I recently saw an exhibit on the second floor of the Provincetown library: a case alongside the Rose Dorothea containing a whaling harpoon and line, a few images, and a […]
Books & Poetry
WRITERS
Stories of Tradition and Modernity
Gothataone Moeng explores the tensions between the past and the present
It’s an exciting time for Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow Gothataone Moeng. Her first book, a collection of short stories set in her home country, was published earlier this […]
BOOKS
Barbara Bosworth Keeps an Eye on The Sea
Finding beauty reflected in texts and objects
One of Barbara Bosworth’s most prized possessions is a collection of bird eggs she inherited from her great-grandfather, who collected them in the wild, blew out their interiors, and saved […]
BOOKS
A Voyage Through the Ildarwood
A Provincetown writer creates a fantasy world for young adult readers
J.R.R. Tolkien grew up reading mythology and folk tales, which had a profound effect on the books he wrote as an adult. Fantasy author Neil Gaiman has cited Michael Moorcock’s […]
WRITERS
Hannah Perrin King Captures the Mundane and the Majestic
A poet finds inspiration in things that are ‘constantly coming undone at the seams’
Hannah Perrin King entered college with a foolproof plan: complete pre-med coursework, major in English, and become a doctor who writes prose in her spare time. But thanks to a […]
BOOKS
Our ‘Yacking’ Democratic Genius
In a new memoir, Robert Pinsky explains what made him a poet — and what makes America poetic
“One way or another, people have more poetry in them than you might think,” insists Robert Pinsky. In 2000, this conviction prompted Pinsky, then the United States Poet Laureate, to […]
WRITERS
Writing That Shows Us Who We Really Are
A ‘stubborn fan’ of the short story explores complicated and difficult inner lives
Writer and current Fine Arts Work Center fellow Willie Fitzgerald calls himself a “stubborn fan” of the short story. “Dedicated short story writers and readers tend to be fewer in […]
BOOKS
Angling for Social Change
Stephen Duncombe on how fishing can inspire the work of making the world a better place
When Stephen Duncombe started walking to the ponds and jetties of Cape Cod a few years ago, he didn’t plan on doing anything besides starting the long project of teaching […]
LINE BREAK
Learning From Lichens
Susie Nielsen explores intuition and influence via a poem by Jane Hirshfield
In our thing-filled culture, our super-documented lives, what happens in the liminal spaces? What happens in those nothing-moments as we leave one place (either physically or mentally) and move toward […]
QUEER ‘I’
Mapp and Lucia and Me
From coastal England to the shores of Provincetown, some things never change
At first glance, it’s a postcard-perfect seaside town, brimming with music, theater, and art. Look closer, though, and you’ll see that beneath the quaint village veneer lies a hotbed of […]
BOOKS
More ‘Less’ May Be Just What We Need Right Now
The sequel to Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is winter comfort reading
Escapism is a form of self-care, and self-care is a high priority right now for Provincetown residents facing months of winter. Good reads — like batteries, chocolate, moisturizer, and canned […]
LINE BREAK
Wind-Scoured and Gleaming
Marge Piercy’s instructions for living
Last month’s pre-Christmas storm is one we’ll be remembering for years. The damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure is heartbreaking and terrifying. Wildlife, too, took a beating, with many sea […]
BOOKS
Samuel Adams, Fake News, and the Founding of America
In a new biography, Stacy Schiff recovers the ‘Machiavelli of chaos’ who made the revolution
In their affectionate geriatric correspondence, old political rivals Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed that it was “difficult to say at what moment the revolution began.” Was it in 1765, […]
BOOKS
‘The Passenger’ Misses the Plot
Cormac McCarthy’s first novel in 16 years is ‘portentous’ — and pretentious
Cormac McCarthy’s novels like Blood Meridian, his 1985 story about twisted characters annihilating one another in a mythic American West, reveal a smart, dark view of humanity. Now 89, McCarthy […]
BOOKS
Going Out in Search of Identity
Jeremy Atherton Lin’s memoir looks back at the gay bars that made him who he is
Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Gay Bar: Why We Went Out is a memoir of a booze- and sex-soaked search for identity. Despite the subtitle, it’s really about why he went out: […]
