Three new talks from the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau
September 21, 2026 § Leave a comment
Very excited to be offering three new one-hour illustrated talks for the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. I’ve had a lot of fun putting these together, using my own experiences as a writer, a travel guide, and as a featured lecturer for National Geographic Expeditions to inform the research. If you’re associated with any Vermont nonprofit, you can request any of these talks on an ongoing basis beginning in January, 2027, with at least six weeks’ advance notice. Links below. Booking form is here. I guarantee all of these talks are fun, well-illustrated, and thought-provoking. Take me up on it!
Hemingway Reconsidered: Novelist, Expatriate, Antifascist, Spy
Some of Ernest Hemingway’s novels and short stories are considered among the greatest ever written. He’s also remembered as an international man of letters, a famous expatriate and macho outdoorsman spending all the right seasons in all the right places: Paris, Pamplona, Key West, Havana, Sun Valley, on safari in Africa. But Hemingway’s life was more complicated than the glamorous image that lives in the popular imagination.
Close Neighbors, Worlds Apart: Cuba & the USA in Historical Perspective
Tracing Cuba’s long struggle for sovereignty, from the Spanish-American war of 1898 to the 1959 Cuban Revolution and up to the present day, this illustrated talk offers a larger historical perspective on the conflictual relationship between these two geographically close but politically distant western hemisphere neighbors, with an eye toward developing a better understanding of the current situation and what the future might hold.
A Profoundly Momentous Journey: Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle
On December 27, 1831, after Charles Darwin and Captain Robert Fitzroy shared a final lunch of mutton chops and champagne ashore, the Beagle got underway. Darwin’s firsthand account of the journey, The Voyage of the Beagle, is one of history’s greatest true adventure stories. The voyage was supposed to last two years, but it ended up stretching out to five.
Illustrated Cuba talk now televised & available for free viewing
April 10, 2025 § 2 Comments
My thanks to Mount Mansfield Community Television and The Community Senior Center of Richmond, Huntington, and Bolton for hosting and televising my recent illustrated Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau talk at the Richmond Free Library, “A Playground for Empire: Historical Perspectives on Cuba and the USA.”
The talk, about 90 minutes including Q & A, will be available indefinitely for free viewing on YouTube. Enjoy!
Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau
June 25, 2015 § 1 Comment
After a somewhat harrowing audition process, I’m pleased to report that I’ve been invited to join the Vermont Humanities Council Speaker’s Bureau! Here’s the title and description of my talk:
A Playground for Empire: Historical Perspectives on Cuba and the U.S.A. Spain lost Cuba in 1898, after nearly 400 years of colonial rule. The Cuban Revolution of 1959 is one of the great underdog stories in modern history, in which a tiny band of young rebels prevailed against all odds and despite the ambivalence of the world superpower only ninety miles to the north. This nationalist Revolution quickly fell under the sway of another world empire, the USSR, and Cuba’s previously close ties with the U.S. were abruptly severed. This visually rich lecture by a long-time observer of the island will highlight recent changes in light of Cuba’s long struggle for sovereignty.
If you belong to any nonprofit organization or municipality in Vermont, you can book this talk through the VHC. Link here for instructions, which should be updated with VHC’s new catalog soon. If you’re interested in booking talks on a different subject, please feel free to contact me directly.
