fuller
 makes the short list for the 2014 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography! 

Megan Marshall wins the Pulitzer Prize for biography for “Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.” Marshall discusses her subject, and herself, with the Boston Globe.

Joe Donahue interviews Megan Marshall on WAMC’s “The Roundtable,” March 20, 2014

Margaret Fuller
named a “Must Read” book for 2014 by MassBook Awards and takes first prize for Nonfiction

Margaret Fuller makes the long list for PEN’s biography prize, and is featured at PEN’s “recommended reading” website

Dwight Garner of the New York Times declares Margaret Fuller one of the ten best books of the year!

Margaret Fuller praised in “Paperback Row,
New York Times Book Review, March 30, 2014

Margaret Fuller is number one on the Boston Globe paperback bestseller list!  (March 16, 2014)

Boston Globe
reviewer Kate Tuttle lists Margaret Fuller in Top Nonfiction Books of 2013

Martha Stewart is reading Margaret Fuller
! see HealthyPet Holiday Issue, Winter 2013

Margaret Fuller
mention in “By the Book”
interview with Tom Perrotta

in the New York Times Book Review

MARGARET FULLER: A New American Life is on The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2013 List!

Historian Mary Kelley gives Margaret Fuller the lead review in December 2013 New England Quarterly

“Margaret Fuller: Saying in the 19th Century What  Still Needs to Be Said” Interview with novelist Margot Livesey in Radcliffe Magazine, Summer 2013

Margaret Fuller
makes Booklist Top 10 Biographies: 2013.

Megan Marshall on
C-Span Book TV:
“Book Discussion on Margaret Fuller: A New American Life”,
March 21, 2013


Margaret Fuller
was chosen as “Book of the week,”
in The Week, for April 12, 2013

Margaret Fuller
was listed as an Editors’ Choice”
in the April 26 New York Times Book Review

Margaret Fuller
has been on the Boston Globe hardcover bestseller list for Five Weeks

New York Times
Book Review: An Outsize Intellect, Tilting at Obstacles

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life gets BOOKLIST
★ 'STARRED REVIEW'

> Click here for more reviews of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

Megan Marshall reviews Carl Rollyson’s American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath in the Washington Post

Margaret Fuller
 listed in Publishers Weekly “Spring Announcements Top 10” for 2013 in the category of Literary Biographies, Essays, & Criticism

Recent blog post on The Peabody Sisters
edgeofthepage.wordpress.com

> Click here for blog posts on Margaret Fuller.

 

 


Media Appearances

Megan Marshall reads “Amaryllis” and Scott Harney’s “Waiting for Snow”
Followed by performances of Scott Wheeler’s song settings at Boston Athenaeum concert, “An Evening of Poetry and Song,” December 14, 2022
Featuring Sarah Chalfy, soprano, and Jonathan Woody, baritone

Megan Marshall interviewed by The History of Literature podcast on her biography, Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast and on Robert Richardson's posthumous Three Roads Back, for which she wrote the Foreword.

Megan Marshall interviewed for The History of Literature podcast in two episodes on her biographies of Margaret Fuller and the Peabody sisters. 

Megan Marshall interviewed for “Treasures Within: The Recovered Letters of Margaret Fuller,”
Episode 11 of The Object of History Podcast
A production of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Megan Marshall interviewed by Bridget Kendall of the BBC World Service for an episode of “The Forum” on Margaret Fuller, March 31, 2022

Megan Marshall’s reflections on the Winter Solstice, Mt. Auburn Cemetery video celebration, December 21, 2021

Megan Marshall and Lloyd Schwartz read and discuss the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. Maynard Public Library, February 10, 2021

 

Megan Marshall and Lloyd Schwartz read Scott Harney’s poems
Salem Athenaeum, January 14, 2021


Megan Marshall reads from Scott Harney’s The Blood of San Gennaro
Boston Athenaeum Cameo Conversation, May 21, 2020

Megan Marshall on the women of Transcendentalism
Concord Museum symposium on the work of biographer Robert D. Richardson
July 31, 2019


Megan Marshall inaugurates “Authors on Authors” series for Radio/Boston, August 9, 2017

Megan Marshall interviewed on Bishop and Lowell by Chris Lydon, Radio Open Source, April 20, 2017

“You are an I”:  Megan Marshall on Elizabeth BishopWoodberry Poetry Room “Reel Time” event, Harvard University, March 29, 2017

Megan Marshall reading from Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast
Politics and Prose bookstore, Washington, DC, March 6, 2017

Megan Marshall interviewed by Michael Krasny for KQED's Forum, March 6, 2017. 

Megan Marshall interviewed by Kory French for Book Talk on BreakThru Radio, March 5, 2017. 

Megan Marshall interviewed by Deborah Becker on Radio Boston, February 20, 2017.

Megan Marshall interviewed by Mark Lynch on WICN Radio’s Inquiry February 10, 2017

Megan Marshall interviewed by David Haglund on New Yorker Radio Hour, January 21, 2017.

Podcast Interview on Margaret Fuller with Mark Lynch for Inquiry, May 10, 2017

Megan Marshall interviewed by Tom Williams on  Access Utah, Utah Public Radio, November 29, 2016

Megan Marshall interviewed by Joy Powers for Lake Effect, WUWM Wisconsin Public Radio, October 6, 2016

Megan Marshall interviewed on Margaret Fuller for New Books in Gender Studies

The Life of Margaret Fuller,” Megan Marshall interviewed by Doug Fabrizio on KUER Radio West

Radio interview with Robin Morgan at Women's Media Center Live, June 28, 2014

Megan Marshall interviewed by Bob Edwards, April 30, 2013

The Transcendentalists are Coming,” Megan Marshall, Paul Harding, Dan McKanan on Radio Open Source, March 27, 2014


Podcast: Megan Marshall reading from Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

Colin McEnroe show: Giants of Poetry and Literature on Connecticut Public Radio, August 5, 2013

Fieldstone Common Radio, interview with Marian Pierre-Louis, July 17, 2013

Collected Words: An interview with James McGrath Morris and Megan Marshall, April 3, 2013.

NPR: On Point with Tom Ashbrook, Margaret Fuller: Journalist, Critic, Transcendentalist, March 13, 2013

Writing Writers' Lives: Writing the American Renaissance, March 18, 2013.
John Matteson The Lives of Margaret Fuller, moderator. Jeffrey S. Cramer The Portable Thoreau, ed), Megan Marshall Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, David S. Reynolds Walt Whitman’s America.

Biography as Intellectual History: Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller,” SUNY Geneseo, September 27, 2012

Elizabeth Bishop at 100” April 13, 2012, Harvard University


Trends in Biography,” Biographers International Organization, UMass Boston, May 15, 2010


Conducting Research Beyond the Internet,”  Centennial Celebration, Harvard Extension School, February 19, 2010


Challenges and New Frontiers of Writing History,” Centennial Celebration, Harvard Extension School, February 19, 2010


Megan Marshall chairs panel discussion on historical fiction with Jill Lepore and Jane Kamensky, Boston Book Festival, October 2010

Readers Review: The Scarlet Letter,” The Diane Rehm Show, March 31, 2010 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Family, Reunited in Grave,” All Things Considered, June 27, 2006

Dealing with a Historian’s Worst Nightmare,” NPR, May 19, 2005

Interview on The Peabody Sisters, Thoughtcast

WCVB TV profile, JUL 3, 2014

C-SPAN: Book Discussion on Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, MARCH 21, 2013

C-SPAN: Historical Methods and Practice Panel, JANUARY 10, 2009

C-SPAN: Boundaries of History Panel, JANUARY 10, 2009

C-SPAN: Hawthorne As Viewed by His Contemporaries, OCTOBER 28, 2004

Boston Roots,” Boston Book Festival, October 2009


Boston Athenaeum reading from The Peabody Sisters, May 17, 2005