The Typist. Milton Avery. 1952. Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine. Gift of Mary Louise Meyer in memory of Norman Meyer.
Books:
Huddle Fever: Living in the Immigrant City (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995). Non-fiction.
Children of Men (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1991). A novel.
Shadow Bands (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1988). Short stories.
Anthologies:
Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology, and the Future (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1996).
Show Me a Hero: Great Contemporary Stories about Sports (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1995).
The Literary Dog: Great Contemporary Dog Stories (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990).
(The Literary Dog was also published in Great Britain and Japan.)
Selected articles on art, collecting, antiques, and history:
"Art and Soul: Southworth & Hawes, Reconsidered in the (Heavenly) Light of New Documentary Evidence." Forthcoming in The Daguerreian Annual 2023.
"The Philadelphia (Murals) Story," Fine Art Connoisseur, January/February 2022. How the successful public-art program Mural Arts Philadelphia came to be.
"Polly Thayer: Portraitist, Modernist, Philanthropist," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2021. A profile of the Boston-born painter.
"Provincetown Rises to the Challenge," Fine Art Connoisseur, September/October 2020. The challenge of the pandemic, that is.
"Bidders Undeterred by Pandemic or Remote Format of African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2020. Swann's first live auction since the shutdowns of the pandemic, was conducted remotely. No problem! As this report shows, It broke numerous price records and was more than 90% sold.
"Book-Love in the Time of Cholera," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020. Coverage of the international book fair in New York in March, just as COVID-19 was being acknowledged as a pandemic.
"Good Crowd at the New York Book Fair's Satellite Show Despite State of Emergency," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020.
"'Affordable' Bay Psalm Book Sells for $62,500," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020. A report on Swann Galleries' auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana in a less than ideal time, March 10, 2020. The rest of the auction house's spring auctions were postponed.
"New England Gallery Quietly Celebrates Fifty Years in Business," Northshore HOME, Winter 2020. Without fanfare, the high-end antiques shop on Andover’s North Main Street that is profiled here has for five decades been selling some of the choicest pieces found on the North Shore.
"No Two Alike," Johns Hopkins Magazine, Winter 2019. For decades, Wilson Alwyn Bentley took detailed photographs of snow crystals, effectively pioneering photomicrography. Today, his iconic images are a ubiquitous aspect of winter—thanks in part to a Johns Hopkins–trained physicist. Read the story here.
"Newly Expanded, Peabody Essex Museum is 'A Whole Window on the World,' " Maine Antique Digest, January 2020.
"The Story of a Vase," Northshore, December 2019. This is a four-page spread on Marblehead pottery, highlighting its origins in occupational therapy and recalling the $303,000 sale of a vase at Skinner Inc. It had been consigned by a 19-year-old picker, who bought it for $60 at a yard sale.
"Slavery and Abolition Documents Are Highlight of $1 Million-Plus Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2019. Review of an African Americana sale at Swann Galleries.
"Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Augusta Savage: A Tale of Two Sculptors," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2019.
"A Focused Photography Market Makes its Choices," Maine Antique Digest, July 2019. Review of a fine-art photography sale at Swann Galleries.
"An American Mosaic," A Passion for American Art: Selections from the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Collection (Peabody Essex Museum/University of Massachusetts Press, 2019). A profile of the Lynches in the catalog accompanying the PEM exhibition on view in 2019.
"Green Book Sets Record at Printed & Manuscript African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. This reporter was writing about the existence and sales of the Green Book long before the film came out.
"Latin American Imprints, Including Poet-Nun's Song Book, Lead Printed and Manuscript Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. Report on auction of a Sor Juana manuscript and more at Swann Galleries.
"The Stuff about the Stuff: The Value and Imperiled Future of Collectors' Papers, Part II," Maine Antique Digest, July 2019. The second in a two-part series.
"The Stuff about the Stuff: The Value and Imperiled Future of Collectors' Papers, Part I," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. The first in a two-part series.
"Photography Sale: “The Whole World in Our Heads,” Maine Antique Digest, May 2019. Report on a Swann Galleries fine-art photo auction.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part IV," Maine Antique Digest, February 2019.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part III," Maine Antique Digest, January 2019.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part II," Maine Antique Digest, December 2018.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part I," Maine Antique Digest, November 2018. As the subtitle says, it is "A Cautionary Tale for Collector-Donors and Their Beneficiaries." Three more parts followed.
"'Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting,'" Maine Antique Digest, September 2018. Review of a show at Bowdoin College's art museum.
"Mormons, Mexicana, and Marilyn Monroe: All in a Day's Work at a Swann Printed & Manuscript Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2018.
"Institutions Are Heavy Buyers at Swann's Printed & Manuscript African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2018.
"'Please Remember': The African Americana Collection of Avis & Eugene Robinson," Maine Antique Digest, May 2018. A report on a Skinner sale, their first comprising African Americana.
"Swann Photo Sale Offers Iconic Americana," Maine Antique Digest, May 2018. Lewis W. Hine images in particular.
"Papers from the American Revolution's French Connection Soar at Fine Books and Manuscripts Sale," Maine Antique Digest, April 2018. Report on a Christie's auction featuring archives of the Marquis de Chastellux.
"Using Collectibles as Ad Props: A Good Sign?" Maine Antique Digest, March 2018. Thoughts on a TD Ameritrade ad.
"Boston’s Ayer Mansion Seeks Its Missing Tiffany Vase," Maine Antique Digest, March 2018.
"Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Review of the artist's retrospective at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.
"The Kids are All Here," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Report on an eye-opening visit to the World Maker Faire in New York.
"Photos and Photo Books, Art and Storytelling," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Report on a fine-art photo sale at Swann Galleries.
"Dear Friend and Fellow Laborer," Schlesinger Library Bulletin, Fall 2017. Short piece on Harvard's acquisition of 19th-century African American schoolteacher Rebecca Primus's correspondence.
"Columbus Letter Sells for $751,000," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017. The document’s American provenance represents more than mere cachet. It supplies a needed reassurance. That’s because, in the last few years, two other Columbus Letters have been discovered to have been stolen from Italian libraries, then replaced with forgeries.
"John Quincy Adams Daguerreotype Sells to National Portrait Gallery for $360,500," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017.
"Family Archive of Pioneer Missionary Correspondence Tops Star-Spangled Printed and Manuscript Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017.
"Hoarder or Collector? Some Readings and Reflections," Maine Antique Digest, November 2017. A visit to the Edward Gorey House inspired this essay.
"Brimfield: Yesterday and Today," Maine Antique Digest, October 2017. Excursion to the famous flea market with a couple of younger collectors, plus a visit to clockmaker Robert C. Cheney's house, prompting reminiscences about Brimfield as it used to be.
"The Scoundrel, the Bore, the Madman, and Other Collector Stereotypes in Books and Movies," Maine Antique Digest, October 2017. Sequel to "Collected."
"Lady of the Canyon," Maine Antique Digest, September 2017. Profile of Mary Jane Colter, a collector and a designer and architect of Grand Canyon sites.
"Alcoholics Anonymous Sues for Return of 'the Big Book' Manuscript," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017.
"The Art and Science of the Philosophy Chamber at Harvard," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017. Review of an exhibit at the Fogg Art Museum.
"$1.2 Million Photography Sale Offers Americana from Ansel Adams to Anonymous," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017.
"Matisse in the Studio: The Object as Muse," Maine Antique Digest, June 2017. Review of Henri Matisse show at the MFA about the role that the artist's favorite props played in the creation of his artworks.
"Two Heroes of the Slavery Era are Standouts at $1.2 Million African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2017. Story about the sale of a newly discovered Harriet Tubman photo and a Frederick Douglass letter.
"Collected," Maine Antique Digest, May 2017. A personal essay in the form of a survey of books on collecting and collectors.
"A Very Young Collector," Maine Antique Digest, February 2017. Susan Parker, age ten, lover of Currier & Ives, c. 1941.
"Louisa May Alcott Manuscripts Go to Concord Free Library in Private Sale," Maine Antique Digest, January 2017.
"Gentlemen Prefer Punch," Cured, Fall 2016. The secret history of an "ancient" men's club punch.
"Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment Sell Together for First Time," Maine Antique Digest, August 2016.
"Historical Documents Sale Highlights Reagan's 50-Year Correspondence with a Fan," Maine Antique Digest, July 2016.
"Black History Matters: 20th Anniversary of Swann African Americana Sales," Maine Antique Digest, June 2016.
"Black History Matters," p. 2
"Black History Matters," p. 3
"Black History Matters," p. 4
"Black History Matters," p. 5
"Norman Lewis's Star Continues to Shine at African American Fine Art Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2016.
"Family Pictures: The Codman Estate's Collection," Fine Art Connoisseur, May/June 2016.
"Bay Psalm Book with Salem Witch Trial Provenance Tops $1 Million Sale," Maine Antique Digest, May 2016.
"Swann's Best Ever African American Fine Art Sale: $3.1 Million," Maine Antique Digest, April 2016.
"North American Atlas Leads Auction House's Highest Grossing Rare Maps Sale," Maine Antique Digest, April 2016.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, March 2016. Part V of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, February 2016. Part IV of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, January 2016. Part III of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015. Part II of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, November 2015. Part I of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Manuscript Book by Furniture Maker, Mormons, and More at Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"Crystal Bridges Buys Top Lot at Sale of Maya Angelou Art Collection," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"The Hunger for 20th-Century Artworks Continues," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"Made in the Americas," Maine Antique Digest, November 2015. Review of exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
"Agnes Martin's Blue Flower Makes a Cool $1.5 Million," Maine Antique Digest, August 2015.
"Texans' Clock Collection Sells in Massachusetts," Maine Antique Digest, August 2015. The Mr. & Mrs. Terry Brotheton sale.
"Hot Prices for Barkley Hendricks’s Cool Portraits and Norman Lewis’s Abstractions," Maine Antique Digest, July 2015.
"Maine is for [Art] Lovers," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2015.
"Ambrotype of Runaway Slave and Other Photos Highlight African-Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2015.
"Changes Afoot for Sotheby's Boston Office & for its Former Director," Maine Antique Digest, May 2015. Profile of William "Bill" Cottingham and his career change.
"Two Phone Bidders Tango for Sunlight in the Studio," Maine Antique Digest, May 2015. An Irving Ramsey Wiles painting at auction.
"A New Location for Chelsea Clock Company & a Second Edition of its History," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015.
"A Celebration of Music: A Bravo-Worthy Sale of Manuscripts & More," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015. A Profiles in History sale of Mozart, et al, material.
"Bidders Spend Big for Einstein, Lincoln, Jefferson & JFK," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015. A Profiles in History mss. sale.
"Latin-Americana Library of W. Michael Mathes Sells for $1.2 Million," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015. Swann sale.
"A Giant Clock & a Giant Clamshell," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015. Skinner science & technology sale.
"Art Dealer William "Willie" Postar's Eclectic Estate Sells to Savvy Crowd," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015.
"African American Art Sale Features Richard A. Long Collection," Maine Antique Digest, January 2015.
"An Expressionist’s Flowers, a Sargent Head, and a Girl Smelling an Apple." Maine Antique Digest, December 2014. Emil Nolde, John Singer Sargent, and Charles Courtney Curran at auction.
"Thistles & Crowns: The Painted Chests of the Connecticut Shore," Maine Antique Digest, September 2014. Review of an exhibition.
"Clocks and Cannonballs," Maine Antique Digest, August 2014. Clocks and Scientific Instruments and Technology Sale at Skinner.
"After Almost 20 Years in the Suburbs, Grogan & Co. Moves to Boston," Maine Antique Digest, October 2014.
"Books by Julia Child and Ben Franklin Make Sparks Fly," Maine Antique Digest, September 2014. A Report on Skinner's fine books and manuscript sale.
"Sold: Copy of the Law that Made the Dollar Almighty," Maine Antique Digest, July 2014. First printing of the Coinage Act is sold at Swann.
"The Shot Heard Round the World," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Review of Concord Museum exhibit.
"A Slave Collar, a Stargazer's Almanac, and Other Rarities at African-American Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Another report on one of Swann's annual African Americana sales.
"Importer/Dealer of French Décor Says, 'Ça Suffit!'" Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Grogan auctions off the stock of Room with a Vieux.
"The New York Book Fair: 'The Jewel in the Crown.'" Maine Antique Digest, June 2014.
"Downtown's 'Shadow Show' Makes Its Mark," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. A report on the big New York book fair's satellite show.
"Middle Market Reasserts its Presence." Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. The middle art market, that is.
“Today’s Masters: Con Artists: Three Trompe L’Oeil Painters,” Fine Art Connoisseur, May/June 2014.
"The Fireman Leads $2.4 Million Sale," Maine Antique Digest, May 2014. Norman Rockwell's The Fireman, that is.
"Rock Solid Results for Norman Rockwell and Others," Maine Antique Digest, May 2014. More Rockwell success.
"Shadows Uplifted: A 'Curated' African-American Art Sale." Maine Antique Digest, May 2014.
"Dylan Goes Electric to the Tune of $965,000," Maine Antique Digest, March 2014. Christie's sale of guitar that Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
"Steam Locomotive Photography Leads Ephemera Sale." Maine Antique Digest, March 2014.
"William Morris Press Goes to a Museum," Maine Antique Digest, March 2014.
"Photography Steals the Show at Books & Manuscripts Sale." Maine Antique Digest, February 2014.
"Printed and Manuscript Americana: Maps, Memoirs, and Mug Shots," Maine Antique Digest, January 2014.
“Lillie Bliss and Arthur B. Davies: The Collector and Her Advisor,” Fine Art Connoisseur, September/October 2013.
“The Elli Buk Sale: ‘Auction of the Contents of the World.’” Maine Antique Digest, August 2013. The sci-tech sale of the century.
"Bully For You, Peter Scanlan," Maine Antique Digest, July 2013. Swann sells Teddy Roosevelt collection.
"Early Black Panther Banner Achieves Stunning Results." Maine Antique Digest, July 2013.
"Third Annual Wayside Inn Antiques Show," and "Wayside Inn, cont.," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012. Unfortunately, the third time was not lucky.
"Washington's Annotated Constitution Returns to Mount Vernon," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
“Matthew R. Isenburg Photography Collection Sells Privately for $15 Million," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
"Emancipation Proclamation Broadside Sells for $2,0085,000," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
"Fire Screen 'Possibly' Going Back to White House," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012. The 1817 design was by Parisian ebeniste Pierre-Antoine Bellange.
"Swann Has Best-Ever Book Department Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2012.
"Swann Broadens Market for African American Fine Art," Maine Antique Digest, June 2012.
"Artist Robert S. Duncanson/ What's in a (Middle) Name?" Maine Antique Digest, May 2012.
"Benefit Auction Breaks Records, and Mystery of 'Daguerreian Holy Grail' Is Revealed at Lecture," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. The Daguerreian Society's annual auction was the venue.
"Fine Art Show Gives Boston's Art World 'Critical Mass," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Review of 15th Annual Boston International Fine Art Show.
"Bidders Go for 'Safe Bets,'" Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Review of auction at Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers.
“Stories of Three Collections: Key West, Jack London, and Bookends," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Talks by Scott DeWolfe, Thomas Karakul, and Adelaide "Addie" LaBraico at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair.
"How Auctions Really Work," Art New England, July/August 2011.
"Bidders Check Out Copley's Library," San Diego Reader, June 29, 2011. On Sotheby's multi-part sale of the James S. Copley Library.
“Iconic Paper: Basketball Rules, Dylan Lyrics, and Emancipation Proclamation.” Maine Antique Digest, April 2011.
"Returning to His First Love," Art New England, March/April 2011. Profile of art collector John P. Axelrod.
“Miss Edgerton’s Ye Colonial Shoppe: Or, Women in the Trade, Part i," Maine Antique Digest.
"Miss Edgerton's Ye Colonial Shoppe: Or, Women in the Trade, Part II," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010.
"Tales of a Wayside Inn Show," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010. Premier of a short-lived antiques show.
"Twain Manuscript Sells for Record $242,500," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010.
“Good Enough to Eat,” Gastronomica, Fall 2010. Essay about a visit with a faux-food collector, novelist Mameve Medwed. [$]
"Poe, Dickens, George Washington, and an Olivetti," Maine Antique Digest, April 2010. My report on Christie's sale featuring Will Self's Poe Collection and Cormac McCarty's typewriter.
"Chinese Jades, Appraised on ‘Roadshow,’ Evade Million-Dollar Mark." Maine Antique Digest, January 2010.
"Plains Pictographs among Top Lots at Spotty Tribal Arts Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2009.
“Rare,” Gastronomica, Winter 2009. About a rare book dealer’s copy of The Art of Gastronomy by Jay Jacobs that has a disturbing associational value. [$]
“The Walpole Society Goes to Dinner,” Gastronomica, Fall 2008. About a period dinner enjoyed by the exclusive club of collectors in 1946. [$] (Reprinted in The Walpole Society's Note Book 2013.)
“Good Breeding: British Livestock Portraits, 1780-1900,” Gastronomica, Summer 2006.
“Vintage Menus: A Feeding Frenzy.” On the state of the growing market for menu ephemera and report on recent eBay sales. August 2006.
“A Taste for Menus: Henry Voigt Touches History,” Gastronomica, Fall 2005. [$]
“The Clockwork Roasting Jack, or How Technology Entered the Kitchen,” Gastronomica, Winter 2004. Reprinted in The Gastronomica Reader (2010).
"The Artful Dodger," Boston Magazine, June 2005. On the capture of an art forger who was a former Harvard-affiliated physician.
“The Bidding War,” Boston Magazine, October 2004. Inside Boston’s auction world.
“Shelf Life,” Gastronomica, Winter 2002. Venerable food collections –- why people save old food. [$]
“He's Sad for Ships,” San Diego Reader, December 19, 2002. Profile of self-taught marine artist Richard de Rosset.
“‘Deviled Ham Untouched by Human Hands’: Food-Related Vintage Stereoviews,” Gastronomica, Fall 2002. [$]
"Murdock & Martha," San Diego Reader, May 30, 2002. On the ethics of disposing of family photos, one's own and others'.
“Bright Eye,” San Diego Reader, May 3, 2001. Profile of Museum of Photographic Arts director Arthur Ollman.
"The Doctor or the Dancer," New England Review, Fall 2000. On artist Arthur B. Davies's double life, which included two simultaneous wives.
“What the Ears Love,” San Diego Reader, April 27, 2000. The lives of audiophiles.
"Shooting Blind," Antioch Review, Winter 2000. On vernacular photography, on seeing, and on blindness, literal or otherwise.
“The Palace of Green Porcelain,” The Michigan Quarterly Review, Summer 2002, special issue on The Secret Spaces of Childhood, edited by Elizabeth Goodenough. Reprinted in Where Do the Children Play? (2007) About museums, natural history and otherwise.
“The Bedridden Artist,” DoubleTake, Winter 2001. Essay on the unusually large number of successful artists who were ill as children. Reprinted in The UTNE Reader, May/June 2001.
“Obscure Objects of Lapsed Desire,” Atlantic Monthly, December 2000. Essay on the challenge of disposing of my in-laws' art collection.
“Making Peace with Cuckoo Clocks,” Shenandoah, Fall 2000.
“Ralph Fasanella: The Guy in the Street,” DoubleTake, Winter 2000. Profile of the late folk artist.
“San Diego in 3-D,” San Diego Reader, October 14, 1999. Reporter-at-large piece on the 3-D photography and film scene in San Diego and environs.
“No Clocks in the Forest,” San Diego Reader, May 6, 1999. On the public clocks of San Diego County.
“Attention, the Universe,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1998. Essay on the usefulness of art and artists.
“The Wallpaper Museum,” Southwest Review, Spring 1999. Autobiographical essay on the aesthetics of wallpaper. McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Non-Fiction, honorable mention.
“Murder on Tick Tock Lane,” Yankee Magazine, September 1997. Feature article about clockmaker Elmer O. Stennes, who killed his wife, was sent to prison, and made clocks there. Widely reprinted. The definitive account. Used as a reference by Antiques Roadshow.
“Postcard Picasso: The Art of the Reproduction,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1996. Essay in praise of art reproductions and their influence.
“For Posterity,” The Boston Globe Magazine, October 19, 1986. Feature on the Northeast Documents Conservation Center -- conservators of artworks on paper.
“Bids and Pieces,” The Boston Globe Magazine, April 6, 1986. Feature on Skinner Inc.
More Selected articles from Maine Antique Digest (2003-to the present):
“Dealer-Auctioneer Cille Blackwood’s Papers Go to Harvard.” May 2015.
"Gold Rush' at Printed & Manuscript Americana Sale." March 2015.
"Susan Jaffe Tane: From Collector to Curator," March 2015.
"Prints and Drawings: Picasso's Green-Haired Muse and Black-and-White Images of Manhattan." December 2014.
"Quadricentennial of Captain John Smith's Landing on Monhegan Island, Maine." November 2014.
"Final Single-Owner Historic-Documents Auction is 'White Glove' Sale." October 2014.
"A Tale of Two Art Sales." Swann sells print and drawings, and then African American fine art fast on the other sale's heels. September 2014.
“MFA Boston Acquires Cuban Chest for Art of the Americas Wing.” July 2014.
"The Sacred and the Profane at Books and Manuscripts Sale." April 2014.
“After the Hunt: The Trompe L’Oeil Art of David Brega.” March 2014.
"A 'Perfect' Clock & a Bright Red Ferrari." February 2014.
"Norman Lewis Painting Sells for a New Record." February 2014.
"Paintings by Calder among Top Lots of $2.1 Million Sale." January 2014.
“New Thoughts on Old Things: Four Centuries of Furnishing the Northeast.” December 2013.
"Painting Stolen in 1991, Recovered, and Sold at Shannon's." Alexander Levy's Woman in a Black Kimono. December 2013.
"The Cabinetmaker and the Carver: Boston Furniture from Private Collections." December 2013.
"Skinner Sells a Fitz Henry Lane View for $1,384,000." November 2013.
"First Newspaper Printing of Declaration of Independence Sells for Record $632,500." October 2013.
“Ira Hudson Decoys Lead Sporting Art Sale.” October 2013.
"Clock Rarities & Holtzapffel Lathe Lead $1.2 Million Sale." October 2013.
“Making Art Out of War: ‘Photography and the American Civil War.’” September 2013.
"In Conversation: Modern African American Art." Review of a Peabody EssexMuseum show. September 2013.
"Marilyn Monroe Trumps Everyone in Documents Sale." August 2013.
"A 'Rainy Night' and Then a Rainbow." Paintings by Louis Remy MIgnot and Lesser Ury, and sculpture by Ruth Asawa at auction. August 2013.
“Francis Crick’s ‘Secret of Life’ Letter Sells for Record $6.05 Million.” July 2013.
"Collector's Mementos of Nicholas & Alexandra on the Block." July 2013.
“Rare Books in the Big Apple.” July 2013.
“Pryor Dodge: The Bicycling Collector.” July 2013.
"African American Fine Art: Landscapes, Cityscapes, Dreamscapes." June 2013.
“Rebel Collector Embraces ‘Loisaida’ & Graffiti Art.” June 2013.
“Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things Were." May 2013.
"Bronze Dogs Find Good Home at MFA Boston." Anna Vaughn Huntington's sculptures sell to museum. May 2013.
"Turn, Turn, Turn: Holtzapffel Rose Engine Lathe Brings Record $228,000." March 2013.
"Paper and Plastic: Books and Manuscripts Sale at Sotheby's." In which was offered the usual, plus a prototype for the now ubiquitous magnetic-stripped plastic credit card. March 2013.
“First of Multi-Part, Single-Owner Historical Documents Sale Achieves $6 Million.” March 2013. A Profiles in History sale in Calabas, California.
"The Art of the Hunt: Martha's Vineyard Decoys." February 2013.
Review of "America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now" at the Rhode Island School of Design's Museum." December 2012.
“Down the Rabbit Hole with Lewis Carroll Collectors." November 2012.
"Prolonged Bidding Takers Willem Claeszoon Heda to $666,000." November 2012.
"Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War." October 2012.
"Bidders Chase Tigers and Other Animal Art." October 2012.
“Curtis’s North American Indian Sets Record at Nebenzahl Library Sale.” July 2012.
“Dr. Werner Muensterberger’s African Art Collection.” July 2012.
“The Estate of Reverend Peter J. Gomes, Unrepentant Collector.” June 2012.
"20th- and 21st-Century Art and Design in Boston." June 2012.
"The Object of History: Colonial Treasures from the Massachusetts Historical Society." Review of a show at the Concord Museum. June 2012.
"New Wing at Boston's Gardner Museum Opens." May 2012.
"Best Sale Ever for African Americana at Swann." May 2012.
"Heaven and Earth at Americana Sale: Brumidi Sells at Skinner." May 2012.
"'Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art.'" Review of a Peabody Essex Show of indigenous art. April 2012.
"Butterscotch Auction Gallery sells Rachel Ruysch Painting for $2,040,000." April 2012.
“Four Artists in Search of Found Objects.” March 2012.
"Tiffany and Mid-Century Modern Top 20th-Century Design Sale." March 2012.
"MFA Boston Buys John Axelrod's African American Art Collection." March 2012.
"Classic Chinese Furniture at Auction." March 2012.
"Frank Siebert’s Native American Artifacts Go on the Block." January 2012.
"60th Papermania Plus Show: Collecting Fine Print," November 2011.
“Wrestler ‘Killer’ Kowalski’s Estate, Down for the Count.” October 2011.
"Painting the American Vision." Hudson River School paintings at the Peabody Essex Museum. October 2011.
"Decoys Fly High, Art Treads Water at O'Brien's Summer Sale." October 2011.
“Postcards from the Edge.” August 2011.
"Fresh Never Gets Stale." Review of a Skinner paintings sale. August 2011.
"'Lost' William Merrit Chase, Found in California, Brings $103,500." August 2011.
"AD 20/21 & Boston Print Fair." Art and design of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. July 2011.
“Rare Constitutional Convention Notebooks Acquired for New-York Historical Society.” July 2011.
"When Duty Whispers." Exhibition review. Concord (Massachusetts) and the Civil War. June 2011.
"Printed & Manuscript Americana: Lincoln and Baseball, Fire and Brimstone." June 2011.
"Treasures Great and Small: Portsmouth Furniture and a Dwarf Clock." May 2011.
"Bidders Pounce on Black Panthers at African Americana Sale." May 2011.
"Collectors Dominate African American Fine Art Auction at Swann." May 2011.
"Chief’s Blanket a Winner, Pre-Columbian Lots Withdrawn." April 2011.
"Bruce McKinney's American Experience." A collector sells his collection without reserve. April 2011.
"N.C. Wyeth Illustration and Other Fresh Works Bring $2.5 Million Plus." April 2011.
“Edward Gorey Glory.” March 2011. (Written under a pseudonym: Antioch Jensen.)
“Books in Beantown.” March 2011.
"An 'Off' Year at the Peabody Essex Museum Show." The shape of things to come. March 2011.
"The Contemporary Dealers Ran Away with it." Boston art show review. March 2011.
"Tiny Calder Stabile is Giant at Art Sale." February 2011.
"Clements Library Buys Strachey Papers." February 2011.
“New Wing at Boston Museum: Worth a Trip from Anywhere.” February 2011.
"Icon of American Horology Sells for $539,500." February 2011.
"The Name's Bond. William Bond." Report on a William Bond chronometer at auction. January 2011.
“The Green Family Auction: String Too Short to Save.” December 2010.
"Upstairs, Downstairs on Cape Cod." November 2010.
"Americana Sale Exhibits Irregular Pulse." Report on the market as it began to sink. October 2010.
"Second Copley Library Sale Features Twain Trove and Declaration Broadside." September 2010.
"Skinner's Strongest Painting Sale Ever -- Without a Fitz Henry Lane." Nearly $4 million. August 2010.
"Harnett's Golden Horseshoe Brings Good Luck." August 2010.
"Skinner Sells Unprecedented Horological-Tool Collection." August 2010.
"Antiques + Contemporary Technology = Steampunk." August 2010.
Colescott's Satirical Adam and Eve Leads African-American Art Sale." August 2010.
"Former Fruitlands Museum Executive Sentenced to Prison for Embezzlement." August 2010.
Review of "... into your hands," an exhibition mounted by the Concord Museum to honor the 375th birthday of the town. July 2010.
"A Bleeker Street Antiques Shop Turns Out its Lights." July 2010.
“Button, Button: Gwinnett Letter Sells for $722,500.” July 2010.
"African Americana: Black Boy Scouts ,Ink Spots, and Other 'Heroes of the Colored Race.'" May 2010.
"Printed Americana: From Early Imprints to Twin Towers Blueprints." May 2010.
"Eastman Johnson, Duke of Wellington, and Stephen Decatur Bring Crowd to Sale." April 2010.
“Auction for a New World.” March 2010.
“Conquistadors and Cowboys Sell at Swann.” Printed and Manuscripts Americana. June 2009.
"Royka Sells Artist Bernard Corey's Estate." June 2009.
“Rare Poe Materials Sell Via Private Treaty and Benefit Auction.” March 2009.
“Dog Portrait and Crowell Black Duck Lead O’Brien’s $3.2 Million Sale.” Paintings and decoys. October 2008.
“Polar Books: Cold is Hot at Swann.” August 2008.
"Civil War Collection Sold on Anniversary of Lee's Surrender." June 2008.
“Diane Arbus Auction at Phillips Cancelled; Lawsuit Pending.” June 2008.
"The Collector Within." Review of Joseph Cornell retrospective at the Peabody Essex Museum. July 2007.
"Florida Painting Top Lot (Again), Following Best-Ever Prints Session." May 2007.
"Taking Stock: Five Art Galleries Adapt to a Changing Market." Gallerists on Boston's Newbury Street. March 2007.
"Nan Gurley’s Thanksgiving Sunday Antiques Show: Be Early or Weep." March 2007.
"Peabody Essex Museum Supporters Make Good Customers." March 2007.
"Boston International Fine Art Show Turns Ten." March 2007.
"Black Unicorns Sighted and Sold at Skinner Americana Sale." February 2007.
"Royka Scores on Jack Naylor's Southworth & Hawes Photographica." January 2007.
"Sci-Tech at Skinner: More Than Geek Heaven." November 2006.
"A Nakashima Table Is Sold for $204,000." October 2006.
“Copley Fine Art Auctions Combines Canvasbacks and Canvases.” October 2006.
Scholars and Dollars/ Scrimshaw Collectors' Weekend." September 2006.
"Museum Deaccessions/ Easy Come, Easy Go." August 2006.
"Painting Summer in New England." Review of a Peabody Essex Museum Show. July 2006.
"Former Harvard Medical School ProfessorConvicted of Attempted Grand Larceny in L.A." July 2006.
"Jones & Horan Sells Daniel Munroe Tall Clock for $54,000." July 2006.
"Portraits of a People." Review of exhibition at Addison Gallery of American Art. May 2006.
"The 46th Annual Ellis Antiques Show: Letter from "'Mesopotamia.'" February 2006.
"Ninth Annual Boston International Fine Art Show: Classy, Hip, and Hopeful." February 2006.
"Skinner Americana Sale: Time to Adapt." February 2006.
"Some Horological Geniuses, Some Old and New Brand Names: The 26th Annual NAWCC Ward Francillon Time Symposium." February 2006.
"Skinner's Latest Fitz Hugh Lane Sale Sets a Record." January 2005.
"America's Next Top Models?" October 2005.
"Skinner Hosts Benefit Auction for Provincetown Museum." October 2005.
"First Annual Spring Fair at Blithewold: It Rocked." Garden antiques. September 2005.
"Skinner Sells Calder Cache at Paintings Sale." September 2005.
"Scrimshaw Record Is Unexpectedly Smashed By A Burdett Tooth." July 2005.
"American and European Paintings at Skinner." June 2005.
"A Boston Book Show Reinvents Itself." June 2005.
"From Dauntless to Dreadnought: Americana at Skinner." May 2006.
'Hey, Carl!" Auctioneer Carl Nordblom, that is. April 2005.
"Clock Collection Sold in Cambridge, Massachusetts." A Carl Nordblom sale. December 2004.
"New England Collectors and Collections." Report on The Dublin Seminars. October 2004
"Clock Auction in New Hampshire." September 2004.
"Hermann Estate Sale." September 2004.
"McInnis Sells Another Heade." September 2004.
"Martin Johnson Heade Redux." A visit to a painting restorer. July 2004.
"Watch Auction in New Hampshire." July 2004.
"A Bradford and a Cache of Maine Silhouettes." June 2004.
"Stoddard's of Boston." June 2004.
"The Sale of the Martin Johnson Heade." February 2004.
"Live Bidding Only at Clock Auction." January 2004.
"Skinner Americana Sale." January 2004. The selling of a $1 million bombe chest.
"Shaker Auction a Bit Shaky." January 2004.
"American & European Paintings and Prints at Skinner." December 2003.
"Newly Found Hale Painting Brings $161,000." November 2003.
"Astronomical Timepiece Tops $1.38 Million Clock Auction." August 2003.
"More than Blue and Gray: 'The Civil War and American Art.'"
“Roadshow Warriors: A Retrospective, 1996-2006.”
“Israel Sack and the Lost Traders of Lowell Street.”
“Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style.”
“In The Land of Oziana.”
"Skinner Sci-Tech: Guns, Germs & Wheels."
“The Art of Woodcarving in America: A Symposium.”
“Rare Hemingway Items Sell for Record Prices at Swann.”
“Gastronomic Lit Sales: Recipe for Success.”
"A Cropsey at the Top and Then All the Rest."
"A Beautiful Portrait and a Brainy Clock Sell Best at Americana Sale."
‘You’re a Good Man, Frank Stanton’: Skinner Sells Snoopy."
"A Boy’s Portrait and an Auto Weathervane Drive $4.1 Million Americana Sale."
"Plains Pictographs Among Top Lots at Spotty Tribal Arts Sale."
"Warts & All: Identifying Famous People in Vintage Photography."
“Chelsea Clock Company Changes Ownership and Collectors Take Notice.”
"Connecticut Valley Furniture: More Than 14 Years of Research Finally Bears Its Fruit: Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800 by Thomas P. Kugleman, Alice K. Kugelman, and Robert Lionetti."
"Art for Sale at the Bruce Museum."
"Provenance and the 'Granny Notes' Factor."
“First Ever African-American Art Auction Sets 17 Artist Records.”
“Buyer with Spare $20 Million Sought for Complete History of Photography.”
“Americana @ The Piers: Their Ships Came In.”
"Early Photography at Americana Sale Soars."
“The Mao Market.” Justin Schiller's collection goes on the block.
“Miami Heat: Florida Paintings Set Records.”
"Tribal Arts: Yard-Sale Iroquois Moccasins, $10,575; Eskimo Snow Goggles; and More."
"Twentieth-Century Sale: Back to the Future."
"Gifford Painting of Union Soldiers in Prayer Fetches $831,000."
"Tribal Arts Sale’s Star: An Early Big-Horn Sheepskin War Shirt."
"Still Lifes by Peto and (Maybe) Coorte Steal the Show“
"Thoreau Pencils and Other Rarities Sell at Royka’s.”
“Scholars and Dollars: Scrimshaw Collectors’ Weekend."
“The Hawaiiana Market: Surfiana's Up.”
“Slave Poet’s Letter Breaks Record at Swann.”
“What Keeps eBay Up at Night.”
“Museum Shows and the Market: Two Art Deco Examples.”
“Time is Money at Sotheby’s: Masterpieces from the Time Museum.”
“Rhode Island Clockmaking: From Claggett to Durfee."
"American Daguerreotype Camera Sells at Benefit Auction."
"'Sketched at Sea'--The Exhibit and the Market."
"A Hibbard Heyday."
"Aaron Douglas Painting Brings Record $600,000."
"Aaron Willard Tall Clock with Stephen Bedlam Case and Dial Signed by John Minott Sells for $253,000 at 'Country' Auction."
"Antique Dealer Blooz."
"Arbus Photos Suit is Settled."
"An Auctioneer’s Collection Is Sold/ R.O. Schmitt’s Skeleton, Mystery, and Novelty Clocks at Christie's."
"Antiques on Cambridge Street to Close; Dealers Disperse, Regroup."
"Edward Bannister Paintings and a Whistler Print Lead Winter Sale."
"Bibles, Library Dupes, and Cookbook Lead Americana Sale."
"Collection of King of Dolls Sells for $1.23 Million."
"Institutions Buy Big at African American Fine Art Sale."
"Lang's $2.7 Million Sale, Its Best Ever, Breaks Angling Book Record."
"Long Decoys Sell at Historic $4.1 Million Sale."
"Madam Walker to Malcolm X at Annual African Americana Sale."
"Major American Modernism Collection Is Promised Gift to MFA, Boston."
"Mulliken Tall Clock, Found on West Coast, Sells for $33,350 at Kaminski."
"Naylor's Photographica Goes on the Block."
"New Record Set for Automata at Skinner Sci-Tech."
"Of Fishing, Fysshynge, and Other Sports."
"Queen Anne and Cape Ann Lead Anniversary Sale at Blackwood/March."
"Rare Film Sells at African Americana Sale."
"Records (Again) for Catlett and Other African American Artists."
"Sci-Tech, Clocks, and 'Crazy Stuff' at New Department's Inaugural Sale."
"Shaker Devotees Keep the Faith."
"Skinner Posts Its Best Ever Tribal Arts Sale."
"Skinner Sells a Fitz Henry Lane View for $1,384,000."
"Southern Art Market/ Those Rebel Yells Get Louder."
"Symposium Sponsored by Clock and Watch Collectors Honors Willis Michael."
"The Larson Clock Collection: Rare and Right."
"White and Woodruff Sell Best at African American Fine Art Sale."
Selected periodical non-fiction about food not cited above:
“Remembering Dione Lucas,” Gastronomica, Winter 2011. Before there was Julia Child, there was Dione Lucas -- on TV in the 1940s and 1950s. [$]
“A Beriberi Heart: Lessons from Slave Soldiers of World War II,” Gastronomica, Fall 2009. [$]
“‘Tis the Seasoning: How One Woman’s Bay Laurel Flavors Her Cooking and Even Her Christmas,” The Washington Post, December 20, 1998. Article about my 15-year-old bay-laurel tree, six feet tall. (Bought when it was six inches tall.)
“Pounded,” The Boston Globe, September 2, 1998. Beaten biscuits, et al.
“Think Thin (Fat Chance),” The Nation, November 3, 1997. Essay-review of nine books on dieting and eating disorders, including novels, memoirs, how-to's, and scholarly works.
“Dinner Roles,” The Women's Review of Books, October 1992. Essay on the then-new scholarly discipline of culinary history.
“The Art of Eating Words,” The Yale Review, Spring 1990. On the literary aspects of cookbooks.
[Untitled essay on writing about food in one's diary], American Wine and Food, June 1987.
[Untitled literary essay about eggs], American Wine and Food, February 1987.
“Balancing Act: Hot Offsets Cold in the World of Yin Yang,” The Washington Post, February 2, 1986. On the mystical properties of food, as perceived by Asians and others.
“For Prince, Today is the Day: How a Successful Spaghetti Maker Claimed Wednesday As Its Own,” The Washington Post, November 6, 1985. On the Lowell, Massachusetts, pasta factory and the three generations who built it.
“A Dinner for the Ages, and for The Scholars: Three-Day Boston Conference Stresses Food for Thought,” The Washington Post, June 23, 1985. On the Culinary Historians of Boston.
“Whetting One's Taste for History: The Cuisines of the Ages Satisfy the Appetites of Culinary Scholars,” The Washington Post, March 24, 1985. More about the Culinary Historians of Boston.
“Bread is the Whole (Grain) Story: Columbia Union College's Philosophy of Baking,” The Washington Post, February 12, 1984. On the Seventh-Day Adventists' bread bakery in Takoma Park, MD, their “Vatican City.”
“The Performance That Takes The Cake: A Recipe from the Belle of Amherst,” The Washington Post, January 29, 1984. On Emily Dickinson's black cake.
“I Wanted to Meet My Uncle and Learn the Secrets of His Last 100 Years,” The Washington Post, June 20, 1982. Essay about my 100-year-old great uncle, Zio Duce, and what he ate and drank.
“Is Our Diet Driving Us Crazy?” The Progressive, May 1978. An exploration of the link between diet and mental health.
Selected periodical non-fiction on various other subjects:
“H is for Hacker,” San Diego Reader, June 19, 2003. Reporter-at-large at a hacker convention.
"Too Close For Comfort," San Diego Reader, April 10, 2003. On the questionable safety of San Diego's Coronado neighborhood, home of a U.S. Navy base.
“Slave Soldiers,” San Diego Reader, March 13, 2003. On WWII vets suing Japanese corporations over forced labor.
“Hussey’s Pond,” DoubleTake, Winter 2002. Essay on the life cycle of a small body of water across the street from where I live.
"How Do You Like My Moonscape?" San Diego Reader, October 17, 2002. Report on a visit to San Diego County after a devastating fire.
"Birds Squared," San Diego Reader, July 11, 2002. Reporter-at-large with the San Diego Bird Atlas Project.
“Desperately Seeking Blondie: Machines That Think (Better Than You Do),” San Diego Reader, May 23, 2002. On a whole family of artificial intelligencers.
“Raptured,” San Diego Reader, April 19, 2001. Profile of George E. Lewis, experimental composer and trombonist, named MacArthur fellow a year after this mini-biography was published.
“Farewell, Worshipful Objects,” San Diego Reader, August 10, 2000. Profile of conductor/composer/musician Rand Steiger.
"The Last Tag Sale," San Diego Reader, June 15, 2000. Reprinted in Witness. A Father's Day story.
“Doctor Ramachandran's Artful Brain,” San Diego Reader, July 15, 1999. Profile of an internationally acclaimed brain scientist.
“Greenwich Beach Time,” DoubleTake, Summer 1997. Essay on the beach-access law suit brought against the town of Greenwich, CT.
“The Lover of Libraries,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1996. Essay on the library experiences of my youth and beyond.
“Revelations of a Reader on the Outside Looking Inward,” My Back Pages, Books, The Boston Sunday Globe, February 4, 1996. Essay about the theme of class in literature.
“Stifling the Cat's Meow,” The Women's Review of Books, September 1993. Essay about why I decided not to edit an anthology of cat stories, after my successful dog-story anthology.
“A Sad Chapter for Libraries,” The Boston Globe, August 15, 1993. Report on the financial difficulties of the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Massachusetts (despite the fact that John Updike sometimes hangs out there).
“Produced and Abandoned: Writers and their Early Efforts,” The Washington Post Book World, July 5, 1992. Essay on writers who have disowned their published books.
“Backtalk,” Poets & Writers, July/August 1990. On the pros and cons of responding publicly to bad reviews.
“Private Lives” The Boston Globe Magazine, November 8, 1987. On why we keep diaries.
“The Belles of St. Mary's: Coming to Terms with a Catholic Education,” The Boston Globe Magazine, February 2, 1986. Essay on my experiences at parochial school.
“A Puzzle of Historic Proportions,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 20, 1985. On getting lost in a British garden hedge maze.
"On Keeping Track With a Garden Journal," The New York Times, June 16, 1985.
"Facts of Fiction," The Washington Post, February 21, 1984. For the newspaper's "Firsthand" column, a piece about the process of submitting fiction to literary magazines, including an account of the acceptance of my first short story, by Joyce Carol Oates for her Ontario Review.
“Progress on Alcohol Fuels,” The Progressive, July 1978. Followup on my first piece on the same subject (cited below).
“Alcohol for Fuel,” The Progressive, November 1977. One of the very first, if not the first, news stories about this alternative to gasoline.
“The Breathless Cotton Workers,” The Progressive, August 1977.
“Methadone and Motherhood,” The Progressive, March 1977.
"How the Police Play Favorite Neighborhoods," Washington Newsworks, February 26-March 3, 1976.
"The Checkered Past of an Abandoned Gas Station," The Washington Post, February 19, 1976. Observations on the comings and goings at the property next door to my apartment in Georgetown.
"The Autobiographies of Mark Twain and Henry Adams: Life Studies in Despair," The Mark Twain Journal, Summer 1975. A college paper that got published.
Selected short stories:
"The Blue Heron," Western Humanities Review, Spring 1998.
"The House Nun: A Tale," Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 1992.
"Outings," Boulevard, Spring 1991.
"Cautionary Verses for Children," Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1991.
"Speaking on Condition of Anonymity," Southwest Review, Spring 1991.
“The Disappearance,” The Yale Review, Spring 1988. Reprinted in Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land, (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1991).
“Before Sewing One Must Cut,” New England Review/Breadloaf Quarterly, Winter 1988. Reprinted in Catholic Girls (New York, NY: Plume, 1992)
"Mother Tongue," Threepenny Review, Summer 1987.
“The Hard Hearts of the Poor,” The Boston Globe Magazine, July 26, 1987.
“The Motorcycle Riders,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1987-88.
“Shadow Bands,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1985-86. Reprinted in The Ways We Live Now (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1986).
“Why a Man Seen at a Certain Distance Cannot Be Recognized,” Quarterly West, Fall-Winter 1984-85. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1986.
“The Friendships of Girls Unpopular Together,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1984-85 Reprinted in You Don't Know What Love Is (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1987).
“The Ring: Or, A Girl Confesses,” The Greensboro Review, Winter 1984-85. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1986.
“Caddies' Day,” The Greensboro Review, Winter 1982-83. Reprinted in Best American Short Stories 1984, edited by John Updike, and in Perfect Lies: A Century of Great Golf Stories (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989)
“Mr. Swint,” Ascent, Winter 1982. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1983.
“The Original Dog,” The Ontario Review, Spring/Summer 1979. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1980.
Selected book reviews:
Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, From Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee by Bee Wilson, Gastronomica, Summer 2010.
American Wall Stenciling 1790-1840 by Ann Eckert Brown, American Studies International, June-October 2004.
Living it Up: Our Love Affair with Luxury by James B. Twitchell, American Studies International, February 2003.
"The Original Rosie," review of Rosie's Mom: Forgotten Women Workers of the First World War, The Women's Review of Books, June 2003.
Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926 by Steven Conn, American Studies International, June 2002.
"When Charles Met Alice," review of Still She Haunts Me by Katie Roiphe, The Women's Review of Books, October 2001.
"Vanishing Acts," review of Francesca Woodman, photography, The Women's Review of Books, January 1999.
"In the Global Gulag," review of Too Much Time: Women in Prison by Jane Evelyn Atwood, The Women's Review of Books, November 2000.
"Making Much of Little," review of Angela the Upside-Down Girl by Emily Hiestand, The Boston Sunday Globe, July 5, 1998.
"Different from Us," review of Photographs: Theater of Manners by Tina Barney and A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV by Mary Berridge, The Women's Review of Books, June 1998.
"Think Thin (Fat Chance)," review of a multiplicity of diet books, The Nation, November 3, 1997.
"Object Lessons," review of Glass, Papers, Beans by Leah Hager Cohen, The New York Times Book Review, February 9, 1997.
“A Brilliant, Doomed Man of Letters,” The Boston Globe, December 15, 1996. I.e., Isaac Babel.
Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home by Thomas A. Bass, The Nation, April 22, 1996.
[Untitled,] Points of Entry, DoubleTake, Fall 1995. Review of a three-volume catalogue that accompanied an exhibition of the same name that featured photography on the theme of immigration.
“Finding Ourselves in the 20s,” review of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s by Ann Douglas, The Boston Globe, February 19, 1995.
"On the Rink of Disaster," review of Women on Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle edited by Cynthia Bauman and Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan, The Women's Review of Books, December 1995.
"The War at Home," review of If the Tiger by Terry Farish, The Women's Review of Books, July 1995.
Hearts on Fire: The Story of the Maryknoll Sisters by Penny Lernoux, The Nation, May 9, 1994.
"Factory Fictions," review of Call the Darkness Light by Nancy Zaroulis, The Women's Review of Books, July 1994.
“Finding Ourselves in the 20s,” review of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s by Ann Douglas, The Boston Globe, February 19, 1995.
"Narrow World of Sports," review of nearly a dozen books about female tennis stars, The Women's Review of Books, February 1994.
"Dinner Roles," review of What Cooks in Suburbia by Lila Perl; Cakes Men like: 50 Fun-Filled Recipes by Benjamin Darling; Helpful Hints for Housewives! A Treasury for the Model Homemaker by Benjamin Darling; Neighboring on the Air: Cooking with the KMA Radio Homemakers by Evelyn Birkby; The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection by Karen Hess; The Carolina Housewife, or House and Home: By a Lady of Charleston by Sarah Rutledge, Anna Wells Rutledge, The Women's Review of Books, October 1992.
"Escape and Exile," review of Fugitive Spring: A Memoir by Deborah Digges and Shared Lives: A Memoir by Lyndall Gordon, The Women's Review of Books, July 1992.
Selected book reviews from Maine Antique Digest (2003-2017):
"The Story of a Shingle-Style House with Secrets," review of Jane Goodrich's The House at Lobster Cove.
Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors from Antiquity to the Present by Erin L. Thompson. (See p. 2 of link.)
A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund edited and with an introduction by Daniel Schulman.
An Observant Eye: The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum by David F. Wood.
Birds in Wood and Paint: American Miniature Bird Carvings and Their Carvers, 1900-1970 by Joseph H. Ellis.
C.F.A. Voysey: Architect, Designer, Individualist by Anne Stewart O’Donnell.
Chelsea Clock Company: The First Hundred Years by Andrew and David Demeter
Classic Modern: The Art Worlds of Joseph Pulitzer Jr. by Marjorie B. Cohn.
Clockmakers and Clockmaking in Maine 1770-1900 by Joseph R. Katra Jr.
Pennsylvania Shelf and Bracket Clocks 1750-1850 by Edward F. LaFond Jr. and J. Carter Harris.
Connecticut’s Fife & Drum Tradition by James Clark.
Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History by William Woys Weaver.
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan.
Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith.
Fake: Forgery, Lies & eBay by Kenneth Walton.
Fifty Years of Time: The First 50 Years of the American Clock & Watch Museum by Chris H. Bailey.
Fitz H. Lane: An Artist’s Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America by James A. Craig.
Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America by Jennifer L. Anderson.
Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth edited by Lynne Zacek Bassett.
Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz.
Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages by John Harris.
Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft by Simon Houpt.
Musical Machines and Living Dolls: The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata by Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier.
Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes 1825-1845 by Linda Carter Lefko & Jane E. Radcliffe.
Sargent’s Daughters: The Biography of a Painting by Erica E. Hirshler.
"The Geometry of Beauty." Review of Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection with essays by Horace Wood Brock, Martin P. Levy, and Cli]ord S. Ackley
Stretch: America’s First Family of Clockmakers by Donald L. Fennimore and Frank L. Hohmann III.
The Saturday Evening Girls Paul Revere Pottery by Meg Chalmers and Judy Young.
From Shaker Lands and Shaker Hands: A Survey of the Industries by M. Stephen Miller.
Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum by Stuart M. Frank.
The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley by Stephen B. O’Brien Jr. and Julie Carlson Wildfeuer.
The Error World: An Affair with Stamps by Simon Garfield.
The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts edited by Ronald D. Spencer.
The Girl with the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert and the Making of the Modern Art Market by Lindsay Pollock.
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meergeren by Jonathan Lopez.
The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws by Margaret Drabble.
"The Chair that Made the Nation," review of Windsor-Chair Making in America: From Craft to Consumer by Nancy Goyne Evans.
"Ready for Rediscovery: Evan S. Connell's The Connoisseur."
Poetry:
"Stalker," Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs (NY: Crown, 1995).
"Relaxation Techniques," Merrimack: A Poetry Anthology (Lowell, MA: Loom Press, 1992).
"Earth Walk," The Christian Science Monitor, April 10, 1985.
PROUDLY POWERED BY WEEBLY
Copyright (c) Jeanne Schinto, 2014.
Huddle Fever: Living in the Immigrant City (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995). Non-fiction.
Children of Men (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1991). A novel.
Shadow Bands (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1988). Short stories.
Anthologies:
Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology, and the Future (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1996).
Show Me a Hero: Great Contemporary Stories about Sports (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1995).
The Literary Dog: Great Contemporary Dog Stories (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990).
(The Literary Dog was also published in Great Britain and Japan.)
Selected articles on art, collecting, antiques, and history:
"Art and Soul: Southworth & Hawes, Reconsidered in the (Heavenly) Light of New Documentary Evidence." Forthcoming in The Daguerreian Annual 2023.
"The Philadelphia (Murals) Story," Fine Art Connoisseur, January/February 2022. How the successful public-art program Mural Arts Philadelphia came to be.
"Polly Thayer: Portraitist, Modernist, Philanthropist," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2021. A profile of the Boston-born painter.
"Provincetown Rises to the Challenge," Fine Art Connoisseur, September/October 2020. The challenge of the pandemic, that is.
"Bidders Undeterred by Pandemic or Remote Format of African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2020. Swann's first live auction since the shutdowns of the pandemic, was conducted remotely. No problem! As this report shows, It broke numerous price records and was more than 90% sold.
"Book-Love in the Time of Cholera," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020. Coverage of the international book fair in New York in March, just as COVID-19 was being acknowledged as a pandemic.
"Good Crowd at the New York Book Fair's Satellite Show Despite State of Emergency," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020.
"'Affordable' Bay Psalm Book Sells for $62,500," Maine Antique Digest, May 2020. A report on Swann Galleries' auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana in a less than ideal time, March 10, 2020. The rest of the auction house's spring auctions were postponed.
"New England Gallery Quietly Celebrates Fifty Years in Business," Northshore HOME, Winter 2020. Without fanfare, the high-end antiques shop on Andover’s North Main Street that is profiled here has for five decades been selling some of the choicest pieces found on the North Shore.
"No Two Alike," Johns Hopkins Magazine, Winter 2019. For decades, Wilson Alwyn Bentley took detailed photographs of snow crystals, effectively pioneering photomicrography. Today, his iconic images are a ubiquitous aspect of winter—thanks in part to a Johns Hopkins–trained physicist. Read the story here.
"Newly Expanded, Peabody Essex Museum is 'A Whole Window on the World,' " Maine Antique Digest, January 2020.
"The Story of a Vase," Northshore, December 2019. This is a four-page spread on Marblehead pottery, highlighting its origins in occupational therapy and recalling the $303,000 sale of a vase at Skinner Inc. It had been consigned by a 19-year-old picker, who bought it for $60 at a yard sale.
"Slavery and Abolition Documents Are Highlight of $1 Million-Plus Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2019. Review of an African Americana sale at Swann Galleries.
"Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Augusta Savage: A Tale of Two Sculptors," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2019.
"A Focused Photography Market Makes its Choices," Maine Antique Digest, July 2019. Review of a fine-art photography sale at Swann Galleries.
"An American Mosaic," A Passion for American Art: Selections from the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Collection (Peabody Essex Museum/University of Massachusetts Press, 2019). A profile of the Lynches in the catalog accompanying the PEM exhibition on view in 2019.
"Green Book Sets Record at Printed & Manuscript African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. This reporter was writing about the existence and sales of the Green Book long before the film came out.
"Latin American Imprints, Including Poet-Nun's Song Book, Lead Printed and Manuscript Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. Report on auction of a Sor Juana manuscript and more at Swann Galleries.
"The Stuff about the Stuff: The Value and Imperiled Future of Collectors' Papers, Part II," Maine Antique Digest, July 2019. The second in a two-part series.
"The Stuff about the Stuff: The Value and Imperiled Future of Collectors' Papers, Part I," Maine Antique Digest, June 2019. The first in a two-part series.
"Photography Sale: “The Whole World in Our Heads,” Maine Antique Digest, May 2019. Report on a Swann Galleries fine-art photo auction.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part IV," Maine Antique Digest, February 2019.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part III," Maine Antique Digest, January 2019.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part II," Maine Antique Digest, December 2018.
"James Arthur and His 'Temple of Time,' Part I," Maine Antique Digest, November 2018. As the subtitle says, it is "A Cautionary Tale for Collector-Donors and Their Beneficiaries." Three more parts followed.
"'Winslow Homer and the Camera: Photography and the Art of Painting,'" Maine Antique Digest, September 2018. Review of a show at Bowdoin College's art museum.
"Mormons, Mexicana, and Marilyn Monroe: All in a Day's Work at a Swann Printed & Manuscript Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2018.
"Institutions Are Heavy Buyers at Swann's Printed & Manuscript African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2018.
"'Please Remember': The African Americana Collection of Avis & Eugene Robinson," Maine Antique Digest, May 2018. A report on a Skinner sale, their first comprising African Americana.
"Swann Photo Sale Offers Iconic Americana," Maine Antique Digest, May 2018. Lewis W. Hine images in particular.
"Papers from the American Revolution's French Connection Soar at Fine Books and Manuscripts Sale," Maine Antique Digest, April 2018. Report on a Christie's auction featuring archives of the Marquis de Chastellux.
"Using Collectibles as Ad Props: A Good Sign?" Maine Antique Digest, March 2018. Thoughts on a TD Ameritrade ad.
"Boston’s Ayer Mansion Seeks Its Missing Tiffany Vase," Maine Antique Digest, March 2018.
"Mark Dion: Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Review of the artist's retrospective at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.
"The Kids are All Here," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Report on an eye-opening visit to the World Maker Faire in New York.
"Photos and Photo Books, Art and Storytelling," Maine Antique Digest, January 2018. Report on a fine-art photo sale at Swann Galleries.
"Dear Friend and Fellow Laborer," Schlesinger Library Bulletin, Fall 2017. Short piece on Harvard's acquisition of 19th-century African American schoolteacher Rebecca Primus's correspondence.
"Columbus Letter Sells for $751,000," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017. The document’s American provenance represents more than mere cachet. It supplies a needed reassurance. That’s because, in the last few years, two other Columbus Letters have been discovered to have been stolen from Italian libraries, then replaced with forgeries.
"John Quincy Adams Daguerreotype Sells to National Portrait Gallery for $360,500," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017.
"Family Archive of Pioneer Missionary Correspondence Tops Star-Spangled Printed and Manuscript Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2017.
"Hoarder or Collector? Some Readings and Reflections," Maine Antique Digest, November 2017. A visit to the Edward Gorey House inspired this essay.
"Brimfield: Yesterday and Today," Maine Antique Digest, October 2017. Excursion to the famous flea market with a couple of younger collectors, plus a visit to clockmaker Robert C. Cheney's house, prompting reminiscences about Brimfield as it used to be.
"The Scoundrel, the Bore, the Madman, and Other Collector Stereotypes in Books and Movies," Maine Antique Digest, October 2017. Sequel to "Collected."
"Lady of the Canyon," Maine Antique Digest, September 2017. Profile of Mary Jane Colter, a collector and a designer and architect of Grand Canyon sites.
"Alcoholics Anonymous Sues for Return of 'the Big Book' Manuscript," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017.
"The Art and Science of the Philosophy Chamber at Harvard," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017. Review of an exhibit at the Fogg Art Museum.
"$1.2 Million Photography Sale Offers Americana from Ansel Adams to Anonymous," Maine Antique Digest, July 2017.
"Matisse in the Studio: The Object as Muse," Maine Antique Digest, June 2017. Review of Henri Matisse show at the MFA about the role that the artist's favorite props played in the creation of his artworks.
"Two Heroes of the Slavery Era are Standouts at $1.2 Million African Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2017. Story about the sale of a newly discovered Harriet Tubman photo and a Frederick Douglass letter.
"Collected," Maine Antique Digest, May 2017. A personal essay in the form of a survey of books on collecting and collectors.
"A Very Young Collector," Maine Antique Digest, February 2017. Susan Parker, age ten, lover of Currier & Ives, c. 1941.
"Louisa May Alcott Manuscripts Go to Concord Free Library in Private Sale," Maine Antique Digest, January 2017.
"Gentlemen Prefer Punch," Cured, Fall 2016. The secret history of an "ancient" men's club punch.
"Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment Sell Together for First Time," Maine Antique Digest, August 2016.
"Historical Documents Sale Highlights Reagan's 50-Year Correspondence with a Fan," Maine Antique Digest, July 2016.
"Black History Matters: 20th Anniversary of Swann African Americana Sales," Maine Antique Digest, June 2016.
"Black History Matters," p. 2
"Black History Matters," p. 3
"Black History Matters," p. 4
"Black History Matters," p. 5
"Norman Lewis's Star Continues to Shine at African American Fine Art Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2016.
"Family Pictures: The Codman Estate's Collection," Fine Art Connoisseur, May/June 2016.
"Bay Psalm Book with Salem Witch Trial Provenance Tops $1 Million Sale," Maine Antique Digest, May 2016.
"Swann's Best Ever African American Fine Art Sale: $3.1 Million," Maine Antique Digest, April 2016.
"North American Atlas Leads Auction House's Highest Grossing Rare Maps Sale," Maine Antique Digest, April 2016.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, March 2016. Part V of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, February 2016. Part IV of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, January 2016. Part III of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015. Part II of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Good Fellows: The Walpole Society," Maine Antique Digest, November 2015. Part I of V. A history of an exclusive collector club.
"Manuscript Book by Furniture Maker, Mormons, and More at Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"Crystal Bridges Buys Top Lot at Sale of Maya Angelou Art Collection," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"The Hunger for 20th-Century Artworks Continues," Maine Antique Digest, December 2015.
"Made in the Americas," Maine Antique Digest, November 2015. Review of exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
"Agnes Martin's Blue Flower Makes a Cool $1.5 Million," Maine Antique Digest, August 2015.
"Texans' Clock Collection Sells in Massachusetts," Maine Antique Digest, August 2015. The Mr. & Mrs. Terry Brotheton sale.
"Hot Prices for Barkley Hendricks’s Cool Portraits and Norman Lewis’s Abstractions," Maine Antique Digest, July 2015.
"Maine is for [Art] Lovers," Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August 2015.
"Ambrotype of Runaway Slave and Other Photos Highlight African-Americana Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2015.
"Changes Afoot for Sotheby's Boston Office & for its Former Director," Maine Antique Digest, May 2015. Profile of William "Bill" Cottingham and his career change.
"Two Phone Bidders Tango for Sunlight in the Studio," Maine Antique Digest, May 2015. An Irving Ramsey Wiles painting at auction.
"A New Location for Chelsea Clock Company & a Second Edition of its History," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015.
"A Celebration of Music: A Bravo-Worthy Sale of Manuscripts & More," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015. A Profiles in History sale of Mozart, et al, material.
"Bidders Spend Big for Einstein, Lincoln, Jefferson & JFK," Maine Antique Digest, April 2015. A Profiles in History mss. sale.
"Latin-Americana Library of W. Michael Mathes Sells for $1.2 Million," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015. Swann sale.
"A Giant Clock & a Giant Clamshell," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015. Skinner science & technology sale.
"Art Dealer William "Willie" Postar's Eclectic Estate Sells to Savvy Crowd," Maine Antique Digest, February 2015.
"African American Art Sale Features Richard A. Long Collection," Maine Antique Digest, January 2015.
"An Expressionist’s Flowers, a Sargent Head, and a Girl Smelling an Apple." Maine Antique Digest, December 2014. Emil Nolde, John Singer Sargent, and Charles Courtney Curran at auction.
"Thistles & Crowns: The Painted Chests of the Connecticut Shore," Maine Antique Digest, September 2014. Review of an exhibition.
"Clocks and Cannonballs," Maine Antique Digest, August 2014. Clocks and Scientific Instruments and Technology Sale at Skinner.
"After Almost 20 Years in the Suburbs, Grogan & Co. Moves to Boston," Maine Antique Digest, October 2014.
"Books by Julia Child and Ben Franklin Make Sparks Fly," Maine Antique Digest, September 2014. A Report on Skinner's fine books and manuscript sale.
"Sold: Copy of the Law that Made the Dollar Almighty," Maine Antique Digest, July 2014. First printing of the Coinage Act is sold at Swann.
"The Shot Heard Round the World," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Review of Concord Museum exhibit.
"A Slave Collar, a Stargazer's Almanac, and Other Rarities at African-American Sale," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Another report on one of Swann's annual African Americana sales.
"Importer/Dealer of French Décor Says, 'Ça Suffit!'" Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. Grogan auctions off the stock of Room with a Vieux.
"The New York Book Fair: 'The Jewel in the Crown.'" Maine Antique Digest, June 2014.
"Downtown's 'Shadow Show' Makes Its Mark," Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. A report on the big New York book fair's satellite show.
"Middle Market Reasserts its Presence." Maine Antique Digest, June 2014. The middle art market, that is.
“Today’s Masters: Con Artists: Three Trompe L’Oeil Painters,” Fine Art Connoisseur, May/June 2014.
"The Fireman Leads $2.4 Million Sale," Maine Antique Digest, May 2014. Norman Rockwell's The Fireman, that is.
"Rock Solid Results for Norman Rockwell and Others," Maine Antique Digest, May 2014. More Rockwell success.
"Shadows Uplifted: A 'Curated' African-American Art Sale." Maine Antique Digest, May 2014.
"Dylan Goes Electric to the Tune of $965,000," Maine Antique Digest, March 2014. Christie's sale of guitar that Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
"Steam Locomotive Photography Leads Ephemera Sale." Maine Antique Digest, March 2014.
"William Morris Press Goes to a Museum," Maine Antique Digest, March 2014.
"Photography Steals the Show at Books & Manuscripts Sale." Maine Antique Digest, February 2014.
"Printed and Manuscript Americana: Maps, Memoirs, and Mug Shots," Maine Antique Digest, January 2014.
“Lillie Bliss and Arthur B. Davies: The Collector and Her Advisor,” Fine Art Connoisseur, September/October 2013.
“The Elli Buk Sale: ‘Auction of the Contents of the World.’” Maine Antique Digest, August 2013. The sci-tech sale of the century.
"Bully For You, Peter Scanlan," Maine Antique Digest, July 2013. Swann sells Teddy Roosevelt collection.
"Early Black Panther Banner Achieves Stunning Results." Maine Antique Digest, July 2013.
"Third Annual Wayside Inn Antiques Show," and "Wayside Inn, cont.," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012. Unfortunately, the third time was not lucky.
"Washington's Annotated Constitution Returns to Mount Vernon," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
“Matthew R. Isenburg Photography Collection Sells Privately for $15 Million," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
"Emancipation Proclamation Broadside Sells for $2,0085,000," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012.
"Fire Screen 'Possibly' Going Back to White House," Maine Antique Digest, August 2012. The 1817 design was by Parisian ebeniste Pierre-Antoine Bellange.
"Swann Has Best-Ever Book Department Sale," Maine Antique Digest, July 2012.
"Swann Broadens Market for African American Fine Art," Maine Antique Digest, June 2012.
"Artist Robert S. Duncanson/ What's in a (Middle) Name?" Maine Antique Digest, May 2012.
"Benefit Auction Breaks Records, and Mystery of 'Daguerreian Holy Grail' Is Revealed at Lecture," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. The Daguerreian Society's annual auction was the venue.
"Fine Art Show Gives Boston's Art World 'Critical Mass," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Review of 15th Annual Boston International Fine Art Show.
"Bidders Go for 'Safe Bets,'" Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Review of auction at Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers.
“Stories of Three Collections: Key West, Jack London, and Bookends," Maine Antique Digest, February 2012. Talks by Scott DeWolfe, Thomas Karakul, and Adelaide "Addie" LaBraico at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair.
"How Auctions Really Work," Art New England, July/August 2011.
"Bidders Check Out Copley's Library," San Diego Reader, June 29, 2011. On Sotheby's multi-part sale of the James S. Copley Library.
“Iconic Paper: Basketball Rules, Dylan Lyrics, and Emancipation Proclamation.” Maine Antique Digest, April 2011.
"Returning to His First Love," Art New England, March/April 2011. Profile of art collector John P. Axelrod.
“Miss Edgerton’s Ye Colonial Shoppe: Or, Women in the Trade, Part i," Maine Antique Digest.
"Miss Edgerton's Ye Colonial Shoppe: Or, Women in the Trade, Part II," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010.
"Tales of a Wayside Inn Show," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010. Premier of a short-lived antiques show.
"Twain Manuscript Sells for Record $242,500," Maine Antique Digest, August 2010.
“Good Enough to Eat,” Gastronomica, Fall 2010. Essay about a visit with a faux-food collector, novelist Mameve Medwed. [$]
"Poe, Dickens, George Washington, and an Olivetti," Maine Antique Digest, April 2010. My report on Christie's sale featuring Will Self's Poe Collection and Cormac McCarty's typewriter.
"Chinese Jades, Appraised on ‘Roadshow,’ Evade Million-Dollar Mark." Maine Antique Digest, January 2010.
"Plains Pictographs among Top Lots at Spotty Tribal Arts Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 2009.
“Rare,” Gastronomica, Winter 2009. About a rare book dealer’s copy of The Art of Gastronomy by Jay Jacobs that has a disturbing associational value. [$]
“The Walpole Society Goes to Dinner,” Gastronomica, Fall 2008. About a period dinner enjoyed by the exclusive club of collectors in 1946. [$] (Reprinted in The Walpole Society's Note Book 2013.)
“Good Breeding: British Livestock Portraits, 1780-1900,” Gastronomica, Summer 2006.
“Vintage Menus: A Feeding Frenzy.” On the state of the growing market for menu ephemera and report on recent eBay sales. August 2006.
“A Taste for Menus: Henry Voigt Touches History,” Gastronomica, Fall 2005. [$]
“The Clockwork Roasting Jack, or How Technology Entered the Kitchen,” Gastronomica, Winter 2004. Reprinted in The Gastronomica Reader (2010).
"The Artful Dodger," Boston Magazine, June 2005. On the capture of an art forger who was a former Harvard-affiliated physician.
“The Bidding War,” Boston Magazine, October 2004. Inside Boston’s auction world.
“Shelf Life,” Gastronomica, Winter 2002. Venerable food collections –- why people save old food. [$]
“He's Sad for Ships,” San Diego Reader, December 19, 2002. Profile of self-taught marine artist Richard de Rosset.
“‘Deviled Ham Untouched by Human Hands’: Food-Related Vintage Stereoviews,” Gastronomica, Fall 2002. [$]
"Murdock & Martha," San Diego Reader, May 30, 2002. On the ethics of disposing of family photos, one's own and others'.
“Bright Eye,” San Diego Reader, May 3, 2001. Profile of Museum of Photographic Arts director Arthur Ollman.
"The Doctor or the Dancer," New England Review, Fall 2000. On artist Arthur B. Davies's double life, which included two simultaneous wives.
“What the Ears Love,” San Diego Reader, April 27, 2000. The lives of audiophiles.
"Shooting Blind," Antioch Review, Winter 2000. On vernacular photography, on seeing, and on blindness, literal or otherwise.
“The Palace of Green Porcelain,” The Michigan Quarterly Review, Summer 2002, special issue on The Secret Spaces of Childhood, edited by Elizabeth Goodenough. Reprinted in Where Do the Children Play? (2007) About museums, natural history and otherwise.
“The Bedridden Artist,” DoubleTake, Winter 2001. Essay on the unusually large number of successful artists who were ill as children. Reprinted in The UTNE Reader, May/June 2001.
“Obscure Objects of Lapsed Desire,” Atlantic Monthly, December 2000. Essay on the challenge of disposing of my in-laws' art collection.
“Making Peace with Cuckoo Clocks,” Shenandoah, Fall 2000.
“Ralph Fasanella: The Guy in the Street,” DoubleTake, Winter 2000. Profile of the late folk artist.
“San Diego in 3-D,” San Diego Reader, October 14, 1999. Reporter-at-large piece on the 3-D photography and film scene in San Diego and environs.
“No Clocks in the Forest,” San Diego Reader, May 6, 1999. On the public clocks of San Diego County.
“Attention, the Universe,” Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1998. Essay on the usefulness of art and artists.
“The Wallpaper Museum,” Southwest Review, Spring 1999. Autobiographical essay on the aesthetics of wallpaper. McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Non-Fiction, honorable mention.
“Murder on Tick Tock Lane,” Yankee Magazine, September 1997. Feature article about clockmaker Elmer O. Stennes, who killed his wife, was sent to prison, and made clocks there. Widely reprinted. The definitive account. Used as a reference by Antiques Roadshow.
“Postcard Picasso: The Art of the Reproduction,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1996. Essay in praise of art reproductions and their influence.
“For Posterity,” The Boston Globe Magazine, October 19, 1986. Feature on the Northeast Documents Conservation Center -- conservators of artworks on paper.
“Bids and Pieces,” The Boston Globe Magazine, April 6, 1986. Feature on Skinner Inc.
More Selected articles from Maine Antique Digest (2003-to the present):
“Dealer-Auctioneer Cille Blackwood’s Papers Go to Harvard.” May 2015.
"Gold Rush' at Printed & Manuscript Americana Sale." March 2015.
"Susan Jaffe Tane: From Collector to Curator," March 2015.
"Prints and Drawings: Picasso's Green-Haired Muse and Black-and-White Images of Manhattan." December 2014.
"Quadricentennial of Captain John Smith's Landing on Monhegan Island, Maine." November 2014.
"Final Single-Owner Historic-Documents Auction is 'White Glove' Sale." October 2014.
"A Tale of Two Art Sales." Swann sells print and drawings, and then African American fine art fast on the other sale's heels. September 2014.
“MFA Boston Acquires Cuban Chest for Art of the Americas Wing.” July 2014.
"The Sacred and the Profane at Books and Manuscripts Sale." April 2014.
“After the Hunt: The Trompe L’Oeil Art of David Brega.” March 2014.
"A 'Perfect' Clock & a Bright Red Ferrari." February 2014.
"Norman Lewis Painting Sells for a New Record." February 2014.
"Paintings by Calder among Top Lots of $2.1 Million Sale." January 2014.
“New Thoughts on Old Things: Four Centuries of Furnishing the Northeast.” December 2013.
"Painting Stolen in 1991, Recovered, and Sold at Shannon's." Alexander Levy's Woman in a Black Kimono. December 2013.
"The Cabinetmaker and the Carver: Boston Furniture from Private Collections." December 2013.
"Skinner Sells a Fitz Henry Lane View for $1,384,000." November 2013.
"First Newspaper Printing of Declaration of Independence Sells for Record $632,500." October 2013.
“Ira Hudson Decoys Lead Sporting Art Sale.” October 2013.
"Clock Rarities & Holtzapffel Lathe Lead $1.2 Million Sale." October 2013.
“Making Art Out of War: ‘Photography and the American Civil War.’” September 2013.
"In Conversation: Modern African American Art." Review of a Peabody EssexMuseum show. September 2013.
"Marilyn Monroe Trumps Everyone in Documents Sale." August 2013.
"A 'Rainy Night' and Then a Rainbow." Paintings by Louis Remy MIgnot and Lesser Ury, and sculpture by Ruth Asawa at auction. August 2013.
“Francis Crick’s ‘Secret of Life’ Letter Sells for Record $6.05 Million.” July 2013.
"Collector's Mementos of Nicholas & Alexandra on the Block." July 2013.
“Rare Books in the Big Apple.” July 2013.
“Pryor Dodge: The Bicycling Collector.” July 2013.
"African American Fine Art: Landscapes, Cityscapes, Dreamscapes." June 2013.
“Rebel Collector Embraces ‘Loisaida’ & Graffiti Art.” June 2013.
“Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things Were." May 2013.
"Bronze Dogs Find Good Home at MFA Boston." Anna Vaughn Huntington's sculptures sell to museum. May 2013.
"Turn, Turn, Turn: Holtzapffel Rose Engine Lathe Brings Record $228,000." March 2013.
"Paper and Plastic: Books and Manuscripts Sale at Sotheby's." In which was offered the usual, plus a prototype for the now ubiquitous magnetic-stripped plastic credit card. March 2013.
“First of Multi-Part, Single-Owner Historical Documents Sale Achieves $6 Million.” March 2013. A Profiles in History sale in Calabas, California.
"The Art of the Hunt: Martha's Vineyard Decoys." February 2013.
Review of "America in View: Landscape Photography 1865 to Now" at the Rhode Island School of Design's Museum." December 2012.
“Down the Rabbit Hole with Lewis Carroll Collectors." November 2012.
"Prolonged Bidding Takers Willem Claeszoon Heda to $666,000." November 2012.
"Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War." October 2012.
"Bidders Chase Tigers and Other Animal Art." October 2012.
“Curtis’s North American Indian Sets Record at Nebenzahl Library Sale.” July 2012.
“Dr. Werner Muensterberger’s African Art Collection.” July 2012.
“The Estate of Reverend Peter J. Gomes, Unrepentant Collector.” June 2012.
"20th- and 21st-Century Art and Design in Boston." June 2012.
"The Object of History: Colonial Treasures from the Massachusetts Historical Society." Review of a show at the Concord Museum. June 2012.
"New Wing at Boston's Gardner Museum Opens." May 2012.
"Best Sale Ever for African Americana at Swann." May 2012.
"Heaven and Earth at Americana Sale: Brumidi Sells at Skinner." May 2012.
"'Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art.'" Review of a Peabody Essex Show of indigenous art. April 2012.
"Butterscotch Auction Gallery sells Rachel Ruysch Painting for $2,040,000." April 2012.
“Four Artists in Search of Found Objects.” March 2012.
"Tiffany and Mid-Century Modern Top 20th-Century Design Sale." March 2012.
"MFA Boston Buys John Axelrod's African American Art Collection." March 2012.
"Classic Chinese Furniture at Auction." March 2012.
"Frank Siebert’s Native American Artifacts Go on the Block." January 2012.
"60th Papermania Plus Show: Collecting Fine Print," November 2011.
“Wrestler ‘Killer’ Kowalski’s Estate, Down for the Count.” October 2011.
"Painting the American Vision." Hudson River School paintings at the Peabody Essex Museum. October 2011.
"Decoys Fly High, Art Treads Water at O'Brien's Summer Sale." October 2011.
“Postcards from the Edge.” August 2011.
"Fresh Never Gets Stale." Review of a Skinner paintings sale. August 2011.
"'Lost' William Merrit Chase, Found in California, Brings $103,500." August 2011.
"AD 20/21 & Boston Print Fair." Art and design of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. July 2011.
“Rare Constitutional Convention Notebooks Acquired for New-York Historical Society.” July 2011.
"When Duty Whispers." Exhibition review. Concord (Massachusetts) and the Civil War. June 2011.
"Printed & Manuscript Americana: Lincoln and Baseball, Fire and Brimstone." June 2011.
"Treasures Great and Small: Portsmouth Furniture and a Dwarf Clock." May 2011.
"Bidders Pounce on Black Panthers at African Americana Sale." May 2011.
"Collectors Dominate African American Fine Art Auction at Swann." May 2011.
"Chief’s Blanket a Winner, Pre-Columbian Lots Withdrawn." April 2011.
"Bruce McKinney's American Experience." A collector sells his collection without reserve. April 2011.
"N.C. Wyeth Illustration and Other Fresh Works Bring $2.5 Million Plus." April 2011.
“Edward Gorey Glory.” March 2011. (Written under a pseudonym: Antioch Jensen.)
“Books in Beantown.” March 2011.
"An 'Off' Year at the Peabody Essex Museum Show." The shape of things to come. March 2011.
"The Contemporary Dealers Ran Away with it." Boston art show review. March 2011.
"Tiny Calder Stabile is Giant at Art Sale." February 2011.
"Clements Library Buys Strachey Papers." February 2011.
“New Wing at Boston Museum: Worth a Trip from Anywhere.” February 2011.
"Icon of American Horology Sells for $539,500." February 2011.
"The Name's Bond. William Bond." Report on a William Bond chronometer at auction. January 2011.
“The Green Family Auction: String Too Short to Save.” December 2010.
"Upstairs, Downstairs on Cape Cod." November 2010.
"Americana Sale Exhibits Irregular Pulse." Report on the market as it began to sink. October 2010.
"Second Copley Library Sale Features Twain Trove and Declaration Broadside." September 2010.
"Skinner's Strongest Painting Sale Ever -- Without a Fitz Henry Lane." Nearly $4 million. August 2010.
"Harnett's Golden Horseshoe Brings Good Luck." August 2010.
"Skinner Sells Unprecedented Horological-Tool Collection." August 2010.
"Antiques + Contemporary Technology = Steampunk." August 2010.
Colescott's Satirical Adam and Eve Leads African-American Art Sale." August 2010.
"Former Fruitlands Museum Executive Sentenced to Prison for Embezzlement." August 2010.
Review of "... into your hands," an exhibition mounted by the Concord Museum to honor the 375th birthday of the town. July 2010.
"A Bleeker Street Antiques Shop Turns Out its Lights." July 2010.
“Button, Button: Gwinnett Letter Sells for $722,500.” July 2010.
"African Americana: Black Boy Scouts ,Ink Spots, and Other 'Heroes of the Colored Race.'" May 2010.
"Printed Americana: From Early Imprints to Twin Towers Blueprints." May 2010.
"Eastman Johnson, Duke of Wellington, and Stephen Decatur Bring Crowd to Sale." April 2010.
“Auction for a New World.” March 2010.
“Conquistadors and Cowboys Sell at Swann.” Printed and Manuscripts Americana. June 2009.
"Royka Sells Artist Bernard Corey's Estate." June 2009.
“Rare Poe Materials Sell Via Private Treaty and Benefit Auction.” March 2009.
“Dog Portrait and Crowell Black Duck Lead O’Brien’s $3.2 Million Sale.” Paintings and decoys. October 2008.
“Polar Books: Cold is Hot at Swann.” August 2008.
"Civil War Collection Sold on Anniversary of Lee's Surrender." June 2008.
“Diane Arbus Auction at Phillips Cancelled; Lawsuit Pending.” June 2008.
"The Collector Within." Review of Joseph Cornell retrospective at the Peabody Essex Museum. July 2007.
"Florida Painting Top Lot (Again), Following Best-Ever Prints Session." May 2007.
"Taking Stock: Five Art Galleries Adapt to a Changing Market." Gallerists on Boston's Newbury Street. March 2007.
"Nan Gurley’s Thanksgiving Sunday Antiques Show: Be Early or Weep." March 2007.
"Peabody Essex Museum Supporters Make Good Customers." March 2007.
"Boston International Fine Art Show Turns Ten." March 2007.
"Black Unicorns Sighted and Sold at Skinner Americana Sale." February 2007.
"Royka Scores on Jack Naylor's Southworth & Hawes Photographica." January 2007.
"Sci-Tech at Skinner: More Than Geek Heaven." November 2006.
"A Nakashima Table Is Sold for $204,000." October 2006.
“Copley Fine Art Auctions Combines Canvasbacks and Canvases.” October 2006.
Scholars and Dollars/ Scrimshaw Collectors' Weekend." September 2006.
"Museum Deaccessions/ Easy Come, Easy Go." August 2006.
"Painting Summer in New England." Review of a Peabody Essex Museum Show. July 2006.
"Former Harvard Medical School ProfessorConvicted of Attempted Grand Larceny in L.A." July 2006.
"Jones & Horan Sells Daniel Munroe Tall Clock for $54,000." July 2006.
"Portraits of a People." Review of exhibition at Addison Gallery of American Art. May 2006.
"The 46th Annual Ellis Antiques Show: Letter from "'Mesopotamia.'" February 2006.
"Ninth Annual Boston International Fine Art Show: Classy, Hip, and Hopeful." February 2006.
"Skinner Americana Sale: Time to Adapt." February 2006.
"Some Horological Geniuses, Some Old and New Brand Names: The 26th Annual NAWCC Ward Francillon Time Symposium." February 2006.
"Skinner's Latest Fitz Hugh Lane Sale Sets a Record." January 2005.
"America's Next Top Models?" October 2005.
"Skinner Hosts Benefit Auction for Provincetown Museum." October 2005.
"First Annual Spring Fair at Blithewold: It Rocked." Garden antiques. September 2005.
"Skinner Sells Calder Cache at Paintings Sale." September 2005.
"Scrimshaw Record Is Unexpectedly Smashed By A Burdett Tooth." July 2005.
"American and European Paintings at Skinner." June 2005.
"A Boston Book Show Reinvents Itself." June 2005.
"From Dauntless to Dreadnought: Americana at Skinner." May 2006.
'Hey, Carl!" Auctioneer Carl Nordblom, that is. April 2005.
"Clock Collection Sold in Cambridge, Massachusetts." A Carl Nordblom sale. December 2004.
"New England Collectors and Collections." Report on The Dublin Seminars. October 2004
"Clock Auction in New Hampshire." September 2004.
"Hermann Estate Sale." September 2004.
"McInnis Sells Another Heade." September 2004.
"Martin Johnson Heade Redux." A visit to a painting restorer. July 2004.
"Watch Auction in New Hampshire." July 2004.
"A Bradford and a Cache of Maine Silhouettes." June 2004.
"Stoddard's of Boston." June 2004.
"The Sale of the Martin Johnson Heade." February 2004.
"Live Bidding Only at Clock Auction." January 2004.
"Skinner Americana Sale." January 2004. The selling of a $1 million bombe chest.
"Shaker Auction a Bit Shaky." January 2004.
"American & European Paintings and Prints at Skinner." December 2003.
"Newly Found Hale Painting Brings $161,000." November 2003.
"Astronomical Timepiece Tops $1.38 Million Clock Auction." August 2003.
"More than Blue and Gray: 'The Civil War and American Art.'"
“Roadshow Warriors: A Retrospective, 1996-2006.”
“Israel Sack and the Lost Traders of Lowell Street.”
“Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style.”
“In The Land of Oziana.”
"Skinner Sci-Tech: Guns, Germs & Wheels."
“The Art of Woodcarving in America: A Symposium.”
“Rare Hemingway Items Sell for Record Prices at Swann.”
“Gastronomic Lit Sales: Recipe for Success.”
"A Cropsey at the Top and Then All the Rest."
"A Beautiful Portrait and a Brainy Clock Sell Best at Americana Sale."
‘You’re a Good Man, Frank Stanton’: Skinner Sells Snoopy."
"A Boy’s Portrait and an Auto Weathervane Drive $4.1 Million Americana Sale."
"Plains Pictographs Among Top Lots at Spotty Tribal Arts Sale."
"Warts & All: Identifying Famous People in Vintage Photography."
“Chelsea Clock Company Changes Ownership and Collectors Take Notice.”
"Connecticut Valley Furniture: More Than 14 Years of Research Finally Bears Its Fruit: Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800 by Thomas P. Kugleman, Alice K. Kugelman, and Robert Lionetti."
"Art for Sale at the Bruce Museum."
"Provenance and the 'Granny Notes' Factor."
“First Ever African-American Art Auction Sets 17 Artist Records.”
“Buyer with Spare $20 Million Sought for Complete History of Photography.”
“Americana @ The Piers: Their Ships Came In.”
"Early Photography at Americana Sale Soars."
“The Mao Market.” Justin Schiller's collection goes on the block.
“Miami Heat: Florida Paintings Set Records.”
"Tribal Arts: Yard-Sale Iroquois Moccasins, $10,575; Eskimo Snow Goggles; and More."
"Twentieth-Century Sale: Back to the Future."
"Gifford Painting of Union Soldiers in Prayer Fetches $831,000."
"Tribal Arts Sale’s Star: An Early Big-Horn Sheepskin War Shirt."
"Still Lifes by Peto and (Maybe) Coorte Steal the Show“
"Thoreau Pencils and Other Rarities Sell at Royka’s.”
“Scholars and Dollars: Scrimshaw Collectors’ Weekend."
“The Hawaiiana Market: Surfiana's Up.”
“Slave Poet’s Letter Breaks Record at Swann.”
“What Keeps eBay Up at Night.”
“Museum Shows and the Market: Two Art Deco Examples.”
“Time is Money at Sotheby’s: Masterpieces from the Time Museum.”
“Rhode Island Clockmaking: From Claggett to Durfee."
"American Daguerreotype Camera Sells at Benefit Auction."
"'Sketched at Sea'--The Exhibit and the Market."
"A Hibbard Heyday."
"Aaron Douglas Painting Brings Record $600,000."
"Aaron Willard Tall Clock with Stephen Bedlam Case and Dial Signed by John Minott Sells for $253,000 at 'Country' Auction."
"Antique Dealer Blooz."
"Arbus Photos Suit is Settled."
"An Auctioneer’s Collection Is Sold/ R.O. Schmitt’s Skeleton, Mystery, and Novelty Clocks at Christie's."
"Antiques on Cambridge Street to Close; Dealers Disperse, Regroup."
"Edward Bannister Paintings and a Whistler Print Lead Winter Sale."
"Bibles, Library Dupes, and Cookbook Lead Americana Sale."
"Collection of King of Dolls Sells for $1.23 Million."
"Institutions Buy Big at African American Fine Art Sale."
"Lang's $2.7 Million Sale, Its Best Ever, Breaks Angling Book Record."
"Long Decoys Sell at Historic $4.1 Million Sale."
"Madam Walker to Malcolm X at Annual African Americana Sale."
"Major American Modernism Collection Is Promised Gift to MFA, Boston."
"Mulliken Tall Clock, Found on West Coast, Sells for $33,350 at Kaminski."
"Naylor's Photographica Goes on the Block."
"New Record Set for Automata at Skinner Sci-Tech."
"Of Fishing, Fysshynge, and Other Sports."
"Queen Anne and Cape Ann Lead Anniversary Sale at Blackwood/March."
"Rare Film Sells at African Americana Sale."
"Records (Again) for Catlett and Other African American Artists."
"Sci-Tech, Clocks, and 'Crazy Stuff' at New Department's Inaugural Sale."
"Shaker Devotees Keep the Faith."
"Skinner Posts Its Best Ever Tribal Arts Sale."
"Skinner Sells a Fitz Henry Lane View for $1,384,000."
"Southern Art Market/ Those Rebel Yells Get Louder."
"Symposium Sponsored by Clock and Watch Collectors Honors Willis Michael."
"The Larson Clock Collection: Rare and Right."
"White and Woodruff Sell Best at African American Fine Art Sale."
Selected periodical non-fiction about food not cited above:
“Remembering Dione Lucas,” Gastronomica, Winter 2011. Before there was Julia Child, there was Dione Lucas -- on TV in the 1940s and 1950s. [$]
“A Beriberi Heart: Lessons from Slave Soldiers of World War II,” Gastronomica, Fall 2009. [$]
“‘Tis the Seasoning: How One Woman’s Bay Laurel Flavors Her Cooking and Even Her Christmas,” The Washington Post, December 20, 1998. Article about my 15-year-old bay-laurel tree, six feet tall. (Bought when it was six inches tall.)
“Pounded,” The Boston Globe, September 2, 1998. Beaten biscuits, et al.
“Think Thin (Fat Chance),” The Nation, November 3, 1997. Essay-review of nine books on dieting and eating disorders, including novels, memoirs, how-to's, and scholarly works.
“Dinner Roles,” The Women's Review of Books, October 1992. Essay on the then-new scholarly discipline of culinary history.
“The Art of Eating Words,” The Yale Review, Spring 1990. On the literary aspects of cookbooks.
[Untitled essay on writing about food in one's diary], American Wine and Food, June 1987.
[Untitled literary essay about eggs], American Wine and Food, February 1987.
“Balancing Act: Hot Offsets Cold in the World of Yin Yang,” The Washington Post, February 2, 1986. On the mystical properties of food, as perceived by Asians and others.
“For Prince, Today is the Day: How a Successful Spaghetti Maker Claimed Wednesday As Its Own,” The Washington Post, November 6, 1985. On the Lowell, Massachusetts, pasta factory and the three generations who built it.
“A Dinner for the Ages, and for The Scholars: Three-Day Boston Conference Stresses Food for Thought,” The Washington Post, June 23, 1985. On the Culinary Historians of Boston.
“Whetting One's Taste for History: The Cuisines of the Ages Satisfy the Appetites of Culinary Scholars,” The Washington Post, March 24, 1985. More about the Culinary Historians of Boston.
“Bread is the Whole (Grain) Story: Columbia Union College's Philosophy of Baking,” The Washington Post, February 12, 1984. On the Seventh-Day Adventists' bread bakery in Takoma Park, MD, their “Vatican City.”
“The Performance That Takes The Cake: A Recipe from the Belle of Amherst,” The Washington Post, January 29, 1984. On Emily Dickinson's black cake.
“I Wanted to Meet My Uncle and Learn the Secrets of His Last 100 Years,” The Washington Post, June 20, 1982. Essay about my 100-year-old great uncle, Zio Duce, and what he ate and drank.
“Is Our Diet Driving Us Crazy?” The Progressive, May 1978. An exploration of the link between diet and mental health.
Selected periodical non-fiction on various other subjects:
“H is for Hacker,” San Diego Reader, June 19, 2003. Reporter-at-large at a hacker convention.
"Too Close For Comfort," San Diego Reader, April 10, 2003. On the questionable safety of San Diego's Coronado neighborhood, home of a U.S. Navy base.
“Slave Soldiers,” San Diego Reader, March 13, 2003. On WWII vets suing Japanese corporations over forced labor.
“Hussey’s Pond,” DoubleTake, Winter 2002. Essay on the life cycle of a small body of water across the street from where I live.
"How Do You Like My Moonscape?" San Diego Reader, October 17, 2002. Report on a visit to San Diego County after a devastating fire.
"Birds Squared," San Diego Reader, July 11, 2002. Reporter-at-large with the San Diego Bird Atlas Project.
“Desperately Seeking Blondie: Machines That Think (Better Than You Do),” San Diego Reader, May 23, 2002. On a whole family of artificial intelligencers.
“Raptured,” San Diego Reader, April 19, 2001. Profile of George E. Lewis, experimental composer and trombonist, named MacArthur fellow a year after this mini-biography was published.
“Farewell, Worshipful Objects,” San Diego Reader, August 10, 2000. Profile of conductor/composer/musician Rand Steiger.
"The Last Tag Sale," San Diego Reader, June 15, 2000. Reprinted in Witness. A Father's Day story.
“Doctor Ramachandran's Artful Brain,” San Diego Reader, July 15, 1999. Profile of an internationally acclaimed brain scientist.
“Greenwich Beach Time,” DoubleTake, Summer 1997. Essay on the beach-access law suit brought against the town of Greenwich, CT.
“The Lover of Libraries,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1996. Essay on the library experiences of my youth and beyond.
“Revelations of a Reader on the Outside Looking Inward,” My Back Pages, Books, The Boston Sunday Globe, February 4, 1996. Essay about the theme of class in literature.
“Stifling the Cat's Meow,” The Women's Review of Books, September 1993. Essay about why I decided not to edit an anthology of cat stories, after my successful dog-story anthology.
“A Sad Chapter for Libraries,” The Boston Globe, August 15, 1993. Report on the financial difficulties of the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Massachusetts (despite the fact that John Updike sometimes hangs out there).
“Produced and Abandoned: Writers and their Early Efforts,” The Washington Post Book World, July 5, 1992. Essay on writers who have disowned their published books.
“Backtalk,” Poets & Writers, July/August 1990. On the pros and cons of responding publicly to bad reviews.
“Private Lives” The Boston Globe Magazine, November 8, 1987. On why we keep diaries.
“The Belles of St. Mary's: Coming to Terms with a Catholic Education,” The Boston Globe Magazine, February 2, 1986. Essay on my experiences at parochial school.
“A Puzzle of Historic Proportions,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 20, 1985. On getting lost in a British garden hedge maze.
"On Keeping Track With a Garden Journal," The New York Times, June 16, 1985.
"Facts of Fiction," The Washington Post, February 21, 1984. For the newspaper's "Firsthand" column, a piece about the process of submitting fiction to literary magazines, including an account of the acceptance of my first short story, by Joyce Carol Oates for her Ontario Review.
“Progress on Alcohol Fuels,” The Progressive, July 1978. Followup on my first piece on the same subject (cited below).
“Alcohol for Fuel,” The Progressive, November 1977. One of the very first, if not the first, news stories about this alternative to gasoline.
“The Breathless Cotton Workers,” The Progressive, August 1977.
“Methadone and Motherhood,” The Progressive, March 1977.
"How the Police Play Favorite Neighborhoods," Washington Newsworks, February 26-March 3, 1976.
"The Checkered Past of an Abandoned Gas Station," The Washington Post, February 19, 1976. Observations on the comings and goings at the property next door to my apartment in Georgetown.
"The Autobiographies of Mark Twain and Henry Adams: Life Studies in Despair," The Mark Twain Journal, Summer 1975. A college paper that got published.
Selected short stories:
"The Blue Heron," Western Humanities Review, Spring 1998.
"The House Nun: A Tale," Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 1992.
"Outings," Boulevard, Spring 1991.
"Cautionary Verses for Children," Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1991.
"Speaking on Condition of Anonymity," Southwest Review, Spring 1991.
“The Disappearance,” The Yale Review, Spring 1988. Reprinted in Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land, (New York, NY: Persea Books, 1991).
“Before Sewing One Must Cut,” New England Review/Breadloaf Quarterly, Winter 1988. Reprinted in Catholic Girls (New York, NY: Plume, 1992)
"Mother Tongue," Threepenny Review, Summer 1987.
“The Hard Hearts of the Poor,” The Boston Globe Magazine, July 26, 1987.
“The Motorcycle Riders,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1987-88.
“Shadow Bands,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1985-86. Reprinted in The Ways We Live Now (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1986).
“Why a Man Seen at a Certain Distance Cannot Be Recognized,” Quarterly West, Fall-Winter 1984-85. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1986.
“The Friendships of Girls Unpopular Together,” The Ontario Review, Fall-Winter 1984-85 Reprinted in You Don't Know What Love Is (Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 1987).
“The Ring: Or, A Girl Confesses,” The Greensboro Review, Winter 1984-85. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1986.
“Caddies' Day,” The Greensboro Review, Winter 1982-83. Reprinted in Best American Short Stories 1984, edited by John Updike, and in Perfect Lies: A Century of Great Golf Stories (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1989)
“Mr. Swint,” Ascent, Winter 1982. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1983.
“The Original Dog,” The Ontario Review, Spring/Summer 1979. Distinguished Mention, Best American Short Stories 1980.
Selected book reviews:
Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, From Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee by Bee Wilson, Gastronomica, Summer 2010.
American Wall Stenciling 1790-1840 by Ann Eckert Brown, American Studies International, June-October 2004.
Living it Up: Our Love Affair with Luxury by James B. Twitchell, American Studies International, February 2003.
"The Original Rosie," review of Rosie's Mom: Forgotten Women Workers of the First World War, The Women's Review of Books, June 2003.
Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926 by Steven Conn, American Studies International, June 2002.
"When Charles Met Alice," review of Still She Haunts Me by Katie Roiphe, The Women's Review of Books, October 2001.
"Vanishing Acts," review of Francesca Woodman, photography, The Women's Review of Books, January 1999.
"In the Global Gulag," review of Too Much Time: Women in Prison by Jane Evelyn Atwood, The Women's Review of Books, November 2000.
"Making Much of Little," review of Angela the Upside-Down Girl by Emily Hiestand, The Boston Sunday Globe, July 5, 1998.
"Different from Us," review of Photographs: Theater of Manners by Tina Barney and A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV by Mary Berridge, The Women's Review of Books, June 1998.
"Think Thin (Fat Chance)," review of a multiplicity of diet books, The Nation, November 3, 1997.
"Object Lessons," review of Glass, Papers, Beans by Leah Hager Cohen, The New York Times Book Review, February 9, 1997.
“A Brilliant, Doomed Man of Letters,” The Boston Globe, December 15, 1996. I.e., Isaac Babel.
Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home by Thomas A. Bass, The Nation, April 22, 1996.
[Untitled,] Points of Entry, DoubleTake, Fall 1995. Review of a three-volume catalogue that accompanied an exhibition of the same name that featured photography on the theme of immigration.
“Finding Ourselves in the 20s,” review of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s by Ann Douglas, The Boston Globe, February 19, 1995.
"On the Rink of Disaster," review of Women on Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle edited by Cynthia Bauman and Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters by Joan Ryan, The Women's Review of Books, December 1995.
"The War at Home," review of If the Tiger by Terry Farish, The Women's Review of Books, July 1995.
Hearts on Fire: The Story of the Maryknoll Sisters by Penny Lernoux, The Nation, May 9, 1994.
"Factory Fictions," review of Call the Darkness Light by Nancy Zaroulis, The Women's Review of Books, July 1994.
“Finding Ourselves in the 20s,” review of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s by Ann Douglas, The Boston Globe, February 19, 1995.
"Narrow World of Sports," review of nearly a dozen books about female tennis stars, The Women's Review of Books, February 1994.
"Dinner Roles," review of What Cooks in Suburbia by Lila Perl; Cakes Men like: 50 Fun-Filled Recipes by Benjamin Darling; Helpful Hints for Housewives! A Treasury for the Model Homemaker by Benjamin Darling; Neighboring on the Air: Cooking with the KMA Radio Homemakers by Evelyn Birkby; The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection by Karen Hess; The Carolina Housewife, or House and Home: By a Lady of Charleston by Sarah Rutledge, Anna Wells Rutledge, The Women's Review of Books, October 1992.
"Escape and Exile," review of Fugitive Spring: A Memoir by Deborah Digges and Shared Lives: A Memoir by Lyndall Gordon, The Women's Review of Books, July 1992.
Selected book reviews from Maine Antique Digest (2003-2017):
"The Story of a Shingle-Style House with Secrets," review of Jane Goodrich's The House at Lobster Cove.
Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors from Antiquity to the Present by Erin L. Thompson. (See p. 2 of link.)
A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund edited and with an introduction by Daniel Schulman.
An Observant Eye: The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum by David F. Wood.
Birds in Wood and Paint: American Miniature Bird Carvings and Their Carvers, 1900-1970 by Joseph H. Ellis.
C.F.A. Voysey: Architect, Designer, Individualist by Anne Stewart O’Donnell.
Chelsea Clock Company: The First Hundred Years by Andrew and David Demeter
Classic Modern: The Art Worlds of Joseph Pulitzer Jr. by Marjorie B. Cohn.
Clockmakers and Clockmaking in Maine 1770-1900 by Joseph R. Katra Jr.
Pennsylvania Shelf and Bracket Clocks 1750-1850 by Edward F. LaFond Jr. and J. Carter Harris.
Connecticut’s Fife & Drum Tradition by James Clark.
Culinary Ephemera: An Illustrated History by William Woys Weaver.
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan.
Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith.
Fake: Forgery, Lies & eBay by Kenneth Walton.
Fifty Years of Time: The First 50 Years of the American Clock & Watch Museum by Chris H. Bailey.
Fitz H. Lane: An Artist’s Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America by James A. Craig.
Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America by Jennifer L. Anderson.
Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth edited by Lynne Zacek Bassett.
Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz.
Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages by John Harris.
Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft by Simon Houpt.
Musical Machines and Living Dolls: The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata by Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier.
Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes 1825-1845 by Linda Carter Lefko & Jane E. Radcliffe.
Sargent’s Daughters: The Biography of a Painting by Erica E. Hirshler.
"The Geometry of Beauty." Review of Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection with essays by Horace Wood Brock, Martin P. Levy, and Cli]ord S. Ackley
Stretch: America’s First Family of Clockmakers by Donald L. Fennimore and Frank L. Hohmann III.
The Saturday Evening Girls Paul Revere Pottery by Meg Chalmers and Judy Young.
From Shaker Lands and Shaker Hands: A Survey of the Industries by M. Stephen Miller.
Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum by Stuart M. Frank.
The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley by Stephen B. O’Brien Jr. and Julie Carlson Wildfeuer.
The Error World: An Affair with Stamps by Simon Garfield.
The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts edited by Ronald D. Spencer.
The Girl with the Gallery: Edith Gregor Halpert and the Making of the Modern Art Market by Lindsay Pollock.
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meergeren by Jonathan Lopez.
The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws by Margaret Drabble.
"The Chair that Made the Nation," review of Windsor-Chair Making in America: From Craft to Consumer by Nancy Goyne Evans.
"Ready for Rediscovery: Evan S. Connell's The Connoisseur."
Poetry:
"Stalker," Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs (NY: Crown, 1995).
"Relaxation Techniques," Merrimack: A Poetry Anthology (Lowell, MA: Loom Press, 1992).
"Earth Walk," The Christian Science Monitor, April 10, 1985.
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