The area known as Dogtown -- an isolated colonial ruin and surrounding 3,000-acre woodland in storied seaside Gloucester, Massachusetts -- has long exerted a powerful influence over artists, writers, eccentrics, and nature lovers. But its history is also woven through with tales of witches, supernatural sightings, pirates, former slaves, drifters, and the many dogs Revolutionary War widows kept for protection and for which the area was named. In 1984, a brutal murder took place there: a mentally disturbed local outcast crushed the skull of a beloved schoolteacher as she walked in the woods. Dogtown's peculiar atmosphere -- it is strewn with giant boulders and has been compared to Stonehenge -- and eerie past deepened the pall of this horrific event that continues to haunt Gloucester even today. In alternating chapters, Elyssa East interlaces the story of this grisly murder with the strange, dark history of this wilderness ghost town and explores the possibility that certain landscapes wield their own unique power. In luminous, insightful prose, "Dogtown" takes the reader into an unforgettable place brimming with tragedy, eccentricity, and fascinating lore, and examines the idea that some places can inspire both good and evil, poetry and murder. Elyssa East received her B.A. in art history from Reed College and her M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. Her Master's thesis--a draft of this manuscript--won an M.F.A. Faculty Selects award. Elyssa has received additional awards and fellowships from the Ragdale, Jerome, and Ludwig Vogelstein Foundations; the University of Connecticut; and the Phillips Library. Elyssa's writing has been published in various New England regional magazines as well as "The Brooklyn Rail, Guernica, " and "Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, "and is forthcoming in The New York Times. A scene from Elyssa's opera libretto, "Mr. Hawthorne's Engagement, " was performed with singers from the Met Opera as part of American Opera Project's Composers and the Voice series. Elyssa created Columbia University's Artists' Resource Center and ran KGB Bar's Columbia University Faculty Selects Reading Series for three years. Additionally she has worked as a nonfiction reviews editor at "Publisher's Weekly;" the Managing Director of the Maine Summer Dramatic Institute and Executive Producer of Shakespeare in Deering Oaks Park in Portland, Maine; an archaeologist's assistant; and a dump-truck driver. A native of Georgia, Elyssa currently resides in New York City.