Author Archives: Susanna J. Sturgis
This Blog’s for Norway
Living on Martha’s Vineyard makes me wonder if tourists ever see anything real, and if they do, do they recognize it? I also spend a fair amount of time seething about tourists and recent arrivals who write authoritatively about what … Continue reading
Benefit
When times get rough, year-round Vineyarders usually come through for each other in a big way. It’s one of the things I love most about us, and the reason that despite all the place’s aggravations I’d think at least five … Continue reading
Whose Arts & Ideas?
“First-Person Plural,” the preceding blog, lays the groundwork for this one. If you haven’t read it already, you might want to start there. As soon as your eye slips down the screen (it has already, right?), it will become apparent … Continue reading
First-Person Plural
When I moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1985, I’d been immersed for eight years in the feminist women-in-print movement and the local (mostly) lesbian women’s community. Before that I’d been a student activist and an organizer against the Vietnam War. … Continue reading
My dinghy garden
I’ve got a couple of really bilious posts on deck, but I’ve just mixed up a sourdough sponge that will rise all night and be ready to knead in the morning, and tonight I’m going to write about my garden. … Continue reading
The Most Important Credential
In the late fall of 1976, I was driving west on the Boston Post Road (Route 20) toward my evening job as a proofreader in Sudbury. West of Wayland in those days, the Post Road was a sleepy two-lane road … Continue reading
Here and Not-Here
My editor at the Women’s Review of Books needed the scan of an album cover to accompany my review of Alix Dobkin’s My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming … Continue reading
The Backside of the Knitting
Deep background: Long time ago, like when I hadn’t been around very long, I was astonished by what looked like the ineptness of most town governments. (We’ve got six towns on Martha’s Vineyard, plus the County of Dukes County — … Continue reading
Thanks for the Fantasy
Dear B—, Thanks so much for the invite to the two-day Rally-O trial in New Hampshire later this month. For sure I’d rather be there than here on Martha’s Vineyard at the height of tourist season, but I just can’t … Continue reading
I, Trobairitz
What’s a trobairitz? Why, a female troubadour! Troubadours and trobairitz were traveling musician-poets in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Occitania, in the south of what is now France (see map below). They sang, they wrote, they carried the news — and they … Continue reading
