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Download our 2011 brochure (PDF)

Explore travel memories from visitors to the Isles of Shoals in the fishing and resort eras of bygone centuries and create and record your own memories of your time on enchanting Star Island. Create beautifully crafted folios to preserve your travel memories in our scrapbooking workshops. Learn about design, layouts, ideas and techniques to capture your memories in vibrantly constructed pages.

Personalize your travel scrapbooks by rendering scenes with wonderful images you’ve created yourself in digital photography and nature sketching programs. Learn creative composition techniques to enhance depth perception and balance in your digital photographs and tour idyllic island scenes to practice your newly acquired techniques. Venture into the natural world on hauntingly beautiful Star Island with an experienced naturalist and a professional artist and document your exploration of botany, geology and birding with hand-drawn images.

Delve into travel writing and journaling with our renowned experts. Bring your travel memories alive by giving your writing “a sense of place.” Determine what’s important in your connection with the world around you and learn how to vividly recreate that world in prose by using style and tone to transport a reader to your scene. Become skilled at evoking an atmosphere by describing sights, sounds and aromas.

Discover scrapbooks from the past and stroll through the village of Gosport identifying scenes in historic photographs while snapping shots of the same vistas today. View historic Shoals ephemera and learn how the ephemera collected in your travels can enhance your scrapbook.

Join a candlelit procession to the centuries-old stone chapel on Star Island and step back in time to experience the sense of community on the Shoals. Attend a 1729 service and play the role of a Gosport resident. Learn about the people who lived and worked in the village of Gosport on Star Island in centuries past – their daily life, their aspirations and their neighborly feuds.

Enjoy the creation of a salt cod dish from the 1872 cookbook of Miss Parloa, the pastry cook of Appledore House during the Shoals resort era. Discover the role this humble product played in the founding of our nation and how the Isles of Shoals produced the most renowned salt cod in the world. Visit Celia Thaxter’s garden on Appledore Island and explore the lives and work of the famous artistic visitors to her salon during the resort era on the Isles of Shoals.

Planned Events

Travel Writing & Journaling: Bring your travel memories alive by discovering how to vividly recreate that world around you in prose. Join Dr. Lisa Miller of the University of New Hampshire in combining images and text to tell an amazing story. Later on in the week, David Lazar, editor and writer for the New Hampshire Troubadour magazine, will relate how to bring the history of a place alive.

Scrapbooking:Create beautifully crafted folios to preserve your travel memories in our scrapbooking workshops. Learn about capturing your memories in vibrantly constructed vintage folders with Kim Schofield of Wholly Scrap!

Historic Ephemera: Although by definition, ephemera is “in the moment” paper and printed matter, never intended to be preserved, it has become a window to the past. View historic Shoals ephemera and learn how the ephemera collected in your travels can enhance your scrapbooks with Sarah O’Connor, the curator of the Vaughn museum on Star Island.

Shoals Archaeology: Meet with Dr. Nathan Hamilton, of the University of Southern Maine, who has unearthed fish bones on the Shoals from the mid-1600s, proving that our waters were indeed host to 150 lb. cod in the 17th century. Hear of finds such as pottery shards, pipes, buttons, coins and even a whale-bone toothbrush.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20100425-NEWS-4250327

Nature Sketching: Learn to document your exploration of nature with hand-drawn images in this adventure with our Karyl Hayes, a professional artist. Personalize your travel scrapbooks by rendering scenes with wonderful images you’ve created yourself.
http://www.karylhayes.com/pages/artwork.html

Birding, Botany, Geology & LowTide Walks: Venture into the natural world on hauntingly beautiful Star Island with our Star Island Naturalist.

Digital Photography: Learn creative composition techniques to create enhanced depth perception and balance in your digital photographs with photographer Arnie Silverstone. Tour idyllic island scenes and practice your newly acquired composition techniques.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/AwCZJFVl9y_Yir9a6ZvLCA

Images of the Past & Present: Stroll through the village of Gosport identifying scenes from historic photographs. Photograph the same vistas today and include the two images in your scrapbook.

Hand-Tinted Vintage Images: Join artist Gretchen Gudefin to create your own mini-album of hand-tinted historic photographs of the Isles of Shoals.
http://www.nhmade.com/listdetail.cfm?recordID=595

Celia Thaxter’s Salon: Attend a recreation of the gatherings in her Shoals parlor. Listen to the sounds of the music that rang through her cottage while recreating poetry readings performed by writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier and Celia herself.

Illustrious Shoals Visitors: Explore the lives and work of the famous visitors to Celia Thaxter’s salon on Appledore Island at the Isles of Shoals with historian Ann Beattie. Discover how they collaborated to produce some of their finest work while on the Isles.
http://www.nhtroubadour.com/feature/a-sanctuary-away-from-it-all/

The Villagers of Gosport: Learn about the people who lived and worked in the village of Gosport on Star Island in centuries past. Hear about their daily life, their aspirations and their not-so-neighborly feuds.

Salt Cod Cuisine Demonstration: Enjoy the creation of a salt cod dish from the 1872 cookbook of Miss Parloa, the pastry cook of Appledore House during the Shoals resort era. Discover the role this humble product played in the founding of our nation and how the Isles of Shoals produced the most renowned salt cod in the world.
Star Island life circa 1725

Murder at the Isles of Shoals: Over 125 years ago, two women were murdered on an isolated island just off the shores of New Hampshire and Maine. One woman survived the violence and the story she told scandalized the nation. Revisit the crime with Shoals historian Ann Beattie.

Candlelit Chapel Services: Join the candlelit procession to the centuries-old stone chapel on Star Island and step back in time to experience the sense of community on this hauntingly beautiful island. Attend a 1729 service and play the role of a Gosport resident.

Contra Dancing: Participate in learning these amazingly fun line dances with our instructor and caller, Dudley Laufman.

For more information please email email hidden; JavaScript is required, call 603-778-6480, or visit us on Facebook.

Chairs: Ann Beattie, email hidden; JavaScript is required, Tom Coleman, Trisha Coleman

Registering for this conference

How to register

1. Download the 2011 Registration Form.
2. Fill out both sides of the registration form.
3. Send to the Conference Registrar as directed below, along with one check for the Room and Board Deposit and Conference Programming Fee (both specified above).
4. The Conference Registrar will be in touch with you after your registration is received.

Three-night options for this conference are available. These are referred to as “Single Sessions.” The first single session runs from August 27 to August 30 and the second single session runs from August 30 to September 2. Please contact the Registrar for more information.

Make check out to: Star Island Corporation, memo: Historic Star Conference
Registrar: Rosemarie Smurzynski, email hidden; JavaScript is required, (781) 646-7976, 9 Ravine St., Arlington, MA 02476.
Scholarship Information: Please apply to SIC Scholarship Fund

Rates reflect 30% discount offered for Historic Star and LGBTQ conferences. Learn more.