I write about [extra]ordinary people, culture, community, rural life, agriculture, art and the environment.
The Valedictorian
John’s family has been an intrinsic part of the community--his father is a 10th-generation dairy farmer. He feels as if he could knock on anyone’s door, anytime of the day or night, if he needed help.
However, for most of his life, he’s also felt at odds with his own body. What he knows, but doesn’t say, is that there are certain things for which he can’t ask anyone for help.
At least not yet.
In the Northeast Kingdom, Lavender Essentials of Vermont Grows an Agribusiness
Driving up Herrick Hill less than a mile from the U.S.-Canada border, motorists pass telltale signs of the ways Vermonters have long made a living from the land. On one side, a network of plastic tubing weaves through a grove of maples. Ahead are a broad cornfield, two silos and a big dairy barn. At the top of the hill, a far more recent land-based endeavor is under way-- a project that combines the agriculture and tourism industries--a 50-acre farm and event site called Lavender Essentials.
About a bear: The story behind the story of “The Loneliest Polar Bear”
The Loneliest Polar Bear” wasn’t just a heart-tugging news story. It was a suspenseful, multi-thousand word saga about an abandoned newborn polar bear. It was rationed into five chapters that were published in the print paper and online. It was graced with the kind of cute-animal photos and video that are guaranteed to go viral.
But there’s more.
Probing dark corners and dark souls
The Trials of Whiteboy Rick.” “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.” “Conversations with a Killer: the Ted Bundy Tapes.” Nonfiction about evil and crime is thriving.
Reporters at the 2019 Boston University Power of Narrative Conference discuss how they navigate the line between portraying the authentic, non-stereotyped lives of pedophiles, hitmen and hate-mongers without “over-humanizing” them.
Ned Dallas: From Slave to Stowe, One Man’s Journey Toward a Future of Freedom
The story of Ned Dallas’ journey, from an enslaved child to a free citizen, comes from a
tiny stack of census documents, a book about Stowe’s founding, and a recollection
written by a woman whose father employed him. Taken together with other historical
accounts, they reveal the risks and rewards of Ned’s journey from Virginia to Vermont
as part of the greatest refugee crisis in America, culminating in the Great Migration.
Search-and-Rescue Dogs Earn Their Play
When Avery Schneider and her 21-month-old American Labrador retriever, Birdy, go to work, they often head for a big pile of rubble deep inside the Vermont National Guard's Camp Johnson base in Colchester. The pile looks as if a medium-size box store exploded or a parking garage collapsed: Think smashed cars, broken concrete walls, storage containers stacked like shoeboxes. Created for Vigilant Guard — the 10-day emergency-response exercise held in July 2016 — the chaos was carefully engineere...
A 'Very Impressive Rock' | Madison Boulder - New England Today
A 'Very Impressive Rock' | Madison Boulder - New En...
A Time to Bloom
It’s a soft night in early May.
Outside Riverside Middle School in Springfield, Vermont, clouds are blotting the full moon’s light; the air smells pungent, a mix of river water and new grass; the football field is still tender, spongy underfoot.
Inside, the daughters and sons of Springfield are almost ready: In the girls’ locker room 20 young women are adjusting their straps, slicking on lip gloss, and tucking loose tendrils of hair; in the boys’ locker room, their escorts are hitching up socks, smoothing their jackets, and balancing the wings of their ties.
New Hampshire Seacoast | A Short Coast with a Long Story - New ...
New Hampshire Seacoast | A Short Coast with a Long ...
Rock Solid Canvas: Don Ross
Don Ross’s photographs are
made at daybreak, between five and eight o’clock, depending on the season. Last May, during an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Ross got up at 3:30 each morning to drive an hour to Barre. With his camera, three lenses, a tripod, and a cable release crammed into a pack, Ross clambered up the
scruffy trail leading to the quarry and scouted places to station his camera. Standing in the dimness, he studied the sheer walls of the streaked granite reflected in the total stillness of the pool beneath.