Welcome to my studio!

The artist’s studio, Nature’s studio–and the studio of the mind.  “My Studio” by Herbert Ogden Waters (1903-1996)—the image you see above—hovers above my desk, a prized possession given to me by the master wood engraver in 1989 when I interviewed him as a “New Hampshire Living Treasure” along with three other masters—Poet Laureate Donald Hall, sculptor Robert Hughes and enamelist Karl Drerup.  As I have interviewed hundreds of artists in my career, the studio has been a consistent icon in my life as a writer and a lifelong student of creativity.

I cross this bridge and walk this country lane many times a day, pondering the spaces between–between an inner world and the outdoors, between art and science, between an artist and the medium she carves, forges, or shapes into an object in her hands. I am fascinated by those “borderlands,” those “thin places” of connection between seemingly disparate things—whether it is the subject of my column Quincy’s Quill, a biography or a poem. I also apprentice to poetry, studying with award-winning poets Alfred Nicol, and Rhina Espaillat

I am fascinated by the turning points in life that are both turbulent and luminous. Hence my two newest books – Turbulence my first book of poetry, and Luminosity a natural health and healing book

The studio—and the trail of creativity—was my first beat as the primary arts and cultural news journalist for the Boston Sunday Globe New Hampshire Weekly. As I interviewed glass blowers, blacksmiths, woodworkers and sculptors, I became fascinated by how craft merges art and science. In 1999 when New Hampshire was the featured state in the Smithsonian Institution’s American Folklife Festival, I collected the stories of pioneers who had crafted their lives in and around the unique topography of the Granite State in Hidden History of New Hampshire (2008).

When I met pioneering violinmaker Carleen Hutchins, her art-science-music story captured me, resulting in American Luthier: Carleen Hutchins—the Art and Science of the Violin (2016), selected by PEN America as One of TEN BEST BIOGRAPHIES OF 2017 and awarded the Acoustical Society of America’s 2019 Science Communication Award. Meanwhile, I became fascinated by the art and science of health and natural healing, resulting in the upcoming book Luminosity—How Nature Heals (Gatekeeper Press, 2020) with Dr. Shirley Snow, 2017 New Hampshire Naturopathic Doctor of the Year. And my lifetime love of poetry comes full circle this year in Turbulence (Finishing Line Press, 2020), my first book of poetry.