I was looking for a trail head on Bee Hill Road when I stumbled on the overlook above Williamstown Rural Lands, and the hillside was bright in the sun.
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Live poets at Chesterwood feel the pull of current change
In these short weeks before the election, Western Massachusetts poets come together at the historic home and studio of the sculptor of the Lincoln memorial, to share work that feels relevant to this time and in that place.
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Joy Harjo and Layli Long Soldier share loss and strength in poetry
Surrounded by the crumbling world, women begin to sing. The world as they’ve known it has ended, and yet there is movement, and growth, and the promise of new life.
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John Steinbeck calls attention to fall color on the back roads
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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A gift of story and song: W.E.B. DuBois on his home ground
W.E.B. DuBois traveled the world in his lifetime. He helped to shape ideals of independence in Africa and freedom and democracy in America. And I have begun to get to know him in the Berkshires, where he was born.
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A shining light touches ‘chill minds, rigorously averted’
Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence forms around the tension between a creative and honest and passionate woman and man who resists and retreats to a closed society.
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The Mount muses on 100 years of the Age of Innocence
100 years ago, Edith Wharton wrote the Age of Innocence in a world shaken by war, pandemic and economic collapse, and this summer, writers and readers around the world are finding her work timely.
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Writers share a residency with Edith Wharton in the pandemic
Writers Sue Miller, Patricia Park and Dayna Tortorici shared a residency in Edith Wharton’s home this spring, as Covid-19 transformed the world around them.
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Celestials from China change North Adams in 1870
The Celestials, a group of young men, came from China to North Adams in 1870 to work in a shoe factory, and Mass MoCA recalls their story. Imagine them looking out the train windows here for the first time.
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Parable of the Sower — science fiction feels current
Octavia Butler wrote The Parable of the Sower as a novel set in a world on the edge of collapse, in 2024, and Toshi Reagon has written an opera based on the book. I remember the nnight her music came here.
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