Instagram story viewer> @mollyrideout> Posts

Molly Rideout

@mollyrideout

1.2K

followers

1029

following

Writer. Bookmaker. Rural arts advocate. Midwesterner in the Berkshires. Shop on Etsy: AlyssumPress. @assets4artists

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Have you been wanting to learn more about your genealogy, the house you live in, or other local history? I wrote about the different, and mostly free, research sources I use when digging up information about the obscure historical figures I make work about. It’s much easier than you ever thought, especially thanks to your local library.

The more stories we learn from the past, the more we understand ourselves in the present. Click NEWS on my website for the post, and you’ll be an expert researcher in no time. by @mollyrideout

85

6

a month ago

My upcoming essay wouldn’t have happened without this boy, Virgil “Billy” Payne, Frances’s son. It’s unusual to get a letter in the mail from a total stranger (me) asking what you can tell her about your mother. It’s even more unusual to actually call the stranger back. Virgil told me it all, the terrible, the beautiful, and the messy. He wants his mother’s story known as much as I do. What we learned from our couple years of telephone conversations are the ways in which oral history and the published record don’t always agree, especially for a woman like Frances, who had to regularly evade the authorities to survive. As a result, my upcoming essay “I Made My Mistakes, Your Make Yours” is one of inconsistent narratives, that of memory and that of family lore, and the questions that both leave us with. Which is more likely to be true? Which are we more likely to believe? And what if the answer to those two questions are different?  

Pre-orders for “I Made My Mistakes, You Make Yours” open at the end of the month! by @mollyrideout

20

1

3 days ago

If you missed my talk in Pownal this summer, you’ve got another chance to learn the story of Grace Greylock Niles two weeks from tomorrow—otherwise you’ll have to wait until my essay comes out later this fall in AGNI! But even then, I’ll be talking about details of GGN’s life that’s not in my essay, so really you’ll want to come to both 😁

Saturday, October 24 @ 11am @williamstownhistoricalmuseum, in the barn (dress warmly). We’re gonna talk about how a rich Williamstown doctor and a rich Williamstown judge made her life impossible and may have even conspired to send her away for good. by @mollyrideout

25

2

8 days ago

By the end of 11 hours in the print shop Sunday, the first layer of ink was on the covers of “I Made My Mistakes, You Make Yours” (plus a first layer of scoring where the paper will fold). Working a printing press is many hours of set-up and testing and refinement, followed by many more hours of this.

Not pictured: my amazing printing sidekick, E, without whom those 11 hours would have been 22.

(If you’re wondering why you can’t see any ink on the paper, it’s because this was the scoring stage).

Two more layers of printing to go, plus digitally printing the text, plus assembly! Pre-orders will open at the end of this month, so follow and sign up for my newsletter to learn when it drops! by @mollyrideout

84

4

12 days ago

It’s been nearly 5 years since I last used a Vandercook press, so @melaniemowinski needed to give me a quick refresher before I start printing the covers for “I Made My Mistakes, You Make Yours.” It’s such a treat to be back in the studio and to have access to such a talented teacher like Melanie! by @mollyrideout

48

8

18 days ago

What would you do if your partner gifted you a wanted poster he found on eBay? Would you write a letter to the teenager’s now 77-year-old son to find out the full story? Maybe that was a terrible idea, but I’m so glad I did. I learned that “prison escapee” was merely the tip of the iceberg of this resilient woman. At thirteen Frances Belle McFarland married her uncle’s brother-in-law. He beat her enough that she lost three babies in utero. Soon after running away at seventeen, she was arrested for prostitution. After two years in prison, she escaped. Her second husband was a one-eyed hobo. They were happy for more than fifteen years, had three kids, but wrote fake names on the birth certificates of two. Then came his logging accident, and the surgeries, barber school, and the gun.   “I Made My Mistakes, Your Make Yours” is a story of perseverance and imperfection and hardship. It’s a story of loving someone despite their gaping faults. This November I’ll be releasing it in an editioned handmade book with a letterpress printed cover. Sign up for my newsletter on my About page (link in bio) to get the announcement when pre-orders open in October and learn the amazing life of this badass woman. by @mollyrideout

60

4

25 days ago

It’s been five years since I released an artist book of my original writing, and now I’m simultaneously putting out two! Two books about fiercely independent women fighting to survive in a society determined to beat them down. Two women who buckled down and did what they had to in order to claim their small corner of the world.   In November, I’ll release “I Made My Mistakes, You Make Yours,” an essay about Frances Belle McFarland, a train-hopping, teenaged, prison escapee. She lost three pregnancies, gave birth to three babies, married three times, and had nine shotgun pellets in her neck until the day she died.   Then early next spring, I’ll release “Bog Hag,” an essay about the brilliant self-taught botanist and author Grace Greylock Niles, who sued her nursing school and her brother’s estate and her neighbors, before purposefully setting fire to her own house and getting sent to a mental health hospital for the rest of her life.  Deemed by literary agents to be excellent writing but “commercially unmarketable” 🤣 I’m so excited to finally be able to share these stories with you, after nearly three years of writing and research. Both books will include letterpress printed covers. One will feature an illustration by @zoejkissel of @threeletterpress, and the other one by the talented scientific illustrator @jack.whisenant.  Pre-orders open next month. Stay tuned! by @mollyrideout

43

7

a month ago

I cut my bangs too short and have kept this poinsettia alive for 9 months out of guilt, even though I don’t really like poinsettias, but I’m really here to tell you that you’re going to see a lot more of me over the next six months, and you should sign up for my newsletter to catch it all. I’ve got an essay coming out in @agni.magazine. I’m giving a talk at @williamstownhistoricalmuseum. But what I’m most excited about are two new letterpress printed artist books I’m releasing of essays I’ve spent the last three years researching and writing. I’d love to keep you updated on all of these and other activities. Join my mailing list so that the IG algorithms won’t fail you and you can be the first to know when something is happening. At most I send out 2-3 newsletters a year. Usually it’s more like one. Some years it’s none. What can I say—I’m passionate, not consistent. I’m too busy keeping plants I don’t like alive, I guess.  Join the list at the link in my bio! by @mollyrideout

89

12

a month ago

In a dingy New York barn with no electric light, yesterday I found a small stack of North Adams cabinet cards. I’m especially excited for the ones photographed by William Hurd and by Henry Ward, whose lives I learned about in Anthony W. Lee’s book A Shoemaker’s Story. Who were these former neighbors of ours? In what part of town did they live? What did they do and who did they love? taken in North Adams, Massachusetts by @mollyrideout

34

7

a month ago

If you’ve talked to me at all in the last year-and-a-half, then you’ve probably heard me gush about Grace Greylock Niles. Now for the first time I’ll be sharing her story in a talk with Pownal Historical Society on Wednesday, August 12 @ 6:30 PM. Come hear about a remarkable person, the life she fought to carve out for herself as an unmarried woman living with schizophrenia at the turn of the last century, and how that life was snatched away from her by those with more power. Even if you think you know her whole story, I promise that you don’t. (And if you can’t make it to this talk, never fear, I’ll be doing another at Williamstown Historical on Saturday, October 24!) by @mollyrideout

56

6

3 months ago

So happy this essay about moving to North Adams, our neighbor Ed, and the house that was trying to kill us has found its print home in @boulevardlitmag, alongside one of my old MFA colleagues! by @mollyrideout

50

12

7 months ago

Some of the @assets4artists team took a field trip to @worcesterartmuseum last week, which gave us an excuse to see the amazing @danice_d_marshall’s show, including one she worked on while in residence at @massmocastudios! It was our favorite exhibit in the whole place (I know I’m biased)! by @mollyrideout

37

2

9 months ago