My Year in Writing 2025

This is the time of year—between my birthday and year’s end—when I take stock of my writing life over the past 12 months. A trend that’s continued this year: I’ve continue to be very Berkshire-focused as we approach the fourth anniversary of our move up here. As I told one of my students at Berkshire Community College this semester, where I’ve been teaching Principles of Marketing, filling in for a professor on her sabbatical, “This is my time to give back and go hyperlocal…”

I’ve also continued to write for Berkshire Magazine—eighteen in total and sometimes as many as 4-5 articles per issue (!), causing me to joke with my editor, Anastasia Stanmeyer, “Do you have any other writers?” In addition to having the cover story in one issue this year, Anastasia generously wrote about me in her editor’s note in the Fall issue accompanied by this photo.

I’m still shopping around my book of essays, The Others in Me: On the Azores & Ancestry, Poetry & Identity, and am building a new series of essays about life on our little beaver pond in the Berkshires, which I’m calling “To Learn Attention: Encounters in the Anthropocene Backyard,” several of which were published earlier this year.

While we didn’t get to the Azores for the second year in a row—something I hope to remedy in 2026—we had a wonderfully inspiring trip to Paris in late March-early April. Overall, it’s been a productive year. Here are some of the highlights:

“A Modern Log Cabin: Industrial Chic Meets Rustic Warmth,” in Berkshire Magazine, Spring 2025

“Betting Big on the Outdoors: Paul Jahinge Leads the State’s Outdoor Recreation Vision” (profile), in Berkshire Magazine, Spring 2025

“Matt Rubiner: An Unconventional Path to Cheese Mastery” (Q&A) in Culture: The word on cheese, Spring 2025

“Ancestral Echoes: Exploring Aracelis Girmay’s An Experiment in Voices,” in Berkshire Magazine, May-June 2025

“Poetic Sweat: Bill T. Jones and His Company Return to Jacob’s Pillow” (profile), in Berkshire Magazine, May-June 2025

Attended MAPS’ Psychedelic Science Conference in Denver, CO, reporting on several future stories and features. (June)

“My Wife Gave Me Magic Mushrooms For My 60th Birthday. It Transformed My Life In Ways I Never Expected,” HuffPost, June 2025 (The response to this piece was absolutely amazing. My editor at HuffPost wrote that something like 250,000 people read it the first weekend it was published, with “an average read time of 2:46 minutes (the site average for a story is 0:40, so to get folks to stay on your piece for close to three minutes is AMAZING and means that most people read all the way through… a huge feat in today’s ‘click in and click out’ digital world).” I heard from people all over the country: people who needed to hear the message of my tory and who now have hope that there’s something out there that may be able to help them. I feel especially blessed to have published this piece this year.)

Psychedelic Healing in Practice: A conversation with Scott Edward Anderson on AdvisorShares’ AlphaNooner podcast. (July) 

The author in Paris, 1987 (l.) and 2025 (r.).

Opinion: Don’t let New Bedford erase its Portuguese soul – “ The proposed closure of Casa da Saudade isn’t just a budget cut, it’s cultural erasure. The library has been the beating heart of Portuguese American identity in one of America’s most Lusophone cities.(Opinion), in New Bedford Light (July)

“A Building That Dances: The Reimagined Doris Duke Theatre Takes Flight,” feature in Berkshire Magazine, July 2025

“A Landmark Farewell: Stephen Petronio in his company’s final bow this summer at Jacob’s Pillow” (Q&A), in Berkshire Magazine, July 2025

“Paul Elie on Literature, Faith, and the Culture of Encounter” (Q&A), in Berkshire Magazine, July 2025

“A Homecoming: Richard Blake Creates Great Barrington’s W.E.B. Du Bois Monument” (profile), in Berkshire Magazine, July 2025

“A Conversation Before the Conversation: A talk with Jayne Anne Phillips ahead of her visit to the Mount” (Q&A), in Berkshire Magazine, July 2025

“Threads of Time: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Returns to Jacob’s Pillow After 62 Years” (Cover story), in Berkshire Magazine, August 2025

“The Power of Words: The WIT Literary Festival Returns with a Bold Call for Civic Engagement Through Literature,” in Berkshire Magazine, August 2025

Four essays from “To Learn Attention: Encounters in the Anthropocene Backyard” in La Picciolétta Bárca, August 2025

“From Investment to Impact: Mill Town’s Blueprint for a Stronger Pittsfield and Berkshire County” (feature), in Berkshire Magazine, Fall 2025

“A Recipe for Community: Williams College’s Log Lunch brings people together over food and ideas,” in Berkshire Magazine, Fall 2025

“Making Public Lands Welcome to All: An interview with newly appointed DCR Commissioner Nicole LaChapelle” (Q&A), in Berkshire Magazine, Fall 2025

“Cheesemaking Tradition Meets Innovation in the Azores” (feature) in Culture: The word on cheese, Fall 2025

Featured poet in reading at Hot Plate Brewing Company in Pittsfield, along with Susan Buttenweiser, Anna Lotto, Matthew Zanoni Müller, and Lara Tupper. (September)

“(Take) Home (or Dine In) for the Holidays: Your guide to Thanksgiving Dining in the Berkshires” in Berkshire Magazine, Holiday 2025

“Ice Dreams Really Do Come True: Community, Competition, and Cold Weather Fun in the Berkshires” (feature) in Berkshire Magazine, Holiday 2025

“Giving Back Locally: Supporting Organizations that Strengthen Our Community” in Berkshire Magazine, Holiday 2025

“Driving Community: Berkshire Auto Dealerships are Expanding, Thriving, and Staying True to Their Roots” (feature) in Berkshire Magazine, Holiday 2025

I also started working on a new sequence of poems, “Aquapelagos,” exploring themes of islands as ancestral territories and identity markers. We’ll see where that goes…

And I continued to curate and host the Berkshire Nature Talk Series at West Stockbridge Historical Society. We had four programs this year featuring Nicaela Haig of MassAudubon, Chip Blake on the birds of the Berkshires, Thomas Tyning on reptiles and snakes, and Brian Donohue on building with local forests. The program was funded in part by grants from the Alford-Egremont, Richmond, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge cultural councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.         

A productive year. Hope to keep getting my fix in 2026!

—SEA