The history of racial violence in the USA is usually framed in terms of the suffering of young black men, from George Stinney (executed, aged 14 in 1944 for a double murder he did not commit) to Emmett Till (lynched and mutilated, also aged 14 in 1955 for flirting with a white woman) to John […]
Category: Chronicle
Everything Poplars, past, present and conjecture.
Cobwebs on casements…
…and toadstools on treetrunks
MISSING: Jane Doe, 1997
In this first extract from Exeme, Claudia is on her way back to School for her senior year. After an unfortunate accident, she arrives at The Poplars’ gates in the back of a patrol car. Jack The Cop calls in on his radio, tells the dispatcher he’s going to drop me off at The Poplars. […]
INSPIRATION: Louisa May Alcott
Like many other little girls the world over, I devoured Louisa May Alcott’s famous quartet of novels several times: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo’s Boys. I giggled, wept, and was always slightly disappointed that Jo married Professor Bhaer – although I was glad she was so happy running her own school. Then I grew up, and forgot about […]
INSPIRATION: Peaches & Daddy Browning
The Sexual Revolution was a long time coming. Decades before the Pill, bra-burning, Roe vs. Wade or the Equal Rights Act, there was the struggle to establish that female sexuality existed, that women had enough agency over their bodies to enjoy – and even initiate – sex acts. Women in the USA and the UK […]
Tooth and Claw
Science outside the classroom: unsentimental lessons in Biology. Here in the countryside the students get to see nature in all its tough, unromantic glory. Images © Kate Carpenter www.katecarpenter.com
The Observer Observed
With my camera, I am used to being the one that watches. And yet, here, I feel as though I am the one being watched. Images © Kate Carpenter www.katecarpenter.com
“There will be rose and rhododendron…”
Spring flowers at the Poplars. So cheerful from a distance; so unearthly up close. Images © Kate Carpenter www.katecarpenter.com
Letters Home #2
Babe, You would not believe what I have had to do to get this to you. First, write it, like, actually scratch on paper with my hands and a sticky black ballpoint because there’s no way you can use the computers here to type anything you don’t want the teachers to see. Hens. We call […]
