Browse Topics

Appetites

A forbidden treat, a secret stash, a sexual obsession

Sunbeams

The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.

Lin Yutang

Shelter

Wilbur hadn’t ended up at the shelter because he’d drunk himself there, or squandered his money, or been caught cheating on a disability claim. No, Wilbur had ended up at Bartlett House because he’d never married or had children, and kin was how a man like Wilbur made it through the final years of his life.

The Refrigerator

A mustard-colored declaration of love, holy pink boxes of leftover delicacies, long-necked brown beer bottles

Cash

A birthday cake, a plastic bag marked “liver,” a lovely one-room cement house

Sisterhood

Sister Louise Akers Challenges The Church Patriarchy

The writings of the Church fathers take a misogynistic view of women. Saint Jerome, for example, said that women are a “pathway to hell,” and Saint Augustine viewed women as intellectually inferior and as a moral threat to men. This view of women was consistent through the Middle Ages, when Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica that women are “misbegotten males.”

How It Would Come

When the doorbell rang, Alice put down her pencil and took another drag on her cigarette. It was nearly noon; the entire morning had somehow gotten away from her. Peering out through the yellowed blinds, she saw a Pittsfield police cruiser parked at the curb.

Acts Of Kindness

An envelope with hand-drawn flowers, a heavy wool coat and scarf, a vintage Chevrolet Monte Carlo

Granny

Every morning Granny came to the Center for coffee. She used her wheelchair like a walker, standing behind it and pushing it through Civic Center Plaza and uphill toward the Center, the dog in the seat, stuffed plastic bags bouncing against the chair’s worn wheels. Seeing me, Granny would stop, shake her head, and let out a long breath as if to say, Isn’t this something?