It's a house party this weekend, y'all. For the house, we have a conversation with newly appointed leader of the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, secretary Juana Matias in the midst of her whirlwind Western Mass Tour, and get to ask about the ways the Baystate is helping it’s westernmost parts to weather the storm of our current housing crisis while learning how the office pivots in the face of construction and community opposition. In Parties, River Valley Democratic Socialists are seeking to make better working conditions for all of our trans neighbors and friends through a Pre-Pride Party at Fame in Holyoke on Saturday, May 30th, featuring the sound of the Trans Inclusive Crime Syndicate DJ collective on the turntables. NEPM reporter Phil Bishop joins us to speak with co-chair Sasha Morsmith about the needs of trans workers in the area and about the importance of celebration to protest and progress. And since a good party needs music, we crash the rehearsal space of W. New England’s own Glad Machine for Live Music Friday to hear a bit of how their sound has evolved, and get folx ready to get down with them this weekend at the Drake in Amherst.

It’s the last days of Foster Care Awareness Month and right at the base of Mt. Tom there’s an innovative model that’s introducing a neighborhood of care for folx of all ages. The Treehouse Foundation has built a community in Easthampton that seeks to blend the lives of seniors, children in foster care, and their families in one vision of support and growth. We head to their community center to talk with residents Sue Brow, Suzy Jubinville, and Lynn Muth, along with ex. Dir Erica Kuester to hear how this intergenerational framework is beneficial for all.And our weekly chat with congressman Jim McGovern is still bearing scorch marks from his fiery speech on the House floor. So our conversation explores the lack of a war powers resolution, the looming issue of CUBA, the impact loyalty to the oval office could have on midterms, the farm bill’s impact on small farms and SNAP and a whole lot more.

This weekend is the 20th anniversary of the Berkshire International Film Festival, celebrating on screens across the southern Berkshires and bringing filmmakers of all ages and from all over the globe to present their work over 4 days of showings, meetups and conversations. We speak with festival ex. director Kelly Vickery about the festival’s origins, and how it’s blossomed into this year’s lineup. We’ll also head to Buckland to explore the burgeoning agriculture at Fern Hill Farm, who’ve taken both new and old aspects to regenerative multi-generational farming. We speak with farmer Lindsay Allen about their alley cropping methods and how important trees are to the farm’s overall vision, and the things that urban farming has taught them about gathering the family together to work the land. Plus, Word Nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam Webster sidesteps from some quirky restaurant slang into an exploration of the linguistic evolution of the word Dish, and some other dining terms that have taken similar journeys.

Today has double book action to fill up your bookshelves. And with interesting connections. Storytelling as Healing is a presentation at the Northampton Center for the Arts that seeks to center the power of storytelling, connection, and community in the movement to end domestic violence and support survivors. Featuring authors and readers of work that examines these experiences and situations, the evening highlights the power of the written word as a part of ongoing process and endurance. We’ll speak writers Patricia Lee Lewis and Mydalis Vera as well as Marianne Winters of Safe Passage about this Thursday’s event. And speaking of important and powerful histories on the page “Queer and How We Got Here” is a massive wide ranging new non-fiction graphic book from author-illustrator Hazel Newlevant that ties key moments and figures from queer history to their own life and gender journey. This Sunday folx have a chance to meet them at Comics N' More in Easthampton and ask their own questions about this information packed tome, but we sit with the author first to see how their own life is inestricable from the ones that came before.

We're psyched about the long weekend, so we’re leaning into the celebration aspect of our extra day off.And on this show it means engaging with one of our favorite agricultural products wine! Kate Norris is one of the winemakers at Division Wines, carefully crafting the grapes of the Pacific Northwest into reflections of both the Willamette Valley and surrounding areas, as well as her early years in the Loire Valley, so we bring three teams of folx together for a supersized, hyperlocal thunderdome at Provisions in Northampton. We can’t celebrate without music, so Live Music Friday brings in a transatlantic duo creating bittersweet snapshots in time. Sophia St. Helen and Michael Lesko have just begun their journey of writing songs together, and we’ll hear a bit of that new creativity before you can see them perform at the Parlor Room on May 23rd. Plus word nerd Emily Brewster, resident wordster and senior editor at Merriam-Webster, gets us to look at words as an atlas and marker for location as we delve into the sound and context of American regionalisms.

This weekend the 6th Odenong Powwow returns to Amherst Regional High School gathering folx of all walks and honoring the indigenous traditions and culture of the many tribes in our corner of turtle island. We speak with founder Justin Beatty about the lessons learned in all of his years of producing the event, and about the foods, folx and community that grows through celebrations like this. In Ashfield, a dream to reconnect with the land has blossomed into a learning experience in craftways. On Growing a Bunch Farm, owner Lisa Fortin has connected with sheep and lamb farmers across New England to create amazing yarn colorscapes. We chat with her about the summer camps teaching kids skills in the hot months, the bottle necks in fiber processing, and get to see some of her dyeing operation up close as she processes skeins for Bloom Woolen Yarns. And in our weekly chat with congressman Jim McGovern, the representative is so mired in DC ongoings that he may not make it home for the long weekend, but still finds time to reminisce on the late Barney Frank, the retaliatory republican primaries, the constitutional crisis inherent in the possible Jan 6 reparations, and the lessons we all should be taking and acting upon from the civil rights movements of the past.

Today is accidentally a twofer, because when you have one of the nation’s most renowned ornithologists living in your purview, and the birds have just come back to the area because it’s spring, that’s just too much perfect kismet to not lean intoSo we’re headed out to the hills along the Connecticut river to go birding with author and illustrator David Sibley, as well as NEPM President Matt Abramovitz, avid birder himself, and digital creator Ayu Suryawan, on a hunt for the recently returned bobolink, and hear about the trials they face in our region’s habitat. We’ll also learn good "do"s and "don't"s for birders, tricks to bird calls, about Sibley’s work for the US Postal service that ties into the 250th celebrations, and more. Plus we get a chance to try out for ourselves NEPM’s own monocular to get a better glimpse of the birds (in addition to Sibley’s own very swanky telescope).(Also if you're interested in either False Knees or Rosemary Mosco's artwork, here are links to each!)

Today the fabulous 413 is about friendship, and literature. We head to CitySpace in Easthampton where a brand new theater company is kicking its first production out of the nest. Legoland is an amazing coming of age story about the impact of change and teenage fixation between two siblings who find themselves on an incredible journey to restore imbalance. We speak with the founders and actors of Why’s It Gotta Be Theater Company about the group’s founding, how cardboard and puppetry fit into this production, and where this beginning fits in their mission to present fresh queer voices and stories onstage.Then we head to the Berkshires to watch whales, or the hills that inspired tales of the sea at least. Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s country estate has just opened for public visits, so we get a tour with Berkshire Historical Society Director Leslie Herzberg to get some insight to the author’s life, and friendship with neighboring author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Plus we’ll learn some of the challenges that arise when restoring a historical house to reflect the time period of its most famous residents.

We’re breaking open the old ways to impart a bit of depth, while also honoring several upcoming ends. In Amherst you have a chance to see a lost classic restored to the silver screen. Queen Kelly was a film plagued by problems and a hemorrhaging budget that was a death knell for silent movies. Tonight, Milestone Films will show their restored version of the film at Amherst Cinema. We talk with company founders Dennis Doros and Amy Heller about the nuanced work of this restoration, their mission to expand the cinematic canon, and the fun particulars of this movie that they’ll also explore in conversation. And Mr. Universe, Kainaat Studios and former Hampshire college astronomer Salman Hameed fresh from the penultimate graduation at that institution delves into the notes of Galileo that lead the world to further enlightenment on the heavens, but brought him ever closer to the chopping block.

Today we head back in time to before America was America. In fact in this year of the nation’s sesquicentennial, we head one hundred years before that to an incident without which, the nation may not have been founded. In 1676, Capt. William Turner lead troops to massacre the indigenous people encamped on the banks of the Connecticut river. That single act would domino to retaliation, erasure, and indelible marks on the land of western Massachusetts. We traverse that area with the president of The Nolumbeka Project, David Brule to learn more of the nuances of this moment in history and hear how the present is seeking to restore more accuracy about it’s significance, including their Day of Rememberance event this Saturday, May 16th. We’ll also have Live Music Friday with Case Oats, whose arrival in music has taken many twists and turns through writing school and garage rock to land their post card perfect narrative lyrics in Americana, which you can hear for yourself tonight at the Iron Horse.

We have several reads for you, especially for your littles of whatever size and age they come in. The R.I.S.E. Festival is currently in its second year, bringing authors, artists, musicians and more to Northampton High School to celebrate the written and illustrated word, as well as promote the wellness that the arts can instill in all of us. We speak with organizer Jarrett J Krosoczka about all of the folx joining the festivities, and hear a preview from local musician Louis Phipps, one of the young performers who’ll join in those celebrations, and hear how this years festival has packed even more activities into one very full day on May 16th. And Congressman Jim McGovern checks in on the way to his offices in DC to explore the congressional votes on a war resolution for Iran, the administration’s current trip to China, the spread of redistricting fever in the fallout of the Callais decision, and the hotbed issue of rotisserie chicken that arises from a bevvy of listener questions.

If you didn’t get enough beautiful bee content yesterday, today is gonna melt your wax. Because we're going to one of only two state apiaries here in Massachusetts, nestled into the far reaches of the UMass Amherst Campus now in it's 10 year of collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR). We talk with beekeepers and researchers Kim Skyrm and Jessica Glover, don protective suits and head off to see their many hives and the residents thereof and talk about the very necessary and incredibly hard work of keeping bees in the Bay State. While there, we get to taste royal jelly and fresh honey, get in-depth on the work and lifespan of Queens, drones and workers, and hear about some of the challenges facing bees in the northeast, and more. Plus we'll let you know how you can visit the bees themselves at events around western mass this spring!