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The Taconic Crest Trail crosses Petersburg Pass.

Category:
Journalism

Kate Abbott
Daffodils gleam in the sun at the annual Naumkeag tulip and daffodil festival.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Community

How can women stand together now?

May 5, 2022
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I am watching the rain and trying to understand how to write to you today. How can I talk with you about spring gardens and baby animals when the country is debating whether I and 166 million women should have the right to live full, strong lives — should have the right to live?

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Shakespeare & Company actors perform in Romeo and Juliet outdoors at the Mount in 2014. Press photo courtesy of the theater.
Photo by Kevin Sprague
Writing

Writing behind the scenes — Why talking matters

March 24, 2022
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I remember a conversation at Shakespeare & Company 20 years ago. They were two stage veterans talking with a cub journalist from the local weekly … and they got off script. They let the talk move between us into their own lives.

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Ice is skimming over the water where the Ashuwillticook rail Trail runs along Cheshire Lake.
Ashuwilticook Rail Trail / Photo by Kate Abbott
About

The center can hold (January 6 newsletter)

January 7, 2021
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Tonight while a mob is attacking government buildings, while I am sitting safe by the fire at the foot of a mountain in a town where I know college students have been threatened a mile away and somehow stood tall and gone on, I am reading Danusha Lameris’ poems for the first time.

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Jack-o-lanterns glow in the annual Pumpkin Walk at Naumkeag.
Photo by Kate Abbott
By the Way

Berkshire conversations begin to probe the future (November 4 newsletter)

November 5, 2020
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We’re on pause tonight. The country is waiting for a decision that can re-shape our lives, and we’re hunkered down. Daylight Savings is past, and the nights are getting longer and darker. It can be easy to feel cut off on a night like this.

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A flame burns in the dark. Creative Commons courtesy photo
Photo by Ian S.
By the Way

Opening a conversation takes courage

November 1, 2020
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How are you? That seems like such a small question in these hard days. It should be a simple thing to turn to someone with warmth and respect. And right now it feels vital.

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A maple tree in Lenox turns deep orange and gold in the fall.
Photo by Kate Abbott
By the Way

John Steinbeck calls attention to fall color on the back roads

September 30, 2020
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If I could be anywhere in the world today, I’d be here. I might be here in 1960, when John Steinbeck drove through with Charley (his dog) in the cab of his truck.

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Daffodils bloom in brilliant color in May at the first Daffodil Festival at Naumkeag in Stockbridge.
Naumkeag / Photo by Kate Abbott
Journalism

How do we respond as Massachusetts starts to reopen?

May 20, 2020
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The governor’s announcement this week allows some local places to begin to reopen, and it raises questions for all of us as. And as I talk with you about the community, it raises questions for me.

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Elizabeth King's exhibit, 'Radical Small' opens articulate hands at Mass MoCA. Photo by Kate Abbott
Elizabeth King / Mass MoCA
Visual Arts

Art in her hands at International Women’s Day — By the Way column

March 9, 2017
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Women known around the world in art and music have come to the Berkshires, and we remember them as Women’s History Month honors International Women’s Day.

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An apple tree at sunset. Winter at the Notchview Reservation in Windsor, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the Trustees of Reservations.
Photo by J. Monkman
Writing

I believe: A manifesto for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 16, 2017
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A friend of mine created a workshop where people could build manifestos. A manifesto is a public declaration of intention — in other words: I have a dream.

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Marchers at a Four Freedoms rally fill North Street in January 2017.
Photo by Kate Abbott
Community

Marchers fill the street at the Four Freedoms Rally (By the Way column)

January 10, 2017
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We are standing in a crowd outside the First Church of Christ in Park Square. I have never seen so many people in downtown Pittsfield outside of a street festival … On a Saturday afternoon in January 2017, some 2,000 people marched up North Street in a rally with the Four Freedoms Coalition.

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Explore the Berkshires
From back roads to backstage
Kate Abbott
KateAbbott@btwberkshires.com
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