With the backdrop of a large COVID-19 outbreak within its walls, Andrea Morrell talks to Matt Seybold about Elmira Correctional Facility, one of the oldest continuously-operational prisons in the United States. What does it mean to be a "prison town"? How has the prison system changed during the long history of ECF? What does the current outbreak reveal about its future?

For more about Andrea Morrell's research, visit AndreaMorrellOrg.wordpress.com or check out the associate post at MarkTwainStudies.org

Susan K. Harris, author of "Mark Twain, The World, & Me: Following the Equator, Then & Now," sits down with Matt Seybold to discuss the project that took her to Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa, among other places, and found her examining her own life and career, as well as the author whose footsteps she was following in.

This episode begins with Todd Nathan Thompson's paper for "The Viral Twain" panel at Virtual C19. Dr. Thompson tracks how Twain's jokes based on his visit to Hawaii were reprinted and often misprinted in the 1870s and 1880s, as Twain was increasingly approached as a pundit on annexation.

The second half of the episode (24:00) contained Mark Dawidziak's Trouble Begins Lecture about the influence of Twain on Bram Stoker.

For more information on joining "The Viral Twain" conversation, including the presentations by Avery Blankenship and Matt Seybold: https://marktwainstudies.com/the-viral-twain-at-virtual-c19-dissent/

Mark Twain's publicist and booking agent, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, started his career as a hardscrabble freelance journalist. He discovered he had a knack for star-making long before he met Mark Twain. Matt Seybold tells the largely forgotten tale of James Redpath becoming John Brown's "right hand man" on the cusp of the Civil War.

This episode is part of "The Viral Twain" panel at Virtual C19. For more information visit MarkTwainStudies.org or C19society.org.