Event Announcements Archives

New beginnings are always “dreamy.” And 2023 is truly a dream come true for our Board and Staff as Poe Baltimore celebrates its tenth year as stewards of The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum. Beginning this month we will share pages from our Poe House Yearbook, highlighting some of our best memories of the past decade even as we look ahead to exciting events and programs in the New Year.

Besides, January is always thrilling in Poe-land: (un)Happy Birthday to Edgar Allan Poe! Festivities will kick-off in Baltimore on January 19th for our Poe Birthday Celebration & Poe Toaster Murder Mystery at Westminster Hall. Stay for the Poe Mystery Weekend at The Lord Baltimore Hotel, or travel with me to other “Poe Places” in New York and Richmond as we celebrate Poe’s 214th: our Poe Death Exhibit will be part of the weekend celebrations in both cities and we’ll even be streaming live from The Poe Cottage on Saturday to share a toast to Poe! We look forward to seeing you at these Poe events–and of course, Poe House!–very soon. Read our newsletter to learn more!

Yours in Poe,

Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

P.S. Call for entries for the 2023 Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards opens at midnight, January 19!

Strength & recovery in 2022. A list of Poe Baltimore programs and accomplishments from the year.

The Virginia Poe Bicentennial,, our commemoration of the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe's beloved wife and muse, was a year of virtual and in-person programming including grave-side chats, hidden history, discussion series, and exhibits. Partners at Maryland Women's Heritage Center, Westminster Hall & Burying Ground, and The Poe Cottage in New York, along with 22 speakers and contributions from over ten organizations, comprised our event series. We raised a teacup for Virginia's birthday weekend with a Gothic Tea Party and Summer Reception. This program raised over $50,000 for new interpretive signage in the cemetery where the Poe family is buried and new exhibits for Poe House.

This was an especially full year of programming for Poe Baltimore. Spring saw The post-pandemic return of Pints for Poe at Annabel Lee Tavern, and we participated for the first time as a sponsor of the International Edgar Allan Poe Conference in Boston, MA. Later in the Fall, Poe Baltimore hosted the Poe Society of Baltimore's 100th Annual Lecture. In addition to Virginia, programs highlighted members of Poe's family, including the Revolutionary War service of Poe's grandparents and Poe's fraught relationship with his foster-father, John Allan. Next year we will add our growing collection of Living History presentations (David Poe Sr., Virginia Poe, and Edgar's proposal of marriage) to house exhibits to share more of the family story with visitors.

Our yearly Poe Death Exhibit moved to Westminster Hall for the first time. Attendees explored the mystery of Poe's death and left missives at a special candlelight vigil steps away from Poe's grave. The new Virginia Poe exhibit also featured the morbid story of her death and afterlife with new death tableau for Virginia to lie in state next to her husband, complete with box of bones! A collection of funeral and memorial tokens from Poe to the present day included paper art, embroidery, and other crafts from metalwork to jewels made from human hair. The exhibit featured an App/Audio Guide with historical context provided by ArtOfMoruning.com. The exhibit later traveled to the Howard County Historical Society and The Laurel Museum.

The 5th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards was a resounding success with the most vendors, the most donations, and a new event record of 2500 attendees festival weekend. We welcomed hundreds more for our gothic wedding-themed gala, The Black Cat Ball: 'Til Death Do We Start. Author, Lynn Cullen, presented medals to six Saturday 'Visiter' Awards winners, and several couples took the opportunity of our special VIP ceremony in the Westminster catacombs to renew their real life eternal vows. Our Virginia Poe-themed exhibit at Westminster Hall rounded out a festival experience that extended well into the following week.

Looking ahead to 2023. A list of upcoming programs and anniversaries

There are several ways to support Poe House programs.

2022 Poe Baltimore & The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum Year-In-Review

To read a PDF copy of our retrospective, download it here: 2022 Poe Baltimore Year-in-Review

See previous years below.

2020 and 2021 Poe Baltimore Retrospective

Poe Baltimore and Poe House 2019 Year-in-Review

We can all go back to cold and melancholy when it’s over, but for now we wish our Poe-nation friends and family a warm, happy holiday. May it be filled with love and poetry.

CLICK HERE to read about upcoming events at Poe House, holiday schedules, and the Official 2022-23 Young Saturday Visiter Nominees.

2022 continues to be an historic year for programs at Poe House: on the heels of our most successful International Edgar Allan Poe Festival to date, we will wrap up the Virginia Poe Bicentennial year with two more sessions from the discussion series, to stream on our Facebook & YouTube pages.

If you have enjoyed this year’s poetical offerings from Poe Baltimore, please consider the following options to support The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum in Baltimore–some of them cost nothing!

List Poe Baltimore (501c3) as your non-profit of choice for Giving Tuesday, Holiday, and End-of-year giving. One-time and monthly donations will help us keep Poe’s chamber door open to visitors. (Yes! We ARE on Facebook!)
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Our goal before December 31 is 1000 subscribers!
Use Amazon Smile to shop for the holidays and make Poe Baltimore your org of choice: Amazon sets aside a portion of your shopping total as a donation to Poe House with no charge to you!
Make a donation or purchase in the Poe House gift shop!

We are already preparing for a sinister start to 2023, beginning with a Poe Toaster Murder Mystery at Westminster Hall for Poe’s 214th Birthday and Call for Entries for the 2023 Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards. And of course, Poe House is open year round for visitors. Please support Poe Baltimore this and every year, and a very Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

The 2022 International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards is less than a month away! This FREE community event is two days of Poe-themed programs, including performances, books, music and art. The stage program and vendor list has posted! Special tours and exhibits at The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum and Westminster Hall & Burying Ground will also continue even beyond festival weekend.

There’s a lot to remember. Know Before You Poe! Read the latest newsletter to check out our list of 10 Things everyone should know about Poe Fest International, then watch our Facebook & YouTube channel every Thursday this month for more information about Poe Festival events!

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

Virginia Poe Bicentennial

It’s time to celebrate! Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, wife and muse of Edgar Allan Poe, turns 200 on Monday. We will commemorate the occasion with a special Gothic Tea Party and Summer Reception at Westminster Hall & Burying Ground on Saturday, August 13, at 2PM. (Note: Tickets have sold out! Join the waitlist on the Eventbrite page.) Can’t join us? We will stream highlights from the Reception and a special Happy Birthday to Virginia Poe on Monday, 7PM Eastern, on our Facebook & YouTube pages.

Our most poetical year of programming won’t end with Virginia’s birthday, however: several of this year’s International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards events, including the VIP Death Weekend Bus Tours and the NEW Edgar & Virginia Poe Death Exhibit exploring the hidden-history of this enigmatic figure in Poe’s life.

More celebration is in order: Official Nominees for the 2022 Saturday Visiter Awards have been announced! Read our newsletter to see this year’s selection of Poe-inspired works. More about these extraordinary creators coming soon.

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

The International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards returns for a fifth year in Baltimore, October 8 & 9th, 2022. This is a FREE community event, but VIP Death Weekend Bus Tours and tickets for The Black Cat Ball are ON SALE now. This year’s party is Gothic Wedding themed; VIP ticket-holders pledge to love and honor a partner, friend, or even yourself for your eternal afterlives in a special ceremony in the Westminster Hall Catacombs.

Tickets are also available for the Edgar & Virginia Poe Death Exhibit. Death tableau and memento mori (some items made from human hair!) will be part of this haunting exhibit at Westminster Hall. Don’t want to wait? Enjoy a special preview of the exhibit at our final session in the Virginia Poe Bicentennial Discussion Series on July 19 as we present MOURNING, The Strange Afterlives of Edgar and Virginia Poe. You may also join us for a Gothic Tea Party & Summer Reception at Westminster Hall as we celebrate Virginia Poe’s 200th birthday, August 13.

Need we remind you that tickets for these special events fly away fast as wings of ravens? Read our newsletter so you don’t miss any-Poe-thing!

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

There’s nothing lazy about Summer days at Poe House, though much of the action will be virtual this month.

First, we interrupt our most poetical year of Virginia Poe programming for a Father’s Day parley: join us for “Allan vs. Poe” a discussion about Edgar Allan Poe, John Allan, and fatherhood with POEtic Justice Productions of Ayrshire, Scotland, ancestral home of the man who put the Allan in Edgar Allan Poe.

Next, register to attend the penultimate session in the Virginia Poe Bicentennial Discussion Series, part of a year of monthly programs to commemorate the 200th birthday of Virginia Poe, Edgar Allan Poe’s wife and muse. On June 21 we present “MARRIAGE, The Public Scandals and Private Tragedies of Mr. and Mrs. Poe.”

Finally, this is the last month for PAVERS FOR POE FEST pre-sales before tickets for the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards go on sale July 1. Look for announcements and a peek at the festival sizzle reel later this month. Read our newsletter for more!

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

“The angels, whispering to one another

Can find, among their burning terms of love

None so devotional as that of ‘Mother.’”

Despite being orphaned at a young age, Edgar Allan Poe had real reason to believe the angels: it was the women he knew as ‘mother’—his aunt, Maria Clemm, his foster mother, Frances Allan, even his grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe—whose devotion made his life (both literal and literary) possible. As we continue this most poetical year of events and exhibits to commemorate the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe’s wife and muse, Virginia Poe, in May we celebrate all thing Mother, spread the love, and recognize the other women in the Poe family.

On Mother’s Day, May 8th, we’ll PREVIEW our program MOTHER: Hidden Her-stories of the Women in the Poe Family, including a Revolutionary War Patriot and how a mother’s love changed literary history. Watch at 7PM, Sunday May 8th.

Looking for a unique Mother’s Day gift? Reserve tickets for the LIVE recording of the Virginia Poe Bicentennial Discussion Series, May 10th, or our Gothic Tea Party for Virginia Poe’s Birthday, August 13th, at Westminster Hall & Burying Grounds. You might also consider purchasing a PAVER FOR POE FEST and inscribe your devotion on a special paver at The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum. Packages include VIP Death Weekend bus tour tickets at this year’s International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards.

Click to read our newsletter to find out more.

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

P.S. Would you like to express your devotion to a “mom” in your life? Leave a message for mom here and we might play it when our preview streams on Mother’s Day: https://www.speakpipe.com/VirginiaPoe

Spring is the maddest season as it’s the official beginning of planning for Poe Fest International: date has been set for the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards and “Death Weekend” is slated for October 8th & 9th, 2022. We begin to assemble our hale and light-hearted friends with the return of PAVERS FOR POE FEST Tour Ticket pre-sales! Poe Fest International is a FREE community festival, but additional tours and ticketed events abound. Support the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum with an engraved paver in Poe Park, get first access to the official festival t-shirt and Bus Tours of Poe’s Baltimore! As ever, proceeds benefit The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum in Baltimore.

Check out the new addition to this year’s festival poster as our program and festival events are inspired by the Virginia Poe Bicentennial, a most poetical year of events and exhibits to commemorate the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe’s wife and muse.

But why wait to commemorate? Join us this month, April 19 at 7PM, at Westminster Hall & Burying Ground for POETESS. The Virginia Poe Bicentennial Discussion Series welcomes female-identifying poets from Baltimore & Richmond for a special National Poetry Month reading of Poe works and original poetry, plus presentations from the Poe Studies Association and The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. Read more about this and other Poe House events in the Poe Baltimore House Newsletter.

Yours in Poe,
Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore

P.S. Deadline to enter the 2022 Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards is next month! Share the news with your favorite artists and writers who create Poe-inspired art: SaturdayVisiterAwards.org

Enrica Jang Director, Poe Baltimore

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Enrica Jang
Director, Poe Baltimore