Cookie Mueller and her friends were cold. They were in Provincetown, it was the winter of 1970, and Mueller, who is best known for acting in John Waters’s films, and […]
Books & Poetry
POLITICAL TALK
How the Republican Party Went Crazy
David Corn of Mother Jones magazine previews his diagnosis of an ‘American psychosis’
The award-winning journalist, author, and MSNBC contributor David Corn pulls no punches. In a recent column, the Mother Jones Washington bureau chief writes that we are living “in a world […]
BOOK REVIEW
American Racism’s Musical Score
Emily Bingham dismantles her Old Kentucky Home
Federal Hill, a restored antebellum plantation house in Bardstown, Ky. better known as the Old Kentucky Home, opened its doors to statewide fanfare and a throng of visitors on July […]
LINE BREAK
A Poem That Loosely Follows Summer’s Brush
In Kimiko Hahn’s Wellfleet sojourn, a jumble of memories, worries, and relationships
Summer unfurls to reveal the Cape Cod most people imagine: sandy, sticky, hedonistic, salty. There’s a looseness to the air. Right now, the lush chestnut tree outside the window is […]
BOOK REVIEW
Where the Seeds of Self-Doubt Are Sown
Matthew Clark Davison explores the mysteries of brotherhood and deficiencies of tolerance
Matthew Clark Davison has a reputation among Bay Area writers as one of those teachers you never forget — insightful, funny, immune to excuses, and with an uncanny talent to […]
POETRY
Finding Freedom Through the Power of the Page
Poet, playwright, memoirist, and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts knows text is transformative
Reginald Dwayne Betts was a reader growing up, devouring Sherlock Holmes mysteries and scouring encyclopedias for basketball stats. But he didn’t give much thought to writers. “I thought books were […]
THE BUZZ
Scratching an Itch to Tell Stories
Mosquito slam’s audience keeps coming back to see ‘empathy on the stage’
The audience hummed with anticipation on Tuesday night last week at Provincetown’s WOMR Davis Space. They were waiting for Vanessa Vartabedian, the creator of the Mosquito, to take the stage. […]
PLANTS WITH PROMISE
Peter Del Tredici Looks to the Flora of the Future
‘It’s a myth that we can restore what used to exist,’ says the botanist
TRURO — As the climate changes and ecosystems evolve, plant species are adapting to the conditions of their environments. “There is real information here that we need to pay attention […]
LINE BREAK
Mad Libs Poetry: To Spring on Cape Cod
Jessica Smart brings Mary Oliver home with peepers, lilacs, and whales
Mary Oliver’s voice, vision, and words are beloved around the world and uniquely tied to Provincetown, where she lived for many decades. Her poems have introduced countless readers to ponds, […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Place of Quiet Beauty Reveals Its Lively Past
Sharon Dunn combines poetry and history in writing about Bound Brook Island
In the same week that we came to live in a cottage halfway between Lombard and Paradise hollows, on the Wellfleet-Truro line, Christopher and I took a walk on Bound […]
WRITING LIFE
Frank X. Gaspar Returns to the Space of His Imagination
The Provincetown-born writer is here for this year’s Portuguese Festival
“There’s all this beauty around you,” Frank X. Gaspar says of the Provincetown he grew up in in the 1950s and ’60s. “Not a gentle beauty but a rugged beauty.” […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Clear-Eyed History of a Collective Bacchanal
Ike Williams navigates The Shores of Bohemia
The history of the Outer Cape is notable. This narrow strip of sand has hosted wave after wave of wanderers and settlers who, since the “first encounter” with the Nauset […]
BOOK REVIEW
A Painter and Minister Embraces New Colors
In her memoir, the Rev. Anne Ierardi explores faith, her upbringing, and her sexual identity
In her memoir, Anne Ierardi chooses to paint in contrasting colors, literally and figuratively. “If you’re just Catholic, and you never walk into a Protestant church and have a conversation, […]
BOOK REVIEW
Refusing to Go Gentle Into The Kingdom of Sand
Andrew Holleran’s new novel is a latter-day queer classic
In his new novel, Andrew Holleran writes, in a scene set at a North Florida Thanksgiving dinner attended by older gay men, “There is a delicate undercurrent beneath get-togethers among […]
LINE BREAK
Rereading History in Poetry
John Bonanni explores the truth of ‘Patient O’
When I was a kid, history class bored me. It was all dusty, musty dates, laws, and names. I have a hunch I’d have been more interested if I’d been […]
