Lily Abrahams
Lily Abrahams has been a Great Barrington resident for most of life. When she is not in her hometown she is in Amherst where she goes to school at the University of Massachusetts in the class of 2019. Lily plans on majoring in History with minors in philosophy and English. Before college she was a student at Monument Mountain Regional High school where she graduated from in 2015. Lily enjoys writing in many forms ranging from poetry to academic essays.
Linda Hirshman
Linda Hirshman is the author of many books about social change, including the New York Times and Washington Post best selling "Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World." Her most recent book is "The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet and a Contessa Changed America." Her occasional writings have appeared in the Times, the Post, and many other outlets.
Lindsey Schmid
Lindsey Schmid is a self-proclaimed foodie and world traveler who serves as the Senior Vice President of Tourism & Marketing at 1Berkshire. Over the last 25 years, Lindsey has forged a successful career in marketing and non-profit work, including stints in San Jose, Costa Rica, Washington D.C, and Denver, Colorado, where she earned a Master of Business Administration with a focus on marketing and entrepreneurship from the University of Denver. Lindsey currently lives in Lenox with her husband and two daughters. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Downtown Pittsfield, Inc. and the Lenox Library Event Committee, and was formerly the Chairwoman of the Board for the Nutrition Center. When not promoting the amazing Berkshires, she enjoys swimming in any of our many lakes, sipping wine on her back porch, and the stillness that comes from a great winter snowstorm. Photo by Tricia McCormack
Liz Thompson
Liz is co-founder of THE DIVERSE FUTURE working towards developing and placing talented people of color in top leadership positions. She is also a 50 year meditator, certified somatic coach, certified life coach, level 11 (iREST) meditation teacher, Reiki master. The hallmark of Liz Thompson’s career in the arts has always been her commitment to diversity, and her ability to combine sound fiscal and organization leadership with innovative programming. She has been particularly successful at the creation of new performance spaces. For LMCC, she created the Evening Stars Festival constructing a unique stage between World Trade Centers IV and V, with performances free to the public. The Festival offered diverse programing and attracted office workers and executives alike. She designed and built the Inside/Out stage, and oversaw the design for the Studio Theater at Jacobs Pillow. These spaces supported emerging artists and developed new audiences for this more innovative work. At Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival she played a key role in strengthening BAM’s commitment to artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. While at Boston’s First Night she developed the Neighborhood Network to insure the participation of previously neglected communities. As a dancer she worked with experimental artists and as a choreography received an Emmy for her work on the Children’s Television Workshop production of THE ELECTRIC COMPANY. Liz was also associate choreography for GREASE. She received the Dance Magazine Award for Outstanding Contributions to the dance world. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts repeatedly recognized Liz for her community involvement. Liz has served on many boards and committees. She had the privilege of joining the first Friends of Education formed at MOMA to bring attention to artists and audiences of color and helped craft the brief/mission of the World Trade Center Memorial which was used to select the architects.
Liza Bennett
Liza Gyllenhaal Bennett is a writer whose last four novels ("Local Knowledge," "So Near," "A Place for Us" and "Bleeding Heart") are set in the Berkshires. She contributes to local publications and writes “occasional musings on writing, gardening, reading, and life in the Berkshires” for her blog “A writer in the garden” at https://www.lizagyllenhaal.com.
Lorrin Krouss
Lorrin Krouss worked in the publishing industry for 15 years and was inspired to write after attending the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Her first essay appears in “An Anthology of Babes ---- 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice.” Another essay, “The Rocky Road to Happiness” was presented at The Mount in 2014 and will be published in the anthology Writing Fire in March 2015. Lorrin, now Director of Business Development for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, lives happily in the Berkshires with her husband, Andrew Krouss.
Luca Shapiro and Rosalind Wright
Luca Shapiro brings 10 years of interior design experience to Pryor & Peacock. She received her BA from Yale University and her Master's degree from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. There she attended an innovative program that joins art with new media technologies. Luca's technical skills are a vital complement to her design sensibility. Rosalind Wright is an award-winning novelist who has opened a new chapter of her life with Pryor & Peacock. She has always loved design and being able to create pieces of furniture that honor artists and craftsmen of the past has been extremely rewarding. She lives in New Marlborough with her husband and Labrador.
Lynnette Najimy
Lynnette (Lucy) Najimy has lived and worked in Berkshire County her entire life. She finds the standard astonished response to that statement - “Wow. Really?! - to be curiously amusing. While people from around the country and around the world trek to the region for its nature, culture, history, and community, she prefers to travel the world and always come back home where the connections and the stories are no less rich. She earned her Masters Degree in Philanthropy and Media from Suffolk University, which happened to hold a satellite campus in a cornfield in Sheffield. She considers this to be a perfect case in point. Her company Beansprout Productions promotes community building online and on the ground.
Mae Rose Whaley
Mae Rose Whaley is a junior at Monument Mountain Regional High School and lives in Housatonic, Massachusetts. After high school, she hopes to pursue a degree in political science.
Maia Conty
Maia Conty serves as a Master Life Coach & Mediator, Social Change Agent, and Evolutionary Economist. Cofounder of Walking Our Talk: A Women’s Creation Circle and the Generosity Economy Circle, her work focuses on creating containers for healthy community change. Through her life coaching practice and mediation services she supports individuals and couples to maximize their potential in serving the Greater Good.
Makiyla Levy
Makiyla Levy is a senior at Monument Mountain Regional High School.
Marc Aronoff
Marc Aronoff lives in Lenox, Massachusetts, and is presently Executive Director of the Cuban-American Performing Arts Collaborative. www.ca-pac.org. For more information about travel to Cuba or to join an upcoming group, you can reach him at 413-358-5755.
Marc Rudnick
Marc Rudnick is a retired building contractor who co-founded a worker cooperative renovation firm, Community Builders Cooperative, in 1979. Raised in New York City, Marc has been community-building in Waltham, Mass., since 1978, helping to start and nourish numerous Waltham projects and organizations, including the Waltham Land Trust and the Waltham Farmers’ Market. He lives on the shore of Hardy Pond in Waltham’s Lakeview neighborhood.
Margaret Wentworth
Margaret Wentworth majored in English at Vassar College and works as a freelance writer and editor in the Hudson River Valley. She lives with her husband and two children and enjoys bagpiping, distance running, and spending time in nature.
Marisa Labozzetta
Marisa Labozzetta is the author of three novels and three collections of short fiction. She is a John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist, Pushcart Prize nominee, and a three-time Eric Hoffer Award Finalist. Her novel, A Day in June, was shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. Kirkus called her latest collection of stories, Men Who Walk in Dreams, "... An exquisite set of stories steeped in humor, humanity, and grace.” She lives in Northampton. www.marisalabozzetta.com
Marjorie Cort
Marjorie Cort, a senior at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, is majoring in Environmental and Sustainability Studies with a focus on Political Ecology. She is currently writing her senior thesis on climate change and international conflict resolution. Although her focus is on international environmental affairs, Marjorie is passionate about bringing environmental issues to the forefront in her home community of Berkshire County. She has experience studying local ecology and biology, and intends to use her research to lead environmental discussions in the Berkshires. Believing that her generation has an obligation to step up to the plate to work through environmental problems, she is currently planning a public environmental film viewing and panel discussion at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and intends to create more opportunities for discussion.
Mark Reynolds
Executive Director Mark Reynolds’ tenure at Citizens’ Climate Lobby has been marked by exceptionally rapid growth, with the organization doubling or tripling in size every year. During his years as a private sector trainer and consultant, Citizens’ Climate Education Executive Director Mark Reynolds worked to maximize personal and organizational effectiveness in a variety of fields. Today, he uses those skills to empower ordinary citizens to educate influential stakeholders about the benefits of national climate solutions. As a globally-recognized expert on helping disparate interests find common ground on energy, public policy, and the environment, Mark has appeared before the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, AREday, and Power Shift. He oversees a training curriculum that reaches tens of thousands of supporters every year, has been a frequent guest on TV and radio shows, and has written op-eds on climate solutions for 85 print journals. Mark also serves on multiple advisory boards including Climate Advocate Platform and Climate Cost Project.
Martha Jackson Suquet
Martha Suquet is a farmer, writer, and farmers market manager based in East Chatham, New York. She and her husband operate Graylight Farm, a small-scale farm focused on pasture-raised pigs. She loves exploring the Berkshires with her two adventurous kids.
Martin Langeveld
Martin Langeveld is a former publisher of The Berkshire Eagle, the North Adams Transcript and the Brattleboro Reformer, and writes about the media business at his blog, News After Newspapers. The Monday Evening Club, for which this piece was written, has been meeting in the Berkshires since 1869.
Martin Page
Martin Page is a writer for the Princeton Alumni Weekly magazine. He graduated from Princeton University in 2016.
Mary A. Nelen
Mary Agnes Nelen is a writer and photographer. She lives year round in Old Chatham with her husband and a black cat. She has steeped herself in the local food scene since 2007.
Mary Douglas
Mary Stewart Douglas is an environmental lawyer who has worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, private firms, and, most recently, with an association representing the state and local administrators of the Clean Air Act. Before law school, she worked as an editor for John Wiley & Sons. Although she has lived in Washington, D.C. for 30 years, Mary can frequently be found in Massachusetts – Boston, Amherst, Great Barrington, and Northampton – visiting friends, relatives, and her three children. Mary holds degrees from Smith College and Hastings College of the Law.
Mary Meader
Dr. Mary Meader, a graduate of the Episcopal Divinity School, worked for many year in a variety of positions as an administrator in the Episcopal Church’s diocesan office of Massachusetts. She co-founded the Bethany House of Prayer in Arlington MA. She Now continues her ministry as a spiritual director in Gloucester, Mass.
Matt Mandel and Richard Seltzer
Matt Mandel is a retired physician who has lived on the Stockbridge Bowl since 1981. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the Stockbridge Bowl Association, he is a Founding Board Member of Volunteers In Medicine (VIM) Berkshires. Richard Seltzer has been president of the Stockbridge Bowl Association for 4 years. He also serves on the boards of Edith Wharton's The Mount and Hancock Shaker Village.
Matthew Vernon Whalan
Matthew Vernon Whalan is a writer living in Southern Vermont. He has written political commentary and other nonfiction for OpEd News, CounterPunch Magazine, The New York Journal of Books, eoinhigginswriting.com, The Brattleboro Reformer, The Berkshire Record, The Berkshire Edge, and other magazines and newspapers. He has also published fiction and poetry in Foliate Oak, Hitherto MUIC, Thunderdome, Aberration Labyrinth, Literary Orphans, and other literary journals.
Maynard Seider
Maynard Seider is emeritus professor of sociology from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the writer and director of the documentary, "Farewell to Factory Towns?," and the author of "The Gritty Berkshires: A People's History From the Hoosac Tunnel to MASS MoCA." The website for the book is: www.thegrittyberkshires.com
Melissa Mishcon
M. E. Mishcon is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice. Her work has appeared in Boston Magazine, Urthona, The Berkshire Review, The Women's Times, Sequoia, The Berkshire Eagle, The George Washington Review, Serpentine, to name a few. Her novel 'Just Between Us' won first prize forBirmingham Southern University's 'Hackney Award.' She was a former fiction and poetry editor for The Artful Mind.
Meryl Joseph
Meryl Joseph is a visual artist and filmmaker whose work is known internationally as well as throughout Berkshire County. Her award-winning documentaries have been screened in film festivals and museums in the USA and Europe.
Michael Ballon
Chef Michael Ballon opened the Castle Street Cafe in 1989, after 10 years cooking in New York City. Located in downtown Great Barrington next to the historic Mahaiwe Theater, The Cafe was an early leader in the farm-to-table movement. And Michael was voted Berkshire Grown’s “Chef of the Year” in 2000. Prior to moving to Great Barrington, Ballon cooked in New York, as Executive Chef at Lavin's , Sofi, Wood's, The New York City Bar Association, and Plum's, a full service catering company Michael is the author of two books, Castle Street Café Cookbook and A Chef’s Life, and he regularly writes articles for local publications.
Michael Brady
Michael Brady manages Berkshire Voices, Berkshire Playwright Lab’s on-going workshop for local playwrights. His play To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday was developed by The Ensemble Studio Theatre and produced as a film by Sony Pictures. Other stage works include: Sara, Equity Library Theatre at Lincoln Center, Semper Fi, Gloucester Stage Company, Hard Time, Main Street Stage, North Adams, and Two Bears Blinking, New Theatre, Miami. With BPL: readings of his plays Titles, The Season and Green Tiger Seven, as well as directing in the Radius Festivals. His play Pipeline was featured in Barrington Stage Company’s 2019 10x10 New Play Festival in Pittsfield. Michael is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Michael Cobb
Mike Cobb is a writer and a musician from Norfolk, Connecticut. He enjoys walking in the woods with his wife, daughter, and dog Sammy. His work has been published in Village Voice, NYC Jazz Record, Berkshire Magazine, Lakeville Journal, Chronogram, and more.
Michael Feldstein
Michael Feldstein is the volunteer HeatSmart Coach for Great Barrington, a small business owner and a proud resident of Great Barrington.
Michael Marcus
Michael Marcus is proprietor and head sushi chef of Bizen Gourmet Japanese Restaurant and Bizen Kaiseki in Great Barrington. He has also been a potter for over 35 years. He apprenticed as a potter in Bizen, Japan, for four years, studying wood-fired glazed and unglazed wares, Chado, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, and later, Japanese Sushi Cuisine. His ceramics are collected internationally and used in Japanese restaurants such as Nobu and Hatsuhana in New York City. Michael has traveled extensively throughout Europe and the United States to pursue his affection for classical music and especially Opera. He has a particular proclivity for the works of Richard Wagner and often writes operatic reviews and commentary for his blog site: Sybarites that he shares with photographer Tasja Keetman.
Michael Rothman
Michael Rothman works at CUNY (City University of New York) where he is responsible for developing pathways for underserved youth to access free college and career learning before they enroll in college. Prior to that, he was the founding executive director of two nonprofit education reform organizations, the Project for School Innovation and Eskolta School Research and Design. He holds degrees a BA in political science from Brown University, MPP from Harvard Kennedy School, and EdD from Fielding Graduate University where he has researched accountability and civic education in public schools and scaling of youth development nonprofit organizations. He lives with his wife, son, and dog in New York City. They have a house in the Berkshires in Southfield, Massachusetts.
Michael Saltz
Michael Saltz was a multi-award winning Senior Producer for the PBS NewsHour for most of his career. Now retired, he publishes an occasional column through his Substack platform at https://michaelsaltz.substack.com. Subscriptions are free. He's also on the board of directors of the Art School of Columbia County and is a resident of the county along with his wife and Max, his constant bullmastiff companion.
Michael Wise
A resident of Great Barrington, Michael Wise served as co-chair of the Master Plan Committee and is vice chairman of the town Finance Committee.
Michelle Gillett
Michelle Gillett has won poetry fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and published work in numerous literary magazines. She is the author of Blinding the Goldfinches, winner of the Backwaters Press Poetry Prize, 2005; a chapbook, Rock &Spindle (Mad River Press), and The Green Cottage, winner of The Ledge 2010 Poetry Chapbook competition. She writes a regular op-ed column for The Berkshire Eagle, teaches writing workshops and is co-partner with Nina Ryan of g&r Editing, Writing and Book Development.
