J.J. Starr-McClain is a fifth-generation Chicagoan whose ’90s childhood was split between city and suburb, father and mother, steel and sky. In life and in her poetry, she still tends […]
Books & Poetry
SPIRALS
A Poet’s Prose
Lindsay Miles is using her FAWC fellowship to write outside her comfort zone
Lindsay Miles, one of this winter’s Fine Arts Work Center fellows, doesn’t feel comfortable calling herself a writer. “I think I’ll be 80 and I’ll still be unsure of the […]
TRAGIC LITTLE SOBS
The Internal Contradictions of Avigayl Sharp
A FAWC fiction fellow navigates between the real and the absurd
A wave of doubt rolls through fiction writer Avigayl Sharp moments before she meets the page. “Writing is scary for me because I go in with absolutely nothing,” she says. […]
BOOKS
Robert Jay Lifton: Connoisseur of Hope
In his 13th book, the celebrated psychiatrist forges meaning from catastrophe
Karl Marx famously said, “The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it.” But what if interpreting the world is precisely […]
POETRY
After This
When I die You shall set me free For I would like to be clover. Deep-rooted clover with a few lucky leaves And small white flowers That pop up overnight […]
POETRY
A Stranding
Before Dürer, dragons existed; after him, they did not. —Philip Hoare Two mola mola washed ashore last night during a full […]
POETRY
Cape Strata
How many people pass this place … every day and never see it! Once it is seen, painted, and put into a frame everyone will come to look at it. […]
BOOKS
Nick Flynn Searches for Lost Time
In Low, penetrating lyrics explore avenues of collaboration
Nick Flynn’s Low, his sixth volume of poems, is perfectly tuned to winter’s meditative months. Published in November by Graywolf Press, the collection consists of poems of varying lengths that […]
REMINISCENCE
Seeing Past the New Sidewalk
Our Writers Group recreates the old Provincetown every Tuesday
PROVINCETOWN — Dogs named Riches and Poverty. Ice houses. The time the harbor almost froze over. Kids sliding at night in midwinter. Dune skiing with cheap skis. Fires on the […]
POETRY
Muscle Memory
Neil Silberblatt lives in Dennis Port and is the founder and director of Voices of Poetry. His most recent collection, Past Imperfect, was nominated for the Mass. Book Award in […]
POETRY
The Lost Dunes
A cardiologist bought a house perched atop a dune precariously located — he paid cash. A few years later the house toppled in a storm. The cottage colony on Ocean Drive […]
BOOKS
In Day, Michael Cunningham Tells a Family Drama in Three Parts
The novel, set in part during the pandemic, never names the pandemic
The rule of thirds is a compositional principle in photography: an image is divided into three equal parts to achieve maximum aesthetic tension. For the writer Michael Cunningham, the rule […]
POETRY
For My Girlfriend Sleeping In
The earliest sunrises of the year come in mid-June. Right before Father’s Day, right before schools let out, and turn the quiet Cape upside down with tourists. On these early […]
IN TRUTH
Linda Coombs Wants Young Readers to Know the Past
The Wampanoag author’s new children’s book aims to bust myths about colonization
“Some people think we all disappeared,” says Linda Coombs, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah who for nearly 50 years has been a historian and museum curator specializing […]
POETRY
Barn Swallow Math
A mini murmur of more than fifty zig zags above. Pulsing, pendulously swinging as wide as their instincts allowed. Bombardier wings and double knife-point tails. Black silhouettes against the pink […]
