Amherst Massachusetts

  Less than a mile from where I slept, studied, partied, and wrote my first journalistic words at UMass Amherst lies a well-preserved 19th century home in which one of the world’s leading poets quietly crafted poetry we still cite and study today. I never thought about visiting Emily Dickinson’s home as my life-changing experience at college unfolded in the late 1970s. I didn’t even know it was there. I sought to correct that oversight recently when I visited my alma mater to see students who produce the college’s daily newspaper. It…