Acclaimed folk-blues singer-songwriter Chris Smither, who lives in Amherst, never expected to be cast in a Netflix movie — and he certainly never expected to be part of a project that won an Oscar.

The busy modern city: This detailed layout was built by the Dry Hill Model Railroad Club in Montague, one of nearly 360 clubs and vendors who came to the Jan. 28 and 29 Railroad Hobby Show at the ...

Despite certain advances in medieval historiography, there is still a general assumption that the middle ages were a period of despair, a time when the innovations of the Roman Empire crumbled, a ...

Best CELEBRATING THE 2025 BEST OF THE VALLEY READERS’ POLL WINNERS ...

“Emily’s mission in life is to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies.” This sentence mesmerized me. Ryan Lash/TED Emily Nagoski speaks at TED 2018. It’s an assured statement ...

STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS Not that long ago, right here in our Valley, a woman, thought to be a witch, was brutalized and left for dead. But she survived. She is buried in the Old Hadley Cemetery. I ...

Springfield, Massachusetts, was a big abolitionist hub during the days of the Underground Railroad — not that many people know this. When talking about Massachusetts history, Western Mass isn’t well ...

PEXELS/Lisa Fotios No matter how hard I think about it, I can’t dream up a plausible public health or safety rationale for dividing the market between tobacco sellers, alcohol sellers, and weed ...

The eighteenth century preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote on any paper he could find. In Northampton and later in Stockbridge, he made extensive notes on a version of the Bible with large, ...

Alex Morse has a new pup — a goldendoodle that answers to Oliver. Can you say inseparable? The Holyoke mayor brought him home from Pennsylvania and claims that the quarantine has afforded him a bit ...

“Godspeed, everyone. May your supplier discounts be generous, and may wine on the water be saved by the powers that be.” It was a striking quote on a Facebook Group that I follow called the US Wine ...

As a nimble alternative weekly newspaper with an eager and talented staff, we invest time developing stories about people, places and topics that the mainstream media doesn’t have the time or, in some ...