Among the distinguished contributors to Our Provincetown: Intimate Portraits, a book of painted Polaroids by Barbara E. Cohen published last month by Provincetown Arts Press and edited by Dorie Seavey, […]
Books & Poetry
PURSUITS
During Covid, Michael Hartwig Turns to Writing Gay Romance Novels
It’s just another creative outlet for the Provincetown painter and professor of sexual ethics
Michael Hartwig is not one to let Covid cramp his style. During the pandemic, he and his partner, Steve Ridini, who split their time between Boston and Provincetown, chose to […]
NEW COMPANY AT FAWC
Fine Arts Work Center Welcomes Its 2021-2022 Fellows
20 visual artists and writers take up residence in Provincetown
Nineteen writing and visual arts fellows arrived last month at the Fine Arts Work Center for seven-month residencies in Provincetown. One more fellow, Ellen Akimoto, is in Germany dealing with […]
MEMOIR
Alexandra Marshall Puts Silence Into Words
A suicide and its aftermath
Alexandra Marshall was just 26 when her husband, Tim Buxton, normally joyous and enthusiastic in the face of challenges, committed suicide. It was 1970 and the couple was in Ghana […]
BOOK REVIEW
Women Who Rocked the Boat
Siân Evans tells stories from above and below deck
In Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them, Siân Evans provides a lively account of the experiences of female workers and travelers aboard […]
THE STORYTELLERS
Poet in Residence
The writer’s fantasy: that words can have an enormous effect
One spring morning, my wife, Valerie, found a column in the San Francisco paper about Weed, Calif., which was getting ready to capitalize on its merchantable name. I e-mailed my […]
WRITERS
Francine Prose Reads Your Amazon Reviews
Her new novel, The Vixen, is a comedy about the Rosenbergs
Simon Putnam, the young protagonist of Francine Prose’s newest novel, The Vixen, is still figuring out who he is. Fresh out of Harvard, having studied folklore and mythology, he has […]
BOOK REVIEW
Meg Lowman’s View From the Treetops
Her newest memoir reflects on adventures in advocacy and science
By now, American field biologist Meg Lowman deserves to be a household name. In the 1980s, Lowman — sometimes known as “Canopy Meg” — pioneered the use of spelunking equipment […]
CHANGING HANDS
Buyer Is Found for Provincetown Bookshop
Barbara Clarke hopes to open in a new location in summer 2022
It didn’t take Barbara Clarke long to decide she wanted to buy the Provincetown Bookshop. The store has been a beloved fixture in the lives of Clarke and her two […]
TIME AND THE TOWN
David Dunlap Is Endlessly Building Provincetown
A reissue of his 2015 book highlights a feast of local color
David W. Dunlap’s Building Provincetown is an ongoing project with a worthy aim: to create a comprehensive history of the town — that is, its residents, year-round and part-time, and […]
BOOK REVIEW
Christina Conklin and Marina Psaros Look to the Future
In confronting the climate crisis, they write, ‘all our actions matter’
For nearly an entire week earlier this month, the global climate crisis managed to grab hold of headlines. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its […]
BOOK REVIEW
Martha Minow’s Warning on the Future of a Free Press
Digital gerrymandering, she argues, drives the internet newsscape
Forty-five percent of U.S. newsroom jobs evaporated between 2008 and 2017. In 2016, less than a third of people in one survey trusted mass media. The doomsday facts about the […]
BOOK REVIEW
William di Canzio’s Alec Meets E.M. Forster’s Maurice
New novel reimagines a queer classic
The Englishman E.M. Forster (1879-1970) wrote six novels and published five of these between 1905 and 1924. Best known and loved are A Room With a View, Howards End, and […]
COMING UP FOR AIR
Slowly, Outer Cape Libraries Begin to Reopen
The ‘lemonade of Covid’: more remote services and collaboration
The orders from town officials came down suddenly and in quick succession: on March 13, 2020 for Provincetown, on March 14 for Eastham, on March 16 for Wellfleet, and on […]
BOOK REVIEW
Re-evaluating the Guilt of Ethel Rosenberg
Anne Sebba’s biography of an infamous woman
The American press largely supported Judge Irving Kaufman’s decision at the height of the Red Scare to sentence Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death. In March 1951, a jury found […]
