About

The Boston Literary History Project is dedicated to bringing Boston's literary past to life through scholarship, education, tours, talks, classes, and immersive experiences. An initiative of Literary Boston. An initiative of Literary Boston.

Literary Boston and the Boston Literary History Project is dedicated to covering and promoting the literary scene of Boston, past and present.

Jessica, our founder, moved (back) to Boston in 2012 to pursue a writing career, and when she arrived she looked online for a site that covered the Boston literary community, a site that could tell her all the things going on locally that had to do with books, writers, and readers.

She didn't find anything. So she started one herself.

The Boston literary community is vibrant, diverse, and has great roots. We desire to be a resource to writers and readers, providing the information and tools necessary to know what great readings to go to, what workshops to attend, what books to read, where to pick up a new novel, and more — the go-to spot for all things literary in Boston!

Jessica A. Kent is the founder and director of Literary Boston, a cultural initiative that promotes the Boston literary community, past and present, through website resources, social media, a weekly newsletter, literature classes, literary salons, and literary history walking tours.

She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson and a Master’s in Literature from Harvard, where her thesis on Moby-Dick and Calvinism won the Director’s Prize. Her short fiction has appeared the North American Review, the Emerson Review, and others, and received the Leah Lovenheim Award for Short Fiction. She recently graduated from GrubStreet's Novel Incubator program, where she’s working on a novel about paramedics in 1970s Boston.

Other past literary roles include library assistant, bookseller, lit mag founder, literary marketing consultant, and interim Boston Book Festival director.