For nearly a decade, Amherst College has thrown an annual LitFest featuring high profile authors and poets on and off campus. Here to talk more about the festival are Amherst College alums Aparna Nancherla, year 2005 graduate and highly successful comedian, and Jen Acker, year 2000 graduate, author, LitFest organizer, and editor in chief of The Common. We chat with Nancherla as she gears up for her feature in the festival, and hear from Acker about all that is involved in throwing the event.
We delight in linguistic misfires today with wordster Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster. We talk about mondegreens, where they get their name, and our personal experiences with mishearing.
And, in the early 1900s, four western Massachusetts towns were flooded to fill the Quabbin reservoir, which wiped them off the map and provided Boston and the surrounding areas with drinking water. Today, the towns closest to the reservoir do not have access to that fresh, clean supply. Here to talk more about this is NEPM's Alden Bourne, who has been reporting on water quality issues of the reservoir’s surrounding areas and what Beacon Hill is aiming to do about it.