Articles
by Advocate Staff | Jan 2, 2026 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By CAROLYN BROWN For the Valley Advocate Fifteen years ago, Gabriel “Gabe” Levey’s life took a drastic turn when he had a seizure — his first of many. But rather than letting the diagnosis silence his career as a performer, the Northampton-based clowning...
by Melissa Karen Sances | Dec 31, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate If “Frankenstein” is ultimately about creation — and pulling back the curtain between marvel and manipulation — it’s only fitting that CinemaStorm’s upcoming screening of Guillermo del Toro’s movie will itself be an...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 29, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By DON STEWART For the Valley Advocate A century ago, when women could be arrested for smoking in public and the manufacturing and distribution of alcohol was illegal, there was an artistic and social revolution in this country. You can view a wealth of Jazz Age...
by Melissa Karen Sances | Dec 26, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate The black-and-white buddy comedy “Tallywacker” opens on Aleister, its star, a young man with brittle bone disease sitting in a wheelchair in downtown Northampton. Locals will recognize the actor as Jeremy Dubs, who is a...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 24, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate For Yana Tallon-Hicks, the “V-Spot” has been the epicenter of her career. The column she began for the Valley Advocate in 2010 has since spawned a sex therapy practice, her first book and a Tedx Talk in Vienna — not to...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 24, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By Erin-Leigh Hoffman For the Valley Advocate As Turn It Up! approaches its 30th anniversary, the music store is falling into the hands of a new, but not unfamiliar, owner. Founders Patrick Pezzati and Chandra Hancock are selling the business, which has locations in...
by Jennifer Levesque | Dec 24, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By Jennifer Levesque For the Valley Advocate Burial Grid “NORD Compendium” I’ve been following Adam Kozak’s musical career since we were both in high school. Dare I say, close to 25 years later, Kozak is still one of my favorite local musicians. His latest conquest,...
by Monte Belmonte | Dec 24, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By Monte Belmonte For the Valley Advocate Perhaps Christmastime still has enough magic in it that small gestures toward peace can make us believe that peace is possible. And if that small gesture is drinking wine, count me in. Max Hastings in his book Catastrophe...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 19, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By CAROLYN BROWN For the Valley Advocate Though filmmaker Rio Contrada no longer lives in Florence, he’s got plenty of love for his hometown — and he’ll be showing it off when he brings his debut feature-length film back to the Valley next week. Contrada will screen...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 12, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By CAROLYN BROWNFor the Valley Advocate After 18 years at the helm of the Academy of Music, executive director Debra J’Anthony has announced her retirement. J’Anthony started in her role at the Academy of Music in March of 2008. Her previous role was executive...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 12, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By ERIN-LEIGH HOFFMAN For the Valley Advocate MONTAGUE — As Turn It Up! approaches its 30th anniversary, the music store is falling into the hands of a new, but not unfamiliar, owner. Founders Patrick Pezzati and Chandra Hancock are selling the business, which has...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 11, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By MELISSA KAREN SANCESFor the Valley Advocate After two years of silence, the voices of the the Amherst Area Gospel Choir will rise again. On Saturday, Dec. 13, the group will present the Black Gospel Christmas Story at the Wesley Methodist Church in Hadley. The...
by Advocate Staff | Dec 1, 2025 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Uncategorized
By CAROLYN BROWN For the Advocate A dress designed in Holyoke recently made its way to the New York City premiere of “Wicked: For Good.” Fashion designer Joseph Charles, who co-owns Paper City Fabrics in Holyoke, created a dress for “Oz” collector and historian Tori...
by Advocate Staff | May 30, 2025 | Articles, Featured, Review, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER For the Gazette Stephen Platt, who teaches 19th and 20th century Chinese history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, made a significant name for himself with his two last books. “Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom,” an account of China’s bloody...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 7, 2024 | Articles, Featured, Food Booze and Beyond, Staff Picks, Uncategorized, Wellness
By Bob Flaherty For the Valley Advocate A gamechanger, they call it. A chance to face the challenges of your life head on. To free your mind, unencumbered by old negative patterns. Empowering your life. Re-setting your brain. Though it’s been around for decades,...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 26, 2024 | Articles, Careers & Education, Featured, Film, Staff Picks, Uncategorized, Wellness
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Dr. Khama Ennis had come a long way in her medical career. Until 2022, the Amherst resident had spent about two decades in emergency medicine, including a number of years as chief of emergency medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 8, 2024 | Articles, Featured, News, Uncategorized
By EMILY THURLOW For the Advocate A woman dressed in pajamas walks into a Cottage Street bar and challenges a random stranger to an arm-wrestling match. The circumstances sound like the set-up of a joke. It’s not. That woman is Rose Lynch of Easthampton, and over the...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 8, 2024 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, News, Uncategorized
By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL Staff Writer When Chris Freeman was in eighth grade, his father took him to the Iron Horse Music Hall for his first concert at the venue, where he was immediately entranced by the atmosphere, sitting at one of the tables by the wall plastered...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 24, 2023 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Uncategorized
By MADDIE FABIAN Staff Writer It was a cold and icy winter day when Amy Thompson accidentally locked herself out of the house, with nothing but her phone and time to spare — not an uncommon tale. But rather than becoming frustrated with herself for wasting 40 minutes...
by Robin Goldstein | Nov 24, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Food + Booze, Uncategorized
By ROBIN GOLDSTEIN For the Advocate In New Orleans — the sultriest, eeriest, prettiest and drunkest city in America — filigree balconies dangle from creaky old mansions painted in blazing colors. Inside, on every block, their kitchens burst with the blazing flavors of...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 27, 2023 | Articles, Featured, News, Staff Picks, Uncategorized
By BOB FLAHERTY For the Advocate If it was just that hippie rag, as detractors liked to rank it, well we hippie ragamuffins devoured it front to back. It spoke our language, the F-laden part included, and it was as underground as the music we toked to. But we soon...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 27, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
By EMILY THURLOW For the Advocate As the largest public research institution in New England, the University of Massachusetts Amherst holds an international reputation for its more than 200 academic programs serving over 28,000 students. The university has received...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 17, 2023 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Staff Picks, Stage
By EMILY THURLOW For the Advocate Whether he’s sporting villainous Maleficent-style horns, channeling his inner witch dressed as Winifred Sanderson, twirling in a red-and-black polka-dot a-line dress or lounging around in a raglan T-shirt, Aaron Johnson is still,...
by Emily Thurlow | May 2, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
Finding mental health support can be tricky, but can be even more so when you can’t find a therapist who looks like you or shares in a similar life experience. With the lack of clinical representation and cultural competency in the field, Black, Indigenous and People...
by Jennifer Levesque | May 2, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Music, Uncategorized
“Do you want to absorb the musical equivalent of a York Peppermint Patty? A rich, chocolatey yet also refreshingly minty sensation that filters through your nervous system like a blast of Arctic air to every forgotten corner of your body and soul?” The press release...
by Monte Belmonte | May 2, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines, Uncategorized
Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to call it a genius move. But about 15 years ago I institutionalized a weekly wine tasting into my job as a radio host. Every Thursday afternoon at 12:30, I would descend the stairs into the basement of State Street Fruit Store, Deli Wines...
by Jarice Hanson | May 2, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
Editor’s note: The Advocate is pleased to introduce a new theater writer. Jarice Hanson was a professor in the Department of Communication at UMass Amherst, and has been active in theater in the Valley and beyond for over 30 years. She’s a member of AEA, the...
by Bob Flaherty | May 2, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
“It was my duty,” said UMass junior Liz Mawrey, upon taking the reins of a legendary but nearly dormant outfit that fought to reform brutal and inane marijuana laws for over 30 years. In the fall of 2021 a post appeared in the Campus Pulse looking for people to join...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 7, 2023 | Articles, Arts, Featured
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Spring is here — or at least the calendar says it is. And as the weather (hopefully) warms, there’s more incentive to get outside and check out what’s on view at local art galleries. Here’s a look at some selected shows this month. PULP...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 6, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Film, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Years ago, when he signed up to take an online screenwriting class taught at Holyoke Community College, Nathan Graham Davis had no idea he might find himself eventually penning the script for a Hollywood thriller. And Davis, who lives in...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 5, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
By SCOTT MERZBACH Staff Writer BELCHERTOWN — In the summer of 1971, Michael Corbett, a visitor to the Stone House Museum, arriving with his girlfriend, signed the guestbook and toured the historic building at a time when it still housed three antique powder horns,...
by Melissa Karen Sances | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
It’s the coldest night of the season, so cold that the wind stings, so cold that our photographer’s lenses need time to thaw, so cold that from the bar of the Marigold, you can’t see the street because the doors are coated in ice. But inside. Inside is a window into...
by Bob Flaherty | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
As we settle into this brave new world that has us purchasing pot as naturally as picking up doughnuts Sunday morning, there are a lot of people, then and now, who never cared much for the “purchasing” part. Whether it be at that nice clean dispensary down the street...
by Monte Belmonte | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines, Uncategorized
Don’t believe everything you read. As a matter of fact, stop reading this right now or you could be subject to the persuasion of the published word. However, if you find comfort or guidance from others’ opinions, especially when it comes to wine, read on. When you...
by Steve Pfarrer | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
When Barack Obama was elected president in Nov. 2008, Ousmane Power-Greene recalls having a terrible thought: that a racist might try to assassinate America’s first Black president, or maybe his whole family. Perhaps that was an overly morbid vision, Power-Greene...
by Steve Pfarrer | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
It’s no secret that the U.S. railroad system, which a century ago had the largest passenger service in the world, looks very different today. Though the nation’s freight system is still significant, passenger service has long since been eclipsed by automobile and...
by Jennifer Levesque | Mar 8, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
It’s been just about three years since COVID made its appearance, and life as we all knew it changed its course. You still see people wearing masks outside their houses and there are more people who don’t leave the house much at all these days. For instance, I have...
by Advocate Staff | Feb 9, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer In a long career that’s seen him win a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a boatload of praise, Williamsburg writer Tracy Kidder has tackled a number of different subjects: the computer revolution, elementary schools, civil war...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 31, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Review, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Robert Harris is the author of a slew of bestselling thrillers and historical novels, covering ancient Rome, World War II, contemporary politics and more. According to one count, he’s sold over 10 million copies of his books, a number of...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 31, 2023 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Time was when Rachel Portesi did much of her photography using Polaroid film. She loved the immediacy of the image, the way each photo was different and often didn’t quite match what her eye had seen, and what she calls “the feeling of...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 27, 2023 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Uncategorized
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer A few years ago, Luc Abbott, a marketing consultant who works with various clients in the area, decided to produce an online guide of regional businesses and organizations that, broadly speaking, embodied progressive values and...
by Emily Thurlow | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
For the better part of the last 36 years, all the world’s been a stage for Chris Rohmann. The Advocate’s longtime theater critic has had a front seat view to thousands of plays in the Valley. With that seat, he has penned his perspective on performances, previewed...
by Steve Pfarrer | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Music
Like so many other artists, author and illustrator Jeff Kinney felt stymied by the pandemic. The visits he’d typically make to bookstores to talk about the newest additions to his popular “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series were reduced to parking lot encounters and other...
by Jennifer Levesque | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Music
The Big Sway formed in the Valley in 2007 and have been in their current lineup consisting of Joe MacFadzen, Tim Zucco and Mike Grenier since 2013. Their genre-bending music is a shopping spree where there is something for everyone all in one spot. Combining punk,...
by Max Bowen | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
November 2018 was a momentous time for Massachusetts. That’s when the state officially joined the retail marijuana business, some two years after voters said they were cool with recreational cannabis sales by overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure. Northampton,...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines, Monte Belmonte Wines, Uncategorized
Earlier this month, I quit my job — a job that I still very much loved — in an effort to bring myself into a better work/life balance. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. When I walked out of the office for the last time, I went home and opened a...
by Advocate Staff | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, The V-Spot, Uncategorized
Hi Yana, I have no problem with giving myself an orgasm with a vibrator on my clit, but I’ve never managed to orgasm with a partner. I’m OK with that — I’ve greatly enjoy partnered sex without orgasm, but I’d love to broaden my orgasmic horizons. Even bringing the...
by Steve Pfarrer | Jan 13, 2023 | Articles, Featured, Music, Uncategorized
When she looks back at how her band first found its footing, Nerissa Nields sees one club in particular at the center of that story: the Iron Horse Music Hall. From the time The Nields, the Valley folk-rock band, formed in the early 1990s, the Iron Horse became the...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 28, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
I filed my first article for the Advocate in May 1986. This one is my last. After 36 years and some 2,000 reviews, previews, features, interviews and musings, I’m giving up my ticket to the critic’s proverbial aisle seat and taking my place in line at the box office....
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 13, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
One night last month I was at the Academy of Music for a show, and there, behind the concession stand, was Nikki Beck. “Are there three of you?” I asked, amazed. She laughed and said, “Probably.” Nikki is one of the busiest theater people around. You’ll never see her...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 4, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
In this season of entertainments that cater to our appetite for cozy tradition (I’m talking about you, Nutcracker, Messiah and Christmas Carol), two shows next weekend hit the nostalgia nerve from a different angle, adding a holiday-themed sequel to a classic love...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 28, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
As winter approaches, National Theatre Live serves up a summertime tonic (as in, gin and). The live-capture of the National’s stylish Much Ado About Nothing screens twice this month in the big theater at Amherst Cinema, the Valley’s indispensable film house. Director...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 17, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
When I was in London this fall, I saw two shows that turn received history on its head. In the West End, I finally caught up with the long-running mini-musical SIX, in which the half-dozen wives of Henry VIII sing their side of the story. And at the Globe, a new,...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 8, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
In the Valley this weekend and next, there’s a show in which a man becomes a woman, one in which a man becomes a feminist, and a few more that feature (mostly) women who promise to become hilarious. The latter shows all spring from the same fertile source, Pam...
by Emily Thurlow | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Featured
Britt Ruhe may not be an artist, but she has certainly splashed paint across the canvas of the Pioneer Valley. For more than three decades, the Granby woman has used her skillset of community organizing, project management and fiscal knowledge to lead nonprofit...
by Steve Pfarrer | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Uncategorized
Growing up in Springfield, Aprell May knew a few bits and pieces about her Native American ancestry. But it was not something that family members talked about much. In fact, May says that for years she thought of herself as a “Lost Bird” or a “Missing Feather”...
by Brian Steele | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Featured, Uncategorized
City councilors have begun to gather public input on the subject of imposing a cap on the number of marijuana dispensaries that are allowed to open in Northampton, including Florence and Leeds, but action on any formal proposal is not yet in sight. The City...
by Jennifer Levesque | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Music, Uncategorized
The dose of nostalgia you get from toy gawking — in my opinion — is like no other. Whenever I’m on a Walmart or Target run, I have a tendency to gravitate toward the toy aisles to see what new Marvel action figures line the shelves – yes, I am that person. This time...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Featured, The V-Spot, Uncategorized
Editor’s note: this article originally ran June 10, 2019. Hi Yana, Over the course of the last couple months my partner’s sex drive has slowly fallen off, and is now creating tension in our relationship. We’ve been together for nine months, and...
by By Monte Belmonte | Nov 2, 2022 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines, Monte Belmonte Wines, Uncategorized
While getting out my glasses (wine glasses, not reading glasses) and preparing to write this column, I had a new email message from the mailing list of Four Seasons Wine & Liquors in Hadley. While most of their subject lines read “For The Woman You Love: Wine...
