Joan Kalus: I am a retired psychotherapist living in Western Mass and Florida who started writing poems at a memorial for a partner seven years ago. Poetry has become my medium: my way of staying connected to myself and the world. I have to write to feel my humanity and compassion for suffering. Read More
PANDEMIC
SHELTER by Carolyn Benson
Carolyn Benson, a member of Straw Dog, lives at Lathrop Community in Easthampton. Moving to Western Massachusetts over 20 years ago, she discovered Pat Schneider and the AWA method, traveled and wrote with Patricia Lee Lewis’s workshops, and met up with Sara Weinberger and Karen Buchinsky to found Voices from Inside. SHELTER I’m sitting on Read More
Pass the Remote by Jonathan Kahane
Jon Kahane lives in Hampshire County and is a retired Psychology Professor. He has published many articles in refereed journals, as well as textbook chapters and numerous columns and letters in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and elsewhere. This is meant to be a humorous piece on TV fare during this period. This piece was previously Read More
Antidote to the Pandemic by Phyllis B. Katz
Phyllis Katz moved from Norwich, Vermont to Northampton recently . She is a member of the Straw Dogs Literary Guild. She has just finished her fourth book of poems, Ghost Orchids to be published by Dos Madres Press. She taught ancient and modern poetry at various schools before she retired. Antidote to the Pandemic Look, Read More
Out of This World by Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz
Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz is a Labrador Inuk advocate, marketer, poet, scholar, and writer. She holds an MFA from Lesley University. She wrote this fiction to highlight the needs and hopes for a better world. Ella lives in Northampton with her husband and posik. Out of This World Two aliens landed their four-ton silver bullet spaceship Read More
The Slow Hug by Rythea Lee
Rythea Lee is a Massachusetts performance artist, musician, writer, activist and therapist. Her most recent achievement is a 20-episode YouTube series called Advice From A Loving Bitch that pairs with a published curriculum. Her creative work tends to balance irreverent humor with emotional education and healing. She lives in Hampshire County. The Slow Hug The Read More
(Dis)Comfort by Rae Michelle
Rae Michelle: I live in New York county and am a member of Straw Dog Writer’s Guild. I am a professor. I teach, conduct research and write at New York University. I am married and have an Aussie. I love to read and write. I have never published my poems. (Dis)Comfort When Covid-19 arrived, Read More
Season of Covid by Nina Gross
Nina Gross is a violist who teaches and performs in the valley. She is a witness, and a writer of poems, dreams, harmonies, complaints, inspirations, explorations, observations, dialogues, songs, and story. A resident of Greenfield, she loves to dance and to improvise, and she tries to meet the moments as they come. Season of Covid Read More
Alternate Universe by Claire Day
Claire Day, a Hampshire County resident and member of Straw Dog, is an expat from Northern England. A retired educator, she is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a recipient of a Connecticut Writing Project fellowship and a past AWA workshop leader. Living in this creative area is her dream-come-true. Alternate Universe I’m beginning to understand Read More
Masked by Artemis Roehrig
Artemis Roehrig is a SDWG member from Hampshire County. She is the author of multiple picture books including: Are Pirates Polite?, The Grumpy Pirate, Do Jellyfish Like Peanut Butter? Amazing Sea Creature Facts (coauthored by Corinne Demas) and Storey Publishing’s Tattoos That Teach series. Masked “These are superhero masks.” I tell my four-year-old. “You wear Read More