Join us for our first event of the new year, with acclaimed journalist and true crime author Kate Winkler Dawson, in celebration of the release of her new book, THE SINNERS ALL BOW: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne. She will be joined in conversation by Pamela Colloff.

THE SINNERS ALL BOW tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the first true-crime book published in America. Tickets for this event include a copy of the book and a reserved seat; free RSVPs are also available and encouraged!

about the book

On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide…or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The murder divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter—but the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell’s death. Until now.

about the author
Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer and podcaster whose hit podcasts Tenfold More Wicked, Wicked Words, and Buried Bones appear on the Exactly Right network. She is the author of Death in the Air, American Sherlock, and All That Is Wicked, and is a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.

Pamela Colloff is a reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. Prior to joining ProPublica and the Times in 2017, she was an executive editor and staff writer at Texas Monthly.