For 25 years, a Cambridge event series has been convincing Bostonians to put down the remote and head out on a weeknight for something unusual: author readings paired with live music. Earfull, the monthly show now based at Regattabar inside The Charles Hotel, pairs a writer's reading with a musical performance, an intermission, and then another writer and another band, all in one night. It has outlasted its original venue, survived a pandemic shutdown of its current home, and built a following that includes a surgeon, a Sopranos actress, and an Oscar-nominated actor.
The series traces back to October 2001, when it launched at the now-closed Kendall Cafe in Kendall Square, according to The Boston Globe. That venue had a reputation of its own in Cambridge's music scene: the Kendall Cafe served as a launching pad for 1990s acoustic and indie performers including Jewel and Elvis Costello before it closed in 2004, per the Boston Business Journal. Earfull was founded by Tim Huggins, who owned Newtonville Books, and Jen Trynin, a former recording artist who was taking writing classes at Harvard Extension School at the time. The two met through a Harvard Extension School professor, the Globe's report notes.
From a Record Deal to a Reading Series
Trynin's path to co-founding Earfull runs through one of the more storied chapters of 1990s alt-rock. Before turning to writing, she was signed to Warner Bros. Records during a major bidding war among labels, releasing the albums Cockamamie in 1994 and Gun Shy, Trigger Happy in 1997, before recounting the experience in her 2006 memoir Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be, according to the Los Angeles Times. Trynin told the station's report, as carried by the Globe, that she and her co-founders wanted to bring rock-show audiences and reading audiences together in one room. Huggins, for his part, said the series has developed its own momentum and community connections over the years.
Earfull is now co-hosted by Trynin alongside Nick Petrulakis and Laura Zigman. Petrulakis is general manager of Newtonville Books, the store Huggins originally founded in 1998 before selling it in 2007 to former employee Mary Cotton and her husband, Jaime Clarke, who later relocated it to Newton Centre in 2012, per Shelf Awareness. Zigman is a Cambridge-based author of seven novels. Beyond the bookstore and Earfull, Petrulakis also moonlights as a mixologist who designs book-themed cocktails for author events, according to the Lynn Cullen official website.
A Night That Draws a Judge, a Surgeon and a Sopranos Star
The series runs at Regattabar from February through May and again in September, then shifts each June to a weekly four-show run on the outdoor patio at Branch Line restaurant in Watertown, a partnership with the Mosesian Center for the Arts that manages ticketing and production support for the summer dates, per the Mosesian Center for the Arts. Regattabar itself has its own history worth noting: the 220-seat room on the third floor of The Charles Hotel originally opened on January 29, 1985, and reopened in September 2023 after a three-year pandemic hiatus, according to The Arts Fuse.
On September 16, the Globe reported, novelist Jennifer Belle, who has written six novels, read from Swanna in Love and a work in progress. Eric and Hazel Royer performed bluegrass covers and originals, and J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf read from his book Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses. The night closed with a surprise: pianist and singer Kenny White joined Wolf for a duet. Among the attendees was actor Chris Cooper, known for his role in Adaptation, who told the newspaper that Earfull meets a need for live entertainment and live reading. Also in the crowd was actress Marianne Leone, known for The Sopranos.
Why a Surgeon Keeps Coming Back
Brigham and Women's Hospital surgeon and former Biden administration official Atul Gawande is a regular at Earfull, per the Globe's reporting, and said the series repeatedly introduces audiences to books and musicians they wouldn't otherwise encounter. Retired juvenile court judge and youth justice advocate Jay Blitzman offered a similar take, saying the combination of literature and music is extraordinary and that Greater Boston has remarkable local talent to draw from. Over the years, the series has featured musicians including Tanya Donelly, Chris Harford, Ted Leo, Bill Janovitz and Kay Hanley, alongside writers such as Tom Perrotta, Alice Hoffman, John Sayles, Lily King and Allegra Goodman.
The format has stayed consistent since the beginning: an author reading followed by a performance, an intermission, then a second author and another performance. Earfull gives preference to writers with new material and accepts applications from authors and musicians through its website, with the stated goal, per the site, of making writers feel cool and musicians feel smart.
Next Up: A Band Reunion and Two Award-Winning Authors
The next Earfull show lands on Wednesday at Regattabar at The Charles Hotel, with tickets priced at $35 plus fees. The lineup features authors David Ryan and Nick Flynn alongside musicians Arto Vaun and Fuzzy, including a reunion set from the 1990s Boston indie rock band with author David Ryan returning to his original role on drums, according to Bradley's Almanac. Vaun's 2024 album Stuck Inside a Map was highlighted by WBUR and NPR, the same report notes.
Ryan brings serious literary credentials to the stage: he is a two-time O. Henry Prize winner, in 2022 and 2023, and the author of the short story collections Animals in Motion from 2014 and Alligator, published in 2025, according to Kirkus Reviews. He also teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Flynn, the other featured author, published the 2004 memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which won a PEN International award and recounts his encounters with his estranged father while he worked at a Boston homeless shelter in the late 1980s, per Wikipedia. The memoir was later adapted into the 2012 film Being Flynn, starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano.
