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By STEVE PFARRER

NORTHAMPTON — After a delay caused in part by the pandemic, the city has a new poet laureate.Franny Choi, who was nominated last year for a Massachusetts Book Award, has written for the New York Times and the Atlantic, and been interviewed on NPR, has...

By STEVE PFARRER

KindlingBy Kathleen JenningsSmall Beer Press Kathleen Jennings had already made a name for herself as a talented illustrator of fantasy books when she began writing her own stories some years back — and it turns out she can spin some magical tales of...

By STEVE PFARRER

When Lisa Kron was growing up in southern Michigan, her family would make an annual trek to a noted amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio — Cedar Point — one of the oldest operating amusement parks in the country, known in particular for its 16 different...

By STEVE PFARRER

Early January, just after the holidays and New Year’s Eve have run their course, can be a quiet time for a lot of music venues.But The Parlor Room in Northampton has put together a pretty jam-packed schedule right through this month, starting with a...

By STEVE PFARRER

Artists find inspiration from a number of sources. Sometimes it comes from simply living and studying outside of home.In “A Sense of Place,” a new exhibit that marks the reopening of 33 Hawley, the Northampton Community Arts Trust building, several...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s still close enough to the end of 2023 to slip in one more “best of the year” article. In this case, it’s my list of my favorite films, given there are plenty I missed that have won acclaim. But after two-plus years of COVID-19 mostly kept me...

By STEVE PFARRER

On the U.S.-Mexican border, a desperate mother sends her young daughter alone across a bridge over the Rio Grande to try make it into Texas. In New York City, a Jewish woman confronts the hole in her heart when she thinks of her former Muslim husband,...

By STEVE PFARRER

He’s one of the most famous and beloved children’s book authors ever, and he grew about 20 miles south of here. So the work of Theodor Seuss Geisel — better known, or course, as Dr. Seuss — seemed like a natural fit for the new musical by Amherst...

By STEVE PFARRER

Finding Home: Words From Kids Seeking SanctuaryBy Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner; Clarion Books Headlines inform us every day of the crises many people face around the world — war, climate disasters, violent crime — that force them to flee their homes....

By STEVE PFARRER

Where does art begin? With a general idea or image? Maybe something that’s sketched out quickly in a journal or on a piece of paper?This month at PULP in Holyoke, the Race Street gallery is showcasing just that sort of “behind-the-scenes” look at what...

By STEVE PFARRER

Like father, like son: Tim Buckley and his son, Jeff, both became musicians at a young age, and both died well before their time — Tim of a heroin overdose at age 28 in 1975, and Jeff from drowning at age 30 in 1997.Tim Buckley became a pretty...

By STEVE PFARRER

The conventional story of World War II in the United States is the one about how the country, shrugging off the hardships brought on by the Great Depression, rolled up its sleeves to defeat the fascist forces of Nazi Germany and Japan and make the...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s that time of year again: time to crank out the “best of” lists. In this case, as I’ve done in the last several years, I’ve listed some of my favorite reads for 2023. I love reading these kinds of lists myself to discover a book, movie, or album I...

By STEVE PFARRER

As Steve Sanderson sees it, First Night Northampton is getting its mojo back.The annual New Year’s Eve celebration got shot down two years in a row by COVID-19, first in December 2020 and then again in December 2021 when, just days before the event...

By STEVE PFARRER

People celebrate the holidays in different ways.Lucas Fappiano and Colin Hodgson are doing it by hosting a free screening of movies by area filmmakers, with the goal of bringing people together to recognize some of the Valley’s artistic strength and...

By STEVE PFARRER

Back in 2004, actor Paul Giamatti teamed up with screenwriter/director and Alexander Payne in “Sideways,” an offbeat comedy/drama about two friends who take a road trip through the California wine country as they both grapple with midlife crises of a...

By STEVE PFARRER

Steven LeBlanc made his first foray into mixing drinks and bartending when he was in the Navy, researching a lot on his own, creating classic cocktails and his variations on them and testing them on friends and shipmates, then serving drinks in an...

By STEVE PFARRER

The holidays are nearly upon us and, no surprise, the Valley’s music calendar is chock full of holiday shows over the next week, with some featuring bands playing their versions of seasonal tunes and others focused more on spreading general good...

By STEVE PFARRER

The 1980s were a brutal time in South Africa. Decades of apartheid, the ironbound racial segregation system that relegated a majority Black population to second-class citizenship under white rule, led to increasing Black resistance, followed by severe...

By STEVE PFARRER

Noche Trist: A Memoir of AnorexiaBy Robert RadinIbidem/Columbia University Press A few years ago, Robert Radin, the the director of citizenship and immigration services for Jewish Family Service in Springfield, wrote a memoir about his experience...