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LOWELL — Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell and became a writer here. Each October, the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival illuminates his local influences and explores his enduring impact on music, art and literature.

This year will be the 38th annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival, from Oct. 8-12, in various locations throughout the city.

This year’s events will feature a host of activities, including:

• Tours to sites including Kerouac’s birthplace, grave site and novel locations. For more information, visit: www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org.

• A Festival Opening Gathering (at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Worthen House Cafe), an informal gathering to welcome new and old friends.

• Book talk: “Big American Writer: The Bilingual Jack Kerouac” by JC Cloutier (Thursday at 4 p.m. at UMass Lowell)

• Musical performances by Timo Shanko (Friday at 8 p.m. at Warp & Weft) and legendary jazz performer and Kerouac collaborator David Amram (Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Middlesex CommunityCollege)

• A conversation with a daughter of the Beat Generation, Cathy Cassady Sylvia (Saturday at noon at Pollard Memorial Library)

• Annual LCK! Parker Lecture: Jonathan Collins on his series of portraits of Kerouac and other Beat Generation figures, now on display at the Whistler House (Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Whistler House). Jonathan Collins will discuss his portrait series, “Kerouac Beat and Counterculture Portraits,” now on display at the Whistler House in Lowell, which he has been working on since 2023.

• A poetry performance by legendary poet and activist Ed Sanders, (Sunday at 5 p.m. at Hive Public Market)

• A discussion of Kerouac’s haikus with filmmaker and culture critic Regina Weinreich (Monday at noon at lala Books)

Other activities include the Lowell High School Annual Poetry and Prose Competition, a Coffee & Kerouac feature, the “Walking With Jack’s Franco-American Ghosts: A St. Joseph Cemetery Tour,” and many other Kerouac-centric events, all listed on www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org.

On the tours the website says, “LCK Committee members offer tours of the Kerouac sites of Lowell including Jack’s birthplace and grave marker at the Edson Cemetery, as well as several of the homes in neighborhoods Jack describes in his Lowell novels. It can be walking tours, or ones with a car or van. A $10.00 donation per person is requested to support Lowell Celebrates Kerouac. Tour leaders are Bill Walsh, Judith Bessette, or Steve Edington. Steve also offers tours of the Kerouac sites of Nashua, NH, as cited in ‘Visions of Gerard and Doctor Sax.’”

Contact Judith at [email protected] or Steve at [email protected], for arranging a tour or for more information.

“Jack Kerouac (1922-1967) was a novelist and poet of French-Canadian ancestry born in Lowell, Massachusetts He is best known for ‘On the Road’ (1957), a novel that captured the restless spirit of the time and continues to inspire readers, and for his pioneering role in the literary subculture he dubbed the “Beat Generation,” event organizers said.

Among his other published works are five novels that draw on his youth in Lowell. He is buried in Edson Cemetery in Lowell.

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! is a non-profit organization founded in 1985 to promote a better understanding and appreciation of Jack Kerouac’s life and work. In addition to the annual festival, LCK! sponsors a spring program marking Kerouac’s birthday. LCK! volunteers help maintain Kerouac Park and Jack Kerouac Commemorative in Lowell.

Original article