Blog

The Legacy of Jules Chametzky

October 28, 2022 - By Jim Hicks

In this full-day event, the morning session focused on collective commemoration of the life of Jules Chametzky--the teacher, mentor, scholar, family man, and activist. The proceedings open with a poem written for the occasion, read by its author, Martín Espada. Memories from family members follow, and then those of friends. The morning concludes with a talk on "Black Reparations, Present and Future," by William A. Darity--a subject that Jules spoke about often.

...

More than Märzen: Limericks on German Beers

October 26, 2022 - By Marsha Bryant

O Germany, thank you for beer
That we relish this time of the year.
A Sober October?
My dears, that’s a Noper
With so many brews to revere!

Oktoberfest Märzens are fine,
As are Festbiers if you’re so inclined.
Yet there’s more than these styles
For us Germanophiles—
And for you I have sampled these kinds.

1
Foam-headed, light-bodied, and dark
Is this Erdinger Dunkel. Remark-
ably crushable brew
For the chocolate brown hue,
A sweet finish and wheat give it spark.

2
This Weihenstephaner, an amber
And hazy Hefeweissbier—enjamber
Of banana smooth
And a cidery groove!
It’s delightfully Dunkel, a...

10 Questions for J Brooke

October 25, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

I will try to put this in perspective in the coming weeks. Heading down to Ocean Road Beach just after sunrise, standing at the water's edge, looking toward the horizon for signs of calm and peace, I'll interpret an overhead blue heron as postive harbinger, a far-off tanker as portent of stability.
—from "Tanker," Volume 63, Issue 3 (Fall 2022)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The undergraduate college I attended didn’t have a creative writing major at the time, so my first piece was a novella created during a yearlong independent study with a professor at the neighboring college in satisfaction of my senior thesis. Loosely based on my father, the story was about a man who...

Roe: Telling the Tale

October 21, 2022 - By Joyce Avrech Berkman

A PDF of Roe: Telling the Tale is available here.

Available from Amazon, Kobo, and Weightless Books.

(All profits from sales will be donated to the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts)

Roe:Telling the Tale

October 20, 2022 - By Joyce Avrech Berkman

BEFORE MY HUSBAND, Len Berkman, and I married in September 1962, we spent the summer of that year in my hometown, San Jose, California. While working as a reporter for the Milpitas Post on the outskirts of San Jose, Lenny met Patricia Theresa “Pat” Maginnis. Pat offered night classes in English to poor and exploited Mexican farm workers, but she had another and related focus for her energies as well. In 1961, as a San Francisco medical technician, she founded the Society for Humane Abortion in California (SHA), the first organized movement in the United States to call for the repeal of all laws banning abortion. Previous resistance movements, grounded in the concept of therapeutic abortion, proposed to reform those laws by setting up medical review committees to review...