Artists Simone John (Poetry Fellow '20) (aka Simone Ivory) and flowerthief (one half of the music duo Optic Bloom) collaborated to create the audio poetry project, Auntie's Baby. Auntie's Baby draws on the artists' multidisciplinary background, using family phone calls, poetry, music, and sound to "open a portal into Black storytelling." Recently, Simone and flowerthief … [Read more...]
Interviews
Heather Kamins, Author of The Moth Girl
On March 8, 2022, 7 PM ET, Heather Kamins (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '16) has a virtual book launch event for her young adult novel The Moth Girl (G.P. Putnam's Sons Books 2022), hosted by Odyssey Books in South Hadley. We asked the Western Massachusetts author about the origins of her new novel, the twists and turns of writing it, and her inventive work as a literary … [Read more...]
Miki Sawada: Gather Hear
Miki Sawada is a classically-trained pianist. Since 2017, she's been traveling with a piano, in a van, to community spaces throughout the country, to perform classical music for free. Called the Gather Hear Tour, Miki's project has traveled from Alaska to West Virginia to an upcoming tour in Massachusetts. We asked Miki about the tour, her work, and her life as an artist … [Read more...]
Sara Hendren: Who Is the World Designed For?
This summer marked the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a turning point in the history of disability rights. During her years of writing, art, design, and research, Sara Hendren (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '18) has found the field of disability studies a rich and deep world to explore. "And in the course of all of those years of both writing … [Read more...]
Simone John: Poetic Inheritance
Even before the pandemic, Simone John's (Poetry Fellow '20) creative practice was headed in a direction that would serve her well during months of isolation and uncertainty. Since the 2016 election, she had been considering how her ancestors navigated times of turmoil. "Understanding that this is not the first crisis my community has had. And that we survived, because I'm … [Read more...]