Shore Lit: Creating a Literary Community by Michael Valliant When Kerry Folan found Easton, it was the energy of the town, the culture, the landscape of the area that pulled her in. As a writer, a college English professor and a lover of literature, she also saw what she could bring to the community. Last year, through her organization Shore Lit, Kerry put on seven author events and facilitated three book clubs and one pop-up book shop while serving as a connector for and between literary events all over the Eastern Shore. Shore Lit is shining a spotlight on literature, and people are taking note. “I wanted to live in a community that has a cultural center, and when I first visited Easton, I was so impressed by the wealth of opportunities,” Kerry said. “But with literature and writing being the center of my life, one thing that stood out to me as missing were adult literary events. That just didn’t exist here in any kind of consistent way. I started to realize I was in a unique position. I have connections to nationally and internationally recognized writers, and I could get them here.” Kerry grew up in Montgomery
County and came to know the Shore through a Chesapeake Bay Foundation summer camp through which she spent the summer on a boat on the Bay doing environmental science. It was exposure to the landscape here and, as an open-water swimmer now, the landscape and draw of the water is still strong. “I fell in love with the landscape here,” she said. “The marshes, the water, the red-brick towns. I always remembered it and wanted to come back.” Reading and literature were constants in Kerry’s family. “My Mom was an English teach47