SEVEN BRIDGE WRITERS' COLLABORATIVE

Bridging Writers Author Series

Presents 

Howard Mansfield 

Dwelling in Possibility:Searching for the Soul of Shelter

Monday, November 7, 2016 

6:30 - 8:00 p.m.

Thayer Memorial Library

The mystery that attracts Howard Mansfield’s attention is that some houses have life—are home, are dwellings, and others aren’t. Dwelling, he says, is an old-fashioned word that we’ve misplaced. When we live heart and soul, we dwell. When we belong to a place, we dwell. Possession, they say, is nine-tenths of the law, but it is also what too many houses and towns lack. This lost quality of dwelling—the soul of buildings—haunts most of our houses and our landscape. Dwelling in Possibility is a search for the ordinary qualities that make some houses a home, and some public places welcoming.

Howard Mansfield sifts through the commonplace and the forgotten to discover stories that tell us about ourselves and our place in the world. He writes about history, architecture, and preservation. He is the author of seven books, including In the Memory House, The Bones of the Earth, and most recently, Dwelling in Possibility: Searching for the Soul of Shelter which The Boston Globe called “a wholly original meditation … that’s part observation of the contemporary built environment, part cultural history, part philosophical account, and at times something like a Whitmanian poetic survey.”  His newest book, Sheds, with photographer Joanna Eldredge Morrissey, was published in June 2016. 

For more information on this program, or to preregister,  click here.  For questions, contact us at  7bridgewriterscollaborative@gmail.com.