Category: Non-fiction

I hate open casket funerals. Grandpa looks more alive now than he did before he died. His hands are fastened together on his chest over a smart black suit jacket. They’ve tastefully applied rouge to his cheeks, like the final flush of life. And if you … Continue Reading

On a warm, slightly overcast Tuesday morning at the end of November, I go to the Haymarket Café in Northampton to meet with local writer Sally Bellerose. She’s the author of the acclaimed 2011 novel The Girl’s Club and numerous short stories, mostly in … Continue Reading

Ada B. Wells is not her real name, but she talks about Ida B. Wells who refused to give up her seat on the train long before Rosa Parks could even ride the bus without her mother. We had just met, and her furry top hat sat over her hair. She was lament … Continue Reading

Martín Espada graciously agreed to be interviewed by GCC student and Plum intern Tommy Nielsen. The interview took place on March 21, 2025, in Shelburne Falls, MA. Below is a transcript of that interview, which has been lightly edited. TN: I read that … Continue Reading

 “How long are you back for?” It was a question I would be asked a million and one times. “Are you home for good?” was only asked about half a million. “No,” I would tell them. “I’m only home for about two weeks. I go back at the end of the month.” The … Continue Reading

A newsletter came in the mail in the fall of 1993. On the front page of these stapled mimeographed pages, there was a photo of a boy in a wheelchair with a trophy from Challenger Baseball, Little League’s program for kids with disabilities. Ten-year-ol … Continue Reading

A few weeks ago, I sat in the Fresh Side in Amherst, ruminating over the tea choices. Local author and professor of creative writing at Bard College, Jedediah Berry, was meeting me there to talk about writing and his very successful novel The Manual of … Continue Reading

Susan Stinson is the Writer in Residence at Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the author of Belly Songs, Fat Girl Dances with Rocks, Venus of Chalk, and Martha Moody. Her upcoming book, Spider in a Tree (Small Beer Press, Oct 2013), is … Continue Reading

Once she lived in Arizona and she got an award, so her mother sent her an azalea. It was pink                   and pretty, so out of place in the apartment of nubby beige and ochre chair covers,                   cigarette smoke, monsoon grit. All her … Continue Reading

I always suspected Maggie was a witch. Even when she said she’d been in the novitiate – Franciscans, perhaps? – my belief persisted. There was awareness in her touch. The objects of daily life seemed more significant: a ceramic bowl revealed its earthe … Continue Reading

“Well, your brother’s gone off the deep end…” my mother sighed, with an undercurrent of anxious resignation. She had called me from a random hotel in New Jersey, not the kind of place she would ordinarily hang out, but extraordinary circumstances cal … Continue Reading

My father, a career IBM man, was one of myriad late-1960’s NASA-related personnel contracted in the effort to beat the Russians to the moon, and a few months in “I Dream Of Jeannie”-era Cocoa Beach was just part of the drill. It remains amazing to me h … Continue Reading