Can House leaders scare up more than 100 votes in order to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ promised veto of the same-sex marriage bill?

That’s the question of the week, and one that will surely test the leadership of freshman House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morrisville).... Read more

Some American artists spent the last eight years complaining about a certain Texan. Macklin “Mack” Finley spent the time writing The Mutt, a novel he says attempts to reconcile “artistic intent and class structure in contemporary America.”... Read more

Plenty of writers are publishing books about the global water crisis. Annette Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Vermonters for a Clean Environment, reads many of their works with keen interest. But after a while, the outspoken Danby activist admits, such aqueous tomes leave her feeling rather blue.... Read more

The old view of self-publishing is that it’s for writers who couldn’t get in print any other way. That’s changing, say recent stories in Time magazine and the New York Times. Both cite examples of authors who put out their own work, found an audience, and landed publishing contracts. Pocket Books Publisher Louise Burke told the Times that self-publishing is “no longer a dirty word.”... Read more

Howard Frank Mosher has his Jay Craven. But will Newfane novelist Castle Freeman Jr. ever find a simpatico director to bring his slim, taut novels to the screen?... Read more

If you live near Middlebury College, you’ve probably witnessed a rousing performance by François Clemmons. The self-described “DivaMan” wows crowds every January with melodic renditions of American Negro spirituals. Come summer, he sings in multiple tongues for students of the Middlebury language schools.... Read more

Art is about making something from nothing: filling blank canvasses; sculpting hunks of wood or stone; shaping forms from raw clay or globs of hot glass. All that’s required is imagination, courage and a lot of hard work, right? But if an artist makes something in her own studio, will anyone notice — let alone hear her cries of frustration? Probably not.... Read more

Christopher Plummer plays the aged Leo Tolstoy. Helen Mirren embodies his wife. Paul Giamatti is his disciple, Vladimir Chertkov. And James McAvoy is his secretary. Adapted from the 1990 historical novel by Middlebury College professor Jay Parini, The Last Station has award-season potential written all over it.... Read more

Lake Champlain’s status as a Great Lake lasted only briefly in 1998. But the skinny, 400-foot-deep body of water that forms Vermont’s western border has always been “great” in one way: It has an unusually large drainage basin. As botanist Mike Winslow points out in his informative guide, Lake Champlain: A Natural History, the lake’s tributaries meander from as far as 120 miles away.... Read more

At a time when retirees across the country are fretting over the collapse of their 401(k)s, Jane Dwinell and her husband, Sky Yardley, are living the good life. Dwinell, 55, and Yardley, 58, have no debt — no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card bills. They don’t have to work if they don’t want to; they earn $25,000 a year from their investments in Vermont state bonds, which are unaffected by fluctuations in the stock market. They live in a modest house they built themselves in Montpelier . . .... Read more