On March 2, 2020, Jacob Strautmann (Poetry Fellow '18) launches his poetry collection The Land of the Dead Is Open for Business (Four Ways Books) at the Blacksmith House Poetry Series. In this audio clip, Strautmann reads his poem For as Long as it Lasts (and it will Last if Money can be Made). He also discusses the poem's origin as well as his upbringing "in the shadow of … [Read more...]
Interviews
Lisa Gruenberg: My City of Dreams
In the early 2000s, a family crisis set physician Lisa Gruenberg on the unexpected path to being a writer. In 2012, she received a Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction and in 2019, she published her memoir My City of Dreams. We asked her about the trajectory of that book, her journey as a writer, and other surprising turns in her life and … [Read more...]
Sari Boren: Exhibiting
Sari Boren (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Finalist '14) writes prose and plays and is an independent museum exhibit developer. She's about to perform her one-woman show Exhibiting at the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education in Lincroft, NJ (Monday, December 2nd, 7 PM), having premiered it at the Newton Theatre Company in April 2019. Here, she discusses … [Read more...]
The ART of Taking Risks
On Mass Cultural Council's podcast, Creative Minds Out Loud, American Repertory Theater's Diane Paulus and Diane Borger share how they think about risk, and what it means to have "high tolerance for disequilibrium" that permeates the entire culture of an organization. "We don't sit in a room in our meetings... and talk about the risk," says American Repertory Theater Terrie … [Read more...]
Daniela Petrova on Her Debut Novel Her Daughter’s Mother
In 2012, Daniela Petrova received an Artist Fellowship in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction. This month, she's publishing her debut novel, Her Daughter's Mother. The novel, which has already been featured in Publisher's Weekly and O: the Oprah Magazine, explores the complicated connection between a woman and her IVF egg donor. We asked the author about the process of writing the … [Read more...]