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By STEVE PFARRER

About six years ago, in the midst of some of the worst violence in Syria’s long-running civil war, Harriet Diamond was contemplating a couple of different projects. On one hand, the sculptor and installation artist was horrified to hear about the...

By STEVE PFARRER

In a long career that’s seen him win a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a boatload of praise, Williamsburg writer Tracy Kidder has tackled a number of different subjects: the computer revolution, elementary schools, civil war refugees, the...

By STEVE PFARRER

Illustrator and children’s book author Christian Robinson calls his website “The Art of Fun,” and it seems an appropriate title. Robinson’s colorful and whimsical art — a mix of detailed collage, acrylic paint and colored pencil — transmits the sense...

By STEVE PFARRER

Dianne and Kevin Germain say they’ve long been avid readers, book lovers who enjoy discussing the ideas and themes advanced by a variety of writers from different fields.In 2019, the Germains decided to take their literary interests a little further:...

By STEVE PFARRER

Waco Rising: David Koresh, The FBI, and the Birth of America’s Modern Militiasby Kevin CookHenry Holt and Co.The images and the story, almost 30 years old, can still shock: a building compound on a Texas plain engulfed in flames following an FBI raid;...

By STEVE PFARRER

Time was when Rachel Portesi did much of her photography using Polaroid film. She loved the immediacy of the image, the way each photo was different and often didn’t quite match what her eye had seen, and what she calls “the feeling of Christmas when...

By STEVE PFARRER

As John Montanari sees it, the classical music field these days is awash with talent, full of artists who “are so smart, flexible and just damned good that they can pull off virtually anything,” as he noted in a recent email.Montanari, the artistic...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s been almost three years since Amherst Community Theater has presented its annual musical at Bowker Auditorium at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, given a little problem called COVID-19 that prevented the group from returning to UMass in...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — After almost 15 years leading the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Executive Director Alexandra Kennedy plans to step down from her post this year.But Kennedy, known at the Carle as Alix, says she hopes to stay engaged with the museum...

By STEVE PFARRER

In late 2020, Valley music fans were disheartened to hear that Gateway City Arts, the multi-arts venue in Holyoke, was shutting it doors because of lost business during the first year of the pandemic.But the outlook brightened in April 2021, when...

By STEVE PFARRER

Robert Harris is the author of a slew of bestselling thrillers and historical novels, covering ancient Rome, World War II, contemporary politics and more. According to one count, he’s sold over 10 million copies of his books, a number of which have...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — The Emily Dickinson Museum, in the midst of a major fundraising campaign to expand its resources and reach, has received a major new donation to help realize that goal: $2.5 million.Jane and Robert Keiter, of Lakeville, Connecticut, have...

By STEVE PFARRER

As Marianne Xenos sees it, you’re never too old to find new ways to be creative.Xenos, of Amherst, is a longtime visual artist who also received a degree in literature years ago and wrote poetry and short literary fiction for a time. But that writing...

By STEVE PFARRER

Revisiting the pastAMHERST — The monthly Song & Story Swap, sponsored by the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society of western Massachusetts, will feature storyteller and historical re-enactor Dennis Picard in a hybrid event Jan. 7 at 7 p.m.The in-person...

By STEVE PFARRER

SPRINGFIELD — Last month, when he stepped down from WRSI 93.9 The River after nearly 17 years hosting a morning show at the station, Christopher “Monte” Belmonte said he was not stepping away from radio. But the popular radio personality wasn’t ready...

By STEVE PFARRER

As Christa Whitney sees it, chance has played a big part in her life. But so has her love of history and literature. Whitney is the director of the Wexler Oral History Project at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, a program that has recorded...

By STEVE PFARRER

It might seem that every conceivable angle of studying Emily Dickinson has been covered, and in just about every format: biographies, academic studies, poetry analysis, novels, movies, even TV shows.Yet the famed Amherst poet always seems to inspire a...

By STEVE PFARRER

NORTHAMPTON — In 2012, Signature Sounds, the acoustic music record label, set up shop in Northampton after Jim Olsen, the label’s president, had largely run the business from the basement of his home in Whately for 17 years.Taking over a former...

By STEVE PFARRER

Back in 1982, when he first started leading a singing group of elderly residents in the Walter Salvo House in Northampton, Bob Cilman wasn’t sure if this new venture was going to fly.“I couldn’t imagine it lasting more than two weeks,” he says with a...

By STEVE PFARRER

Almost a century after she was born, Sylvia Plath is still winning admirers.The famous poet and Smith College graduate, who took her life in 1963 and was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize, has been the subject of a huge number of books and...