ABOUT THE LECTURE

Experience life aboard a 177-foot merchant sailing ship in the years leading up to and through the Civil War in this presentation by Rhode Island author Cynthia Elder. Her new two-volume historical novel, “Tales of the Sea,” presents the true story of a seafaring family from West Barnstable, Mass., during the final chapter of the Age of Sail. Based on hundreds of pages of letters, ship’s logs and journals, the novels reveals the inner lives of the men and women who sailed on these great wooden ships.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Cynthia “Cindy” Elder is a novelist, poet and nonprofit leader. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing and career writing from Roger Williams University and a Master of Public Affairs from Brown University. Cindy is working with RWU’s History Department to research a freedom seeker born in 1816 whose remarkable narrative of flight from slavery and life as a ship’s cook was found in her husband’s family records. Cindy serves as executive director of the Barrington Land Conservation Trust.