"I'm wondering," said Evelyn Moore, who lives across from the Armory in the Jeanne Jugan Residence run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, "is it normal for an 84-year-old woman to be this excited about her future?" Moore is not the only one excited about the transformation of the Armory from a storage space to a multi-use arts center over the last four years.

"It's amazing the transformation it's gone through," Ward 5 Alderman Sean O'Donovan said. The Armory, designed by Boston architect George A. Moore, was constructed in 1903 for the Somerville Light Infantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. Over the years, the National Guard and the State Police occupied the space. In April 2004, Joseph and Nabil Sater, owners of the Middle East club in Central Square bought the decaying property from the state for $2.6 million.

"They seem to be very close to where they want to be as far as moving forward for the certificate of occupancy," O'Donovan said. The Armory needs to meet 41 conditions made by the Zoning Board of Appeals before it can receive a permanent certificate of occupancy. "The 41 conditions have become our bible," said Debra McLaughlin,member of the Armory's board of directors. McLaughlin emphasized the Armory's focus on the four pillars – visual arts, theater, dance and music – which abutting cities Medford, Cambridge and Boston already have. "We're very excited that there was a vision to turn a historic building into a community arts center and it's slowly but surely becoming a reality," McLaughlin said.

Under a temporary certificate of occupancy, the Armory houses the offices and workspaces of seven tenants, including the Actors' Shakespeare Project, Arts at the Armory, Case AVP Photography, Hi-N-Dry Music Studio, the Mark Sandman Music Project, Moving Celebrations, and the University of the Middle East Project. The tenants aim towards the community, with after school programs for children and discounts for students and seniors.

"If there's anybody who can anchor a community, it's Joseph," said Andrew Mazzone, who represents Hi-N-Dry Music Studio and the Mark Sandman Music Project. "He did this for the community not for any particular group."

Apart from new office space, the Armory's renovations include two live-work spaces for artists and a 1,200-square-foot cafe, which can also be used to entertain crowds up to 50.

The crown jewel of the project is a transformation of the Armory's drill hall into a 7,000-square-foot performance space. What was a basketball court four years ago, now features a mezzanine overlooking a floor that can fit 395 people during "at capacity" events 10 times per month and 325 at other times. Under the 41 conditions, performances would last no later than 11 p.m., unless agreed upon by the Board of Aldermen.

Although McLaughlin said the performances wouldn't be loud, they took additional precautions by hiring MJ Audio, who has helped soundproof the space and provided technology that keeps the sound inside. "The intention was never to come into a neighborhood and disturb the neighborhood," Joseph Sater said. "If the intention is to have a nightclub, I won't have that in a residential area. For the money I spent I could have had it anywhere I wanted."

At a community meeting last Wednesday, neighbors expressed lingering concerns about the Armory, including parking, rear floodlights shining into their homes, neglectful landscaping and the noise. "From the get go, it's been a concern of the neighborhood that it does not turn into a function hall," said John L. Sullivan, the self-described "tribunal leader" of the neighborhood. "If it works within the neighborhood, we understand the impact of having it there, but we need to make sure that we are entitled to our peace and tranquility."

Although the floodlights and landscaping have been fixed, some neighbors argued the parking situation is terrible even without the Armory fully operational. McLaughlin said the Armory is renegotiating a lease for overflow parking with Cambridge Health Alliance, but noted the need for community members to use alternative transportation when attending the Armory. The 88 and the 90 buses pass by the Armory on Highland Avenue,and one of the 41 conditions is to install bicycle racks.

"I think this is unprecedented that the neighbors are being given so much control," said George Landers, of the Inspectional Services Department. "I have never seen anything like this in my time down at ISD. They are just reaching out for this to work."

Another of the conditions is to create a Neighborhood Advisory Committee comprised of Alderman O'Donovan, representatives from the Armory and three neighbors. Nominations for these positions are now being accepted and are available on the Armory's website. "It's going to be a great thing, in my opinion, when all the conditions are satisfied, for not only the arts community, but for the seniors, the children and the people from the high school," O'Donovan said.

When he didn't secure a teaching assistant position he was forced to drop out and applied to the Radcliffe Publishing Seminar, attending in the summer of 1978. During his time at Houghton Mifflin, Kessenich recruited W. P. Kinsella author of "Shoeless Joe," Rick Boyer author of "Billingsgate Shoal", a mystery that won an Edgar Award for best mystery novel of the year, David Payne, author of "Confessions of Taoist on Wall Street", and Dianne Middlebrook editor of "Selected Poems of Anne Sexton."

Kessenich was the editor for Terry McMillan's first book "Mama," as well. I spoke with him on my Somerville Community Access TV Show: " Poet to Poet: Writer to Writer."

Doug Holder: After you graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1974, you told me you "meandered" throughout your twenties. What did you do? Is meandering a good thing?

Lawrence Kessenich: It was good for me. At the end of college I was interested in the theatre. I started doing amateur theatre. I basically spent my twenties applying to graduate schools. I was accepted into a theatre program, but at the last minute decided it wasn't for me. I was starting to write a lot at that point. I put together some short stories that I had written, and applied to 5 or 6 programs. I didn't get into any of them. At that time I started writing more poetry and so the next time I applied, I applied in poetry. I got into three different programs and chose the one at UMass-Amherst. I have always been attracted to Massachusetts. They had a very good program at UMass.

DH: How did you support yourself in your twenties?

LK: I had all sorts of odd jobs. I worked in a hospital and assisted in autopsies-that was an interesting experience. I worked at an art supply store, a U Haul dealership.

DH: You attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course in the 70s. Was it sort of like a boot camp for getting into the publishing industry?

LK: That's a pretty good description. It's six weeks and it is very intense. I went 25 years ago, I think it has been around for sixty years now. They bring in a lot of people from the publishing business, it is just not theoretical. I eventually got the job at Houghton Mifflin from someone I met at the course.

DH: But you originally wanted to be a writer and now you found yourself on the road to being an editor.

LK: I sort of had an epiphany when I left UMass. I thought maybe I was more suited to be the helper than the person who actually creates the stuff. It turned out I was pretty good at it…it was a good role for me. But eventually I did want to become a writer myself. I did a little, but it is hard when you are an editor. There are only a handful of people who do it.

DH: You say you had to "acquire" novels in order to get ahead. How does one go about doing that?

LK: Well, for novels or nonfiction-you basically read articles. When you are starting out agents won't talk to you. So you talk to other people, read literary magazines, the smaller magazines, where the authors aren't necessarily well known. There is a magazine in the publishing trade called: "Publisher's Weekly." I discovered the author W.P. Kinsella who wrote "Shoeless Joe" there. The reviews appear in PW before the book is even out. So I happened to read this review of a Canadian anthology of short stories. There was a one sentence description of Kinsella's story: "An Iowa farmer builds a playing field in his cornfield in order to invoke his baseball hero Shoeless Joe Jackson." It sounded wonderful. I'm from the Midwest, and I like sports. I was young and naïve and I didn't know much about publishing. I figured that fourteen editors would write to him as soon as they saw it. So I decided I was going to write him right away. I asked him if he ever had written a novel. Nobody wants to start with short stories. It happens once in a while but it's rare.

DH: You worked with Diane Middlebrook on the "Selected Poems of Anne Sexton." What role did you play-did you select any of the poems?

LK: No. I wish I could of because she was one of my favorite poets. I was there as a representative in the publishing house. I made sure that when the manuscript was turned in they did the right things with it: like cover design, inside design, and I was the intermediary between anyone else they had to deal with.

DH: In an interview with Lois Ames, Sexton's and Sylvia Plath's social worker, and author of the intro to Plath's "Bell Jar," Ames told me she tried to write a biography of Plath but ran into a lot of trouble with the family. Did this happen to Middlebrook?

LK: It took years for Diane to write "Anne Sexton: A Biography." But during that time she called me up and said: "You are never going to believe what I have— the tapes of Sexton's sessions with her therapist." "Well" I said. "This will guarantee that the book will be controversial if nothing else." And it certainly was and the family was very upset. This fact didn't come out until the book was published.

SINATRA

* For the Honorable Thomas M. Menino

Mayor of Boston

in the late hours

of Saturday night

at the end

of the week

in every corner

of my room

Frankie has

a song for me

in the low

breaking dawn

the endless

Fifth Avenue

of my memory

the voi
ce

is Sinatra

he is a song

that follows me

through the lonely

city nights

and smoke-

filled bars

of drink after

drink and lighting

up letting

the smoke rise

into the air

drop a nickel

in the machine

Frankie has

a song for you

–Sam Cornish * From "An Apron Full of Beans"

"You can't go wrong having a pig as a hero," Haigh said. "That's advice I should follow in my own work."

On Nov. 22, Haigh, a critically acclaimed author, will be at the VFW Dilboy Post for the sixth annual Somerville News Writers Festival.

Haigh will come to Somerville from Hull, where she now lives. Hull is an isolated community on the South Shore. The seclusion may explain why Haigh creates such vivid characters.

"I really write from my imagination," Haigh said. "So it's all pretty much made up right out of my head."

Her third and most recent novel, The Condition, came out in July. It takes place on Cape Cod and is the first of Haigh's books to be set in Massachusetts. The title refers to a condition called Turner syndrome, which Gwen, the middle child of the McKotch family, is diagnosed with. Although there is no memoir component to the story, Haigh can relate.

"This idea first germinated when I was a kid. I went to junior high with a girl who had Turner syndrome," Haigh said. "It wasn't until years later, I was doing medical research for a different novel and I came across an article in a medical journal and recognized her condition."

Turner syndrome is a genetic glitch found in females that doesn't allow them to mature physically. The Condition follows the McKotches for 20 years after Gwen is diagnosed.

"She never goes through puberty," Haigh said. "Mentally, emotionally she matures but physically she stays very small."

The novel centers on the condition, but it encompasses all of the McKotches, who are products of their New England environment. Similarly, the characters in her second novel, Baker Towers, are embedded in the culture surrounding Bakerton, a coal mining Pennsylvania town like the one Haigh grew up in.

"The place itself is familiar to me," Haigh said. "In a certain way, we're all shaped by the place we come from."

Baker Towers won the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. Haigh's first novel, Mrs. Kimble, won the 2004 PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Along with these novels, Haigh writes short fiction, which has been featured in Granta, Ploughshares, Five Points and Good Housekeeping.

Haigh isn't a serious athlete, calling herself a lazy runner, but she relates these writing styles to running.

"Writing short stories is like sprinting and writing novels is like training for a marathon," Haigh said, adding that writing novels is a more complicated process. "The hardest part of writing novels is making something out of nothing. It's a very intimidating prospect and I think the enemy is despair."

Whenever Haigh loses motivation, the thing that gets her back on track is reading.

"For me it's essential that I read everyday and read something really good," Haigh said. "Reading good writing is like taking vitamins. It only benefits you."

The author's that Haigh admires are Richard Yates, author of Revolutionary Road, and James Salter.

"[Salter's] one of these great living writers nobodies ever heard of. He's really a wonderful stylist and also writes these very clean disciplined sentences," Haigh said. "I'm not saying my work is anything like that, more that I wish it were."

Haigh got where she is today by writing persistently, taking pen to pad first thing in the morning everyday.

"In some ways it's the most boring occupation imaginable," Haigh said. "You need a tolerance for monotony, which I suppose I have."

In the future, Haigh plans to write another novel, the form she's most comfortable with, but she won't disclose any concrete details.

"Perhaps, I will write a heroic pig novel one day," Haigh said.

East Somerville, the most densely populated section of the most densely populated city in New England, is rich with a plethora of architecture, social and ethnic backgrounds and history. It is ripe with subject matter for the 42 locals who chose to submit their photo for "Interpreting East Somerville," a community photographic exhibition that spans throughout City Hall.

The opening ceremony for the largest art show ever at City Hall will be held Thursday at 93 Highland Avenue from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by East Somerville Main Streets, the photographs will be up until the end of January.

Most important to those who wanted to immortalize a piece of their city, East Somerville is not just their home, it's their community.

"It's a great idea to display what everyone has captured," said Bill Ritchotte, 41, a broadcast designer, who moved to East Somerville three years ago from another part of the city. "Somerville is one of the cities where people tend to take a lot of pride in living here. It's great to see visually what people are thinking about. It's a visualization of their pride."

Ritchotte, who appreciates gazing at the neighborhood's old homes while walking his rottweiler, submitted a photograph of a structure covered with old vines. It commanded his attention, he said, as a reminder of the old Somerville that is quickly being wiped out by the rising gentrification.

Laurie Vivenzio, 32, a graphic designer, was fascinated by the small footprints painted onto the sidewalks throughout East Somerville. So she took a photograph of them. "I looked down and thought, 'This is a photo of East Somerville,'" she said.

Vivenzio has lived in East Somerville for five years. She bought her first home there, as she fell in love with its subtle charm that she deems "underrated." She doesn't take photographs often, but was delighted at the chance to participate in the exhibition open to everyone in the city.

Renee Polcaro, 25, who works in clinical software sales, also bought her first home in East Somerville a few months ago-a multifamily where she is the proud "landlady." She was living in Brighton, but fell in love with the varied and unique diversity of squares that Somerville offers.

For her photograph, Polcaro waited for a quiet end-of-day moment by Broadway and Cross Street and snapped. Her photo features the fading rosy light and silhouetted buildings. She describes her photo as being littered with moments of normalcy, with folks going about their business in the mix of the hustle bustle and the calm.

"It shows that it is both rural and suburban here," she said. "I had read a lot about the neighborliness of Somerville; how the residents and the city work together in a square-oriented atmosphere."

Both Carrie Dancy, the executive director of ESMS and Christopher Poteet, an ESMS volunteer and East Somerville resident, agree that holding a photography exhibit for all of the community to join-an event without guidelines aside from it being an opportunity for self-expression-makes art accessible to everyone.

And more important, they said, it makes East Somerville more available to everyone.

"People don't always know about East Somerville," Poteet said. "I see a dichotomy of people who live in the neighborhoods and what their impressions are, and those outside of East Somerville and their impressions. A lot of what this show is about is the opportunity to explore East Somerville. In a lot of ways, it is a creative survey."

The show is also a spin-off of the event this past April, "Colors of Americas: East Somerville Artwalk" where artists displayed their work along Lower Broadway storefronts.. It made sense to graduate to putting out an event where the whole community could participate, Poteet said.

"There's a lot of creative and cultural energy in the neighborhoods that often gets overlooked," he said. "We see the arts as a medium to bring people together in a way that nothing else can."

Keith Harris, 38, submitted a photo he took 10 months ago of an old brick chimney atop a building off Broadway. The building has since been rebuilt, and the chimney taken down.

"I captured a moment in time in East Somerville," said Harris, who has lived in Somerville for 11 years, and in East Somerville since 2001. "This is a community where a lot of stuff has happened over the past few years…I see more community in this area and think that it is great that the locals were asked of what they think of East Somerville, and their eye on the city."