Jennifer Stevens and Rye Howard took the leap of opening a bookshop in a pandemic, with focuses in science fiction and fantasy, health and the land and more.
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North Adams, MA
Edith Wharton read Walt Whitman aloud with her friends. On summer nights they would sit on the terrace here at The Mount in Lenox and savor lines of Leaves of Grass —
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air …
Writers and storytellers have come to the Berkshires for centuries to find a voice and a place to work. Lorraine Hansberry stayed at Festival House in Lenox as a quiet retreat around the time A Raisin in the Sun became the first play written by a black woman ever produced on Broadway. Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick from his farmhouse study, looking out at Mount Greylock on the horizon. W.E.B. DuBois looked back at his childhood in Great Barrington with a clear and challenging gaze.
Now contemporary writers look up at the hills from their own desks — poets laureate Richard Wilbur and William Jay Smith used to share crossword puzzles at the Old Creamery Co-op on Sunday mornings, up on the ridge in Cummington. Novelists are writing here, like Andrea Barrett and Jim and Karen Shepard, Ali Benjamin and John Crowley, Roxana Robinson; memoirists and food writers Ruth Reichl and Darra Goldstein … We lift many voices.
Writers in the Berkshires
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Arrowhead
Herman Melville and his family were living in the Berkshires, in a farmhouse in Pittsfield, while he wrote ‘Moby-Dick’ in the 1850s. From his desk, he could see the outline of Mount Greylock above the surrounding hills, and it reminded him of a sperm whale’s back in the water, when the whale came up to breathe.
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The Mount
Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, wrote many of her best-known novels in this house, in the 10 years she lived in Lenox — from The House of Mirth to Ethan Frome. Her house is now a museum, a center of writing, music and performance, landscape and gardens, dedicated to keeping her spirit alive.
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The Bookstore
Lenox, MA
The Bookstore in Lenox has been ‘serving the community since last Tuesday’ for more than 40 years with contemporary fiction and a deep collection of poetry, Judaica, science, history … and readings in the Get Lit wine bar.
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Norad Mill
North Adams, MA
Moresi & Associates has drawn more than 40 local businesses to the renovated Norad Mill — artists and artisans, coffee and local wines, vintage records, yarn shops and even rocks and minerals.
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WordxWord
WordxWord gathers writers to perform their own work live in the Berkshires. They come into coffee shops and museums, and compete in poetry and story slams, picking up the mic without a script. They hold events year-round and a weeklong festival through downtown Pittsfield in August.
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Northshire Bookstore
Manchester Center, VT
I’m standing by a pyramid of hardbacks in Northshire Bookstore in Manchester. I’ve wanted to come here for years, and it’s living up to the anticipation. The shelves are almost twice as tall as I am.
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Williams College
Williamstown, MA
Williams College is named the top liberal arts college in the country, out in the Berkshire hills with an art museum, theater and music, talks and trails — and a spirit of making its own fun.
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