This is my third and last post about Montpelier’s flood, the first bonafide federal disaster I’ve ever lived in and witnessed first-hand. Seven weeks later, the flood doesn’t rate the national news anymore. The early, fun photos of drowned streets, the flashy videos on TV, the press clamoring at...
It’s been a month now, and we keep discovering new dimensions of the disaster. We know our flood is not Kyiv under Russian bombardment, nor the Maui fire – but it’s bad. Our hearts go out to the people there with greater understanding. But even as we come back,...
My effort to write about George Winston has been interrupted by a natural disaster. I will resume that series of posts after a few notes from downtown Montpelier, Vermont, now a federal disaster area. Our beautiful capital city has been ruined, gutted, by the flooding of July 9 and...
This is my second post about my friend George Winston, pianist, fan, and philanthropist, who died on June 4. Around the time I first met George – 1981 – my little finger was a mess, but I was trying hard to push my playing technique anyway. I wanted to...
I had just begun re-posting entries from my “Meetings With Remarkable People” series when I heard that my old friend George Winston died on June 4. I was overcome by a sense of loss. We had seldom seen each other in recent years, but we corresponded often, and I...
I can’t resist writing about Bill Lederer as the first installment of my series on Meetings With Remarkable People. Around 1975, I was living in Plainfield, Vermont, and eking out a living by various means, including teaching classical guitar. It was my first full winter in Vermont — I...
I began this series almost ten years ago, and I have been meaning to update it since moving on to other things. In the intervening time, I have received many comments on various posts, despite the passage of years. Most of these I never got around to publishing, so...
One of the oddities of my life is the enduring interest people express in my long-ago musical career. I still get mail about my records, concerts, guitar pedal-capo, touring with Alex de Grassi and Michael Hedges, and so on. It’s odd because I haven’t recorded or performed in decades....
This question has been a pebble in my shoe since my latest novel, On Brassard’s Farm, was published two months ago. Notes from readers are to blame. In my e-mail and Goodreads.com reviews, I’ve received many comments about how well – or poorly — I captured “a woman’s voice”...
I got recently got a wonderful e-mail from Karen and Mark Rogers, farmers who kindly advised me on dairy farm practice while I was writing On Brassard’s Farm. They attended my April 12 reading in Montpelier with a sick, four-day-old lamb in the car. Naturally, as guests of honor,...