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By STEVE PFARRER

Madison Cunningham, who comes to Northampton’s Academy of Music April 19, won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album, for her 2022 release, “Revealer.”In fact, Cunningham, who grew up in southern California and still lives there, also has won...

By STEVE PFARRER

Not so long ago, there was a general lament sometimes heard among Valley musicians: “There aren’t enough places to play around here.”That might have been true for professional players who wanted to be paid — and maybe, despite the opening of new local...

By STEVE PFARRER

When Peter Sokolowski started work as an editor at Merriam-Webster 30 years ago, about 80 people worked at the venerable dictionary company in Springfield, including about 45 editors.But based on how quiet the offices were, it might have seemed the...

By STEVE PFARRER

Since 1987, the WriteAngles Conference had been an annual fixture in the Valley, typically held at one of the local colleges, bringing together area writers, poets, editors, publishers, and booksellers to examine all things literary.Then COVID-19...

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

A bit over 10 years ago, Ilan Stavans, the longtime Amherst College professor and writer, made his first venture into the business world: starting a publishing company dedicated to international writing.Restless Books, whose tagline is “an...

By STEVE PFARRER

When the World Didn’t EndBy Guinevere TurnerCrown Reading Guinevere Turner’s affecting coming-of-age memoir, “When the World Didn’t End,” you’re left with one thought in particular: How did this woman endure years of emotional and psychological trauma...

By STEVE PFARRER

Here She ComesJake ManziTwo years ago, Valley singer-songwriter Jake Manzi released his debut album, “Whatever My Heart Allows,” a mostly pop-flavored record that explored the classic subject of love in all its complexities, especially the uncertain...

By STEVE PFARRER

When Andrew Leland was diagnosed as a teenager with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative eye disease that gradually causes most of its carriers to go blind, the problem seemed very distant.Sure, he had trouble seeing at night; starlight, in fact,...

By STEVE PFARRER

Valley writers have had a strong run of major awards in recent years, from poet Martín Espada winning a National Book Award in 2021 to novelist Ruth Ozeki claiming Great Britain’s Women’s Prize for Literature last year.Now over a dozen area writers...

By STEVE PFARRER

Years ago, when he signed up to take an online screenwriting class taught at Holyoke Community College, Nathan Graham Davis had no idea he might find himself eventually penning the script for a Hollywood thriller.And Davis, who lives in Easthampton,...

By STEVE PFARRER

He’s been hailed as one of the best songwriters around, a troubadour of small-town America and the hardscrabble lives of its citizens.But James McMurtry has always taken a low-key approach to his music, and he did it again last week when he played a...

By STEVE PFARRER

It’s mostly a lesser-known footnote to his career: From 1983 to 1986, James Baldwin was based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he was part of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and taught students from across the...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — The three Amherst High graduates who have had a hand in two Academy Award-nominated documentary films are not the only former students to shine at this year’s Oscars.Sam Bromell, a 2004 ARHS graduate, is one of the screenplay writers for...

By STEVE PFARRER

AMHERST — Tibetan activist and writer Tenzin Tsundue, who’s been arrested and jailed multiple times for his activism, is coming to the Valley for a series of talks and to introduce his newest collection of poetry.Tsundue was born in 1975 in India to...

By STEVE PFARRER

The idea first came to Elijah Bynum about four years ago when he was exercising in a California gym and noticed an ultra-serious bodybuilder, a guy who was “radiating intensity” as he went through his paces.“There was this really intense energy about...

By STEVE PFARRER

February has its national landmarks: Presidents Day, the Super Bowl, Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day.In the Valley, February also means it’s time for Amherst College’s LitFest.Now in its eighth year, the college’s literary festival brings acclaimed and...

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...