54 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 15 2009
has been a banner year for playwright Juliane
Hiam. In the past 12 months alone, she has
had two plays in production— one about nine-
teenth-century Paris and the other a children’s
play based on Norman Rockwell’s illustrations.
In addition, she was the writer-in-residence at the Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art, where she also taught playwriting to
elementary-school students. Currently, she’s teaching playwriting to
adults throughanorganization called Inkberry. Somemight consider
her level of output unusually high. But that kind of prolific creativity
is commonplacewhereHiam resides, in the bucolic setting of north-
westMassachusetts’sBerkshireHills.
Berkshire County, a district that encompasses the westernmost
portion of the state of Massachusetts, from its north border all the
way to its south one, contains
the foothills of Vermont’s Green
Mountains, which are known as
the Berkshires. This scenic re-
gion isknown for its richnatural
resources but more notably for
itsreputationasamagnet forpo-
ets, composers, authors, artists,
inventors, singers, andothercre-
atively spiritedpeople. Thisphe-
nomenon can be traced back to
the1850s,when theareabecame
inundated with great literary
minds such as Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, who lived in a cottage
near the town of Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, for a year and a
half during a particularly pro-
ductiveperiod inwhichhewrote
The House of the Seven Gables
and parts of
The Blithedale Ro-
mance
.HermanMelville,anoted
authorwhohadvisited theBerk-
shires since his boyhood, moved
his family to the town of Pitts-
field,Massachusetts, in1850.He
is said tohavedrawn inspiration
for hismost famouswork,
Moby
Dick
, from the looming shadow
of Mount Greylock. And Henry
David Thoreau, a frequent visi-
tor to the region, wrote a lyrical
homage to the samepeak,which
is the highest point in the state
ofMassachusetts, inhis “ANight
onMountGreylock.”
That artistic tradition has
continued throughout the years,
with talents fromNormanRock-
well toGwynethPaltrow seeking
solace and stimulation amid
the pastoral landscape. It seems
even those who leave — like
Hiam,whogrewup inBerkshire
County but left for a period to
study inCalifornia— eventually
find theirwayback.
“The Berkshires absolutely
inspire me,” Hiam says. “The
pioneer spirit from early settlers,
thepoetry of thenature, and the
collaboration of the artists who
are attracted here all make for
goodmusings.”
IT
Now the first ofDecember
it was coveredwith snow
Yes, and sowas the turnpike from
Stockbridge toBoston
Oh, theBerkshires seemed dreamlike
On account of that frosting
With 10miles behindme and
10,000more to go, you know.
—JamesTaylor
Clockwise from top left: A
Berkshires countryside, fall in
theBerkshires, Chesterwood
art studio, theNaumkeag
estate, andwinter on the hills
