In 1894 the first book in the handwritten shelf list is Walt Whitman, poems like Leaves of Grass. In 1874, you might have been more likely to find Edmund Morris’ Ten Acres Enough.’ … When the Williamstown public library first opened to the town, it began with a collection of 100 agricultural books in a corner of H. Cole’s General Store.
Read articleDaf Moby project immerses in Melville — one page a day
Last fall, on Rosh Hashanah, Williams College professors Jeffrey Israel and Edan Dekel began reading Moby-Dick together … and they have found the experience transformative.
Read articleBlues music recalls summer plays and family stories
It’s 20 years ago now that Ruben Santiago-Hudson brought Lackawanna Blues to the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He’s gone on to Broadway and the Tonys ... and I remember.
Read articleMaria Irene Fornés reclaims the stage at MCLA
MCLA opens a festival of events honoring one of the most influential playwrights of the last 75 years — whose name is still new to many people in her own country.
Read articleVoice of the wild iris — in memory of Louise Glück
She wrote days on the edge of thaw. She spoke in the voices of the earliest ephemeral wildflowers. They move out of the earth in the sleet, and new petals shake in a wind as high as a mountain. And they become oracles …
Read articlePoems ride high tides of feeling and experience
Rage Hezekiah, Robert Carr, Richard Hoffman and Heather Treseler, all nationally acclaimed poets, share their work with Voices of Poetry at the Stockbridge Library, with international opera singer Benjamin Luxon.
Read articleYiddish reveals a language of Global Culture
The Yiddish Book Center explores the vitality of an international living language as it transforms into ‘the first comprehensive museum of modern Yiddish culture in the world.’
Read article‘English’ at BSC defines expression and home
Four students and their teacher walk into a classroom in a city in the mountains, to search for language and connection … as Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer prizewinning play opens at Barrington Stage.
Read articleFreedom to read and sense and explore — #bannedbooksweek
I was wandering through North Adams on a quiet afternoon, when I walked into Installation Space and saw Eve Bunting’s ‘One Green Apple’ on a shelf by the door. The shelf said ‘banned challenged books … take one — thank you.’
Read articleRelease shares women’s stories of incarceration and courage
A cooperative of women storytellers with the 2nd Street program in Pittsfield share their strength, their pain and their dreams in a new work of theater.
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