Art

Alone, Together: An Armenian Dancer at Home and In Paris
Dance International
“Hello, how are you doing, my beautiful peoples?” 36-year-old Armenian dancer Tsolak MKLE-Galstyan made a habit of saying in his delightfully imperfect English to his fellow artists in Paris.

Historical Reckoning: Two Japanese-Canadians who are dancing their heritage
Dance International
Kunji Mark Ikeda spent the first 20 years of his life, in Vancouver, “trying to be as white as possible,” he says.

Jocelyn Lee’s All Natural Photography
Elysian
Jocelyn Lee didn’t want to throw the flowers from her October wedding in the trash—the ranunculus were too gorgeous for that—so she put them in a tub of water in her backyard, not thinking about the temperature.

Her Many Muses
Barnard
Not long after the Bernie Madoff scandal broke, Alicia Jo Rabins ’98 started a yearlong artist residency on an empty floor of a Wall Street high-rise.

The World’s Greatest Art Fair
Elysian
If you are interested in collecting contemporary art on any level, you have to visit Basel.

Book Reviews

Identity Crisis: A Review of Anne Berest’s The Postcard
Frenchly.us

Mommy Dearest: A Review of Violaine Huisman’s The Book of Mother
Frenchly.us

Dara Horn, The World to Come
San Francisco Chronicle

Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven
San Francisco Chronicle

Reconfiguring the World, Books on Pain
Women’s Review of Books

Food

Digging Up Maine’s Best Recipes (pdf)
Food and Wine
A perfect clear day in Maine usually means fishing boats—a bay full of them.

Soul Survivor (pdf)
Food and Wine
Christel Albritton MacLean didn’t think she’d ordered fried chicken and biscuits on her first visit to Hattie’s, but that is what the waiter brought.

French Matters

French Accent Marks: A Beginner Offers a Primer
Frenchly
For me, an American with a unique lack of talent for learning languages, the five French accent marks (also referred to as the diacritics) can be confusing.

Atelier 11: An École de Paris for the 21st-Century
Frenchly
For 48 hours, during “European Heritage Days,” historical sites across the continent open their doors to the public, which sounds like a whole lot of ho-hum to me. Musty castle? No thanks.

General Interest

Eyeing the Future, Grappling with the Past
Yale Alumni Magazine
In the fall of 2022, Colby College, where I teach fiction writing, held a three-day conference on Václav Havel.

Career Pivots
Yale Alumni Magazine
The pandemic gave us a gift. Well, of sorts. 

If You Gild It, They Will Come
Yankee
It’s late November, and you’re feeling festive.

Strong Body, Long Lives
Ageless Maine
My father had terrible osteoporosis before he died, once breaking ribs simply by turning over in bed.

Writing in a Time of Disaster
The Writer’s Chronicle
Trouble, as we all know, forces a reordering of priorities, in a rather unhappy way. So long, petty concerns! 

Home & Design

Nordic by Northeast (pdf)
Dwell
Brendan Ravenhill likes to describe his summers in Maine as half vacation, half working meditation.

Three’s Company (pdf)
Dwell
The first thing you notice upon arriving at Julie and Scott Pelletier’s house outside Portland, Maine, is what you don’t see:  a front door.

Soulful Solar
Décor Maine
My own bad case of climate grief, the new term for those angst-ing about the fate of the planet, prompted me to action last fall. 

Partners in Design
Maine Home+Design
I had never heard of a Deck House until recently; then, all of a sudden, Deck Houses seemed to be popping up everywhere in my life. 

Harmony Through Contrast (pdf)
Décor Maine
The current ubiquity of Zoom has The Brady Bunch, and its opening grid, very much on people’s minds.

Working the Angel (pdf)
Dwell
When writer Susan Orleans was posting pictures of her new home on Facebook earlier this year, she received rapturous replies of the “Gorgeous!” and “When can I visit?” variety.

Music in the Making
Maine Home+Design
Philanthropist Dan Crewe’s life has been one of enormous highs and lows.

Hidden Potential
New England Home
“Around town, people called it Casa Bacardi.”

Air and Light
Maine Home+Design
As a girl, Anna Breslford McCoy—Anna B. to all who know her—was enchanted with Arthur Rackham’s illustrations for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

Wrestling With Style
Maine Home + Design
If Rob and Annette Elowitch were words, they’d be oxymorons.

Op-Ed

It’s Republicans Turn to Take On Gun Violence
Portland Press Herald

Protecting Calvin Trillin
Huffington Post

Why Do You Have to Be So Accomplished to Get Into College?
The Boston Globe

Travel

Rockland, Maine
Elysian
Here’s a rhyme about midcoast Maine that once made sense.

The Water Runs Even in Winter
New York Times
My first day in Saratoga Springs was characteristically grand: I was led up the stairs of a 55-room mansion and told to make myself at home in a tower studio, complete with a prayer closet and bust of the Madonna.

A Summer in the Swiss Hills
New York Times
Thomas Mann’s directive in “The Magic Mountain” couldn’t be clearer: The heady pleasures of the high mountains are all well and good, but sooner or later, you have to descend to the flat lands and begin your real life.

Sibling Rivalry on the Road
New York Times
I’m not surprised when I start to faint in the Piazzale Michelangelo.