Fall In Love With the Written Word at These Literary Themed New England Hotels

On vacation, readers and writers often attempt to settle down with a good book or an unfinished manuscript, respectively. But time on windy beaches, in swarming cafes, or at hectic airport lounges is limited. Holidays are busy with distractions, and those irritating must-see sites always interfere. A few hotels in New England, however, are perfect literary retreats and ideal for vacationers hoping never to stray too far from the page or pen. Here are the New England hotels that most revere the written word.

The Study at Yale, New Haven

Just by staying the night at the Study at Yale, guests might pore through an author’s oeuvre or write the perfect opening chapter. After all, if the Holiday Inn Express can run commercials about guests with no medical experience performing surgery after one night’s stay, well then waking up to and overlooking one of the country’s premier universities seems as though it could warrant a similar claim. In any case, the hotel is still a literary locale with its intellectual clientele, leather reading chairs, and hand-selected books on the shelves in every study and suite. 203-503-3900, thestudyatyale.com

Canyon Ranch, Lenox, Massachusetts

Most people who visit Canyon Ranch use their time to pause and reflect. It’s a place of vast grounds, countless workshops on self-study and spirituality, and included spa services. While all of these items are conducive to that well-needed writer’s getaway, or to create the conditions for a reader’s sanctuary, timing your visit right could make it an even more bookish weekend. Among the many speakers presenting at Canyon Ranch are authors who conduct workshops, readings or literary discussions in the resort’s high-ceilinged library. Even if no writer is in residence, the seminars, lectures and grounds offer those kernels that could launch a project from seed to sprout. 800-742-9000, canyonranch.com

Mayflower Inn & Spa, Washington

The cliché writing retreat would include footpaths for thinking, gardens for pondering, vistas framing the very scene missing from one’s manuscript, and underlit, dark-wooded libraries with reading lights that mushroom up beside comfortable, deep chairs. The Mayflower has all of these trappings, yet the beauty of the grounds is the furthest one can get from hackneyed. More than just having a garden for reflection, the property has two: the Shakespeare Garden and the American Poets Maze, where one can wander among quotes and hedges and flowers. While it’s an upcharge for spa services, the vista through barn-door-size windows of ponds and empty grounds (which, a century ago, had been home to a private school), the purity of the white room, the quality books and magazines shelved about, and the recliners designed to steal a person from doing anything but read rivals any tranquil space in New England. 866-217-0869, aubergeresorts.com/mayflower

The Press Hotel, Portland, Maine

What had once been the offices of a local newspaper is now a chic hotel that still holds the spirit of a newsroom. Images of old front pages wallpaper the hallways, and even the carpet is wordy, as the wallpaper typeface appears to have dropped entire paragraphs to the rug. And like leaves fallen from trees, those letters have been swept to one side, forming alphabetical piles that have fused with the fabric. The hotel rooms are right for a good read, though they might also inspire one to pen their first lines of fiction. In the bedside stands, classic novels supplant the Gideon’s typical offerings, and famous quotes are attached to everything, from robes to toiletry items. “Don’t skimp on ice. I prefer beautiful, big squares for my cocktails” — this Jose Andres ode to cubes sits in front of the ice bucket. Aristotle’s “Change in all things is sweet” is a handy card for guests requesting housekeeping to swap their bed sheets. Fun with words fills all spaces: that famous pangram about the quick brown fox and his interactions with that lazy dog is printed on the back of all in-room desk chairs; the hotel lobby has a peaceful library and an oversize Scrabble board; and the basement features a literary-inspired art gallery with a rotating collection. Best are the few dozen typewriters in the lobby. Most are bolted to the wall as a permanent exhibit. But a few working ones are set out for guests to punch up a quick diary entry or a letter about their fine-dining experience at the Union restaurant, which connects to the lobby and provides kids’ menus inside picture books like The Hungry Caterpillar. 207-573-2425, thepresshotel.com

Saybrook Point Inn, Old Saybrook

While the harbor and lighthouse views from the main inn are beautiful enough to stir the words out of any writer or to satisfy a reader’s need for solace, the guesthouses across the street make the Saybrook Point Inn a proper bookish escape. The inn’s two guesthouses, aptly named Tall Tales and Three Stories, are historic accommodations. In either of the two houses, bookworms can dig into a good story and wordsmiths can hammer out manuscript pages, as quaint rooms and airy balconies hark back to another time. Their less bookish companions can also stay out of their hair, keeping busy at the facilities at the main inn, in the guesthouses’ game rooms with billiards or chess, in the yard at the bocce courts, or atop the roof at the fire pits. 860-395-2000, saybrook.com

The Battle of Boston

With some of the country’s best universities, a riot of privately owned bookstores and a host of literary events, Boston has always been a city of books. While the bustle of Boston offers a different atmosphere than the peaceful retreats noted earlier, it is still a city of literary merit, and many of its hotels have a fondness for words. The Hotel Commonwealth has books available by request at the front desk. One guest room is even dubbed the Reading Suite, offering a writer’s table and housing titles, many of which have been signed by visiting authors. The Ames Boston allows guests to breakfast in The Library, which, properly, features a library. Most famous is the Omni Parker House. Long ago, the hotel had hosted the monthly meetings of the Saturday Club, which was a gathering of important minds, including some of the 19th century’s most famous poets — Emerson, Thoreau, Longfellow — and writers, including Hawthorne. Charles Dickens began his first American reading tour of A Christmas Carol at the Parker House, too. Even some of the 20th century’s most astute political minds picked up paychecks at the hotel: Ho Chi Minh had been employed as a baker just before World War I and Malcolm X bussed tables in the ’40s. Across the river, in Cambridge, sits the Charles Hotel, occupying one of the most well-read corners of the country, as it’s hemmed in by Harvard, MIT and the tree-lined banks of the Charles River. Within a few blocks, one can shop a number of bookstores, many of which host weekly literary events, like the Harvard Bookstore and Porter Square Books. The former even has a machine that will print books, manuscripts and lectures (even those once previously inaccessible) on demand. Besides the lobby library beneath the staircase, the Charles Hotel’s two restaurants are important gathering points for literary fans. Like the Saturday Club that had once graced the Parker House, the Supper Club members, or so we’ll call them, comprise dozens of Harvard and MIT professors who come to feast and imbibe, and who talk about big ideas and great books. Listening in on these conversations at the bar, for instance, with a good book or a ready pen is both a gustatory delight and some literary meddling.

Writing Matters: 5 Books That Can Help Us Become Better Writers

BY JEFF MINICK

Some writers and teachers among us, praise be to all of them, are obsessed with writing, grammar, syntax, and our English language. They argue for concise diction, debate the use of “like” versus “as,” condemn sloppy usage, and are horrified by misspellings. Recently, for instance, a reader of one of my book reviews chastised me for spelling Mary Chesnut of Civil War fame as Chestnut, a mistake that brought an immediate “mea culpa” from me.

Many bookstores devote several shelves to these books on writing and composition, ranging from such classics as Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” to the recently released “Dreyer’s “English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.” (Some guardians of the language would shoot down “utterly,” arguing redundancy.) In these works, we find writers who love the English language with the fondness of children for their mother.

A score or so of these guides share a home on the shelf above my desk. Robert Hartwell Fiske wrote four of these volumes: “To the Point”; “The Best Words”; “Silence, Language, and Society”; and “Elegant English.” Fiske was the founder and editor of Vocabula Review, an online site devoted to the encouragement of clear expression. I am proud to say that several of my articles passed Fiske’s discerning eye and appeared on Vocabula.

“Silence, Language and Society,” by Robert Hartwell Fiske.

That Fiske was obsessed with writing and composition is evident in the prepared statement he wrote before his untimely death from melanoma in 2016:

Robert Hartwell Fiske, owner and editor of the Vocabula Review since its genesis in September 1999, has died. Vocabula, I am sorry to say, will die along with him. My apologies. I have taken great pleasure in getting to know you, my readers. And I will miss you mightily. I wish you all an auspicious fate, a long-lived life. (Even though many people pronounce long-lived with a short i sound, the long i is correct. Long-lived derives from the word life, not the word live.)

Now there, my friends and readers, is a man who departed this world displaying courage, wit, and class.

Here are five other books I frequently examine or else have used when teaching composition to students. In purchasing these books, my reasoning proceeded as follows: If I learned just one new trick or technique, that advice was worth much more than the few dollars I’d spent.

Five Winning Resources

“Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch” by Constance Hale.

Constance Hale’s witty “Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Writing” reminds writers that verbs are the engines of a sentence. She begins by quoting the verbs used by Julius Caesar, Saint Matthew, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Saul Bellow, and even her dog Homer, who “understands the commands sit, stay, heel, and fetch.” Dull verbs, dull writing.

Next up are two books by Stephen Wilbers: “Keys to Great Writing” and “Mastering the Craft of Writing.” The first I used with upper-level high school students in my final years as a teacher; the second I bought because of the pleasure the first book delivered.

Stephen Wilbers’s “Keys to Great Writing.”

Wilbers addresses the fundamentals for constructing sentences, paragraphs, and essays, all with exercises designed to underline the lessons taught. In the book “Keys to Great Writing,” Chapter 4 “Music” with its emphasis on beat, rhythm, and composition, along with dozens of practical tips, is particularly valuable both to the novice and the veteran writer.

The fourth edition of “Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace,” written by Joseph Williams and revised in this edition by Gregory Colomb of the University of Virginia, offers excellent lessons in sentence and paragraph cohesion, emphasis, and concision. On page 58 of my copy, alongside six principles of concision like “Replace a phrase with a word” and “Change negatives to affirmatives,” a note remains from the days I taught style in the classroom. “Drum these into students,” the note says. After reviewing these six points, I hope I beat that drum good and loud.

“Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace.”

Gregory Roper’s “The Writer’s Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing” harkens back to the practice of copying the style of other writers, or sometimes literally copying their work, until you find your own voice and rhythm. My Advanced Placement Composition students often undertook Roper’s exercises, often with productive but hilarious effects, by modeling passages from such works as Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s “Poetria Nova,” “The Ten Commandments” from the book of Deuteronomy, and Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations.”

Gregory Roper’s “The Writer’s Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing.”

Roper enrolls his readers in a true writer’s workshop, with many well-constructed exercises, which, for those willing to pitch in and do the work, can help boost composition skills.

Finally, let me recommend “Style: The Art of Writing Well.” Here F.L. Lucas, a British classical scholar and writer who died in 1967, left us a book that bestows the twin pleasures of fine writing and excellent advice. Though I have not read “Style” cover to cover, I have returned to it again and again, drawn, in particular, by the charm of Lucas’s writing and by his stress on “Courtesy to Readers,” that duty owed by all writers, from the poet to the CEO, to write as clearly and as truthfully as possible for their readers. Lucas’s self-deprecation, his many examples, his humor, and his deep knowledge of literature make him a joy to read. A grand treat, but too advanced for most high school and college students.

“Style: The Art of Writing Well.”

In the Information Age, as some have labeled the 21st century, our ability to communicate via the written word is vital. Good writing is important not only in commerce—poor communication costs businesses billions of dollars per year, according to Inc.—but also in our personal affairs. Which of us has not sent an email or text we regretted, or misinterpreted one sent to us by a friend or family member?

Few of us possess the talents of a Leo Tolstoy or a Jane Austen, but through practice and diligent revision, and through the study of such books as those reviewed here, all of us can become better writers.

All the stops

 The term, “Pull out all the stops” refers to an Organ - you pull out stops to change the sound of the organ. Pulling out all the stops makes an amazing sound.

Here's a headline from my local newspaper

Unconscious Teen Attacks Cop At Reston Town Center

"the tremendous excitement of living"

"I want to infect you with the tremendous excitement of living, because I believe that you have the strength to bear it." Tennessee Williams, The Selected Letters: 1920-1945

Writings blocks

You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.— John Rogers

To be creative means to be

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”  Osho

Put your heart into it

There is a forgettable film called “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan 3^rd” Most

of the dialogue is standard Hollywood-empty calorie- writing except for one scene where the writer really put his hart and thoughts into the words:

You know, Ivana, I was thinking. It was kind of a sad thought. I'll meet someone and it won't be you. And I'll fall in love with her...and I'll have kids and a happy family...and then I won't love you like this anymore. And I'll miss it. And I'll miss you. I can't bear not loving you. It will really be totally over between us. And then much later...I'll see you again and you'll have grown older, and I'll be old. And I won't even care. You'll just be a wrinkly old lady with gray hair. And I won't even care anymore. I don't want to not love you.