Fireside, a collaboration between The Mastheads, Pittsfield Public Schools, and other local organizations, provides poetry programming for children and adults that places students at the center of the literary culture of their city.

Named after the “Fireside Poets,” a group that includes writers with ties to Pittsfield including Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the program shares in the spirit of poetry as something to gather around, and to draw together families, communities, and schoolrooms.

At the elementary level, our ten-week workshops make creative writing feel significant, empowering, and fun.

We use local writers and artists as inspiration for writing classes and workshops, helping students to see themselves as part of a vibrant local literary culture, and making creative writing feel concrete and familiar. Each course culminates in the production of a Student Anthology and a Student Poetry Reading for family, friends, and community members. We make every semester unique by bringing in guest artists, taking field trips to our writing studios at Arrowhead, and incorporating student poetry into county-wide design projects. Our current partners include Morningside Community School and Conte Community School.

At the teenage through adult level, we offer workshops tailored to each group of students.

Workshops can range from a series of one to ten workshops for any number of students. Each workshop focuses on themes specific to the group, for example, poetry & food with our partner Roots Rising, or poetry & community with our partners the Westside Legends. If your organization is interested in a workshop, please reach out at info@themastheads.org!

Fireside is generously supported in part by The Blackwing Foundation. Find out more about them here!