Just before Carmen Maria Machado left for graduate school, she came down with swine flu. The year was 2009: Barack Obama had just started his first term as president, Bitcoin […]
Books & Poetry
FILM HISTORY
Censored, But Still Queer
In Sick and Dirty, Michael Koresky argues for a second look at Code-era movies
“Golden ages” are rarely golden for everyone, especially in film history. The era referred to as “classic Hollywood” roughly coincided with the Production Code, a set of guidelines developed by […]
RETREAT
Claiming the Right to Grieve
Geraldine Brooks reflects on her husband’s death in a new memoir
In her new memoir, Memorial Days (Viking, 2025), Geraldine Brooks with matter-of-fact and elegant prose delves into a universal experience that, as a culture, we try our best to push […]
FICTION
Fodder for the Old Ladies Gossip Militia
An excerpt from Hush Little Fire, a new novel set on the Outer Cape
Judith Newcomb Stiles is a potter, teacher, and writer whose family has lived in Wellfleet since the days of the Pilgrims. In her new novel, Hush Little Fire, published by […]
HISTORICAL FICTION
Never Quite Free
In The Lilac People, Milo Todd sheds light on the trans experience in Nazi Germany
So many stories, both harrowing and heartwarming, have been told about World War II that it can be hard to imagine what a new novel might add. But as we […]
FICTION
Circus Peanuts
It’s just that I was missing my father. His guilty-yet-triumphant toddler smile when he finished off a brand-new pack of the Circus Peanuts we both loved and were supposed to […]
DREAM STATE
Poetry in Motion
Monique Brunet-Weinmann’s new book, Exil, recounts anxious times and a migration story
As a child, reared close to the Atlantic Ocean in Brittany, the westernmost region of France, Monique Brunet-Weinmann excelled at reciting poetry from memory. “Pretty soon,” she says, “I started […]
BOOKS
Jerome Cohen’s Life in Law
The China scholar, an ‘inveterate optimist,’ holds out hope for human rights
What a life Jerome Cohen has led: Modest New Jersey roots. An education in law at Yale. Clerkships with Supreme Court justices Earl Warren and Felix Frankfurter. Practicing and teaching […]
IN THE MIDS
Demons on the Hour
Sara Martin is a death tourist, a mockumentarian, and a poet
Sara Martin takes a seat in the courtyard at the Fine Arts Work Center and turns her face toward the sun. It’s just past 2 p.m. “Two p.m. is a […]
POETRY
Two Poems by Joe Cunningham
On His Way In minutes Timmy’s mastered his skim board, found the rhythm to toss it in front of his jump, and to land while in motion, as a man […]
ARTIFICE
Kevin Fitchett Is at The Masters
A FAWC fellow returns to Provincetown to write a novel about family, heartbreak, and golf
Five years ago, when Kevin Fitchett was a Fine Arts Work Center fellow for the first time, he mostly worked on poetry. Now he’s back, and fiction has taken the […]
BOOKS
Gaza Has Broken Peter Beinart’s Heart
In a new book, he asks Jews to stop seeing themselves as victims
Peter Beinart, one of the most prominent public intellectuals on the American Jewish left, wrote in July 2020 that he had changed his mind about a “two-state solution” to the […]
GENRE
New Settings and New Beginnings
From historical fiction to a dystopian horror novel
Matthew Wamser revels in the space he’s been given as a Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow. Working in a first-floor apartment with exposed wood timbers, he feels the presence […]
LYRICISM
A Strange Third Thing
The best poems, says Fine Arts Work Center fellow Parker Hobson, have ‘a tender screwballism’
Parker Hobson, a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, is interested in “what’s still present of the past,” he says. Walking in Provincetown, the poet noticed a plaque […]
PARALLEL PLAY
Moving To and Fro
Janice Redman and Elizabeth Bradfield navigate a creative partnership in sculpture and poetry
Janice Redman, a sculptor, and Elizabeth Bradfield, a poet, are neighbors in North Truro who have worked together for the past 15 years. “She sits in this chair and works […]
