Smell & Tell: Getting Lost in a Book: Adventures in SmellLiterature

Event Summary

Date(s): Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm
Venue: Downtown Branch of AADL
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Event Description

Scent references in literature can make the room you’re reading in disappear as you get lost in a book. This is true whether you’re familiar with the scent or imagine it based on the role that scent plays in the text.

Six scents referenced in literature will be blind smelled on fragrance blotters and evaluated using professional sensory evaluation techniques. Identification of the material smelled is followed by a reading of the passage so that you can re-experience the scent contextually.

This unique approach enhances immersion, comprehension and emotional connection to literature as smells trigger memories more than any other human sense. Can a scent or flavor that traveled from the writer’s brain to the text be perceived by a reader in real-time? It can at Smell & Tell.

The Smell and Tell series of art+science programming is led by Michelle Krell Kydd, a trained nose in flavors and fragrance who shares her passion for gastronomy, sensory evaluation and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling.

Smell and Tell is presented remotely by Michelle Krell Kydd to an in-person audience. Fragrances and other materials are provided to in-person attendees.