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Most students in the United States read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter sometime during school. It’s the fictional story of Hester Prynne, who has a child out of wedlock and suffers consequences for it. Hester Prynne is based on a real person. And that real case, and the non-fiction book it inspired at the time, are chronicled in the new non-fiction book All the Sinners Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the real Hester Prynne. Author Kate Winkler Dawson is a professor of practice in journalism and media at the University of Texas at Austin and a true crime historian and podcaster. She talked recently with KUT’s Jennifer Stayton about the controversial case of Sara Maria Cornell, who was found hanging from a haystack pole in New England in 1832.
You can hear more from Kate Winkler Dawson about All the Sinners Bow Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. at First Light Books on Speedway in Austin. You can also find out more about her latest book in a KUT post about January reading recommendations from some Austin-area librarians.
