How to Find the Center

Cover reveal! Plus, new prompt and events.

I can share, at long last, the cover of my forthcoming novel, AT THE CENTER (April 20, 2027). Though you’ll have to wait about a year to hold it in your hands, it’s available for preorder now.

Preorders are a boost to everyone involved: the author, the publisher, the distributor, the chickens. (More preorders = more chicken treats.) A preorder is a vote of confidence for the many beings that bring a book to life.

What’s the book about? Good question. It’s hard for me to say. (It’s really not for me to say. It’s for you to say.) But here are two one-sentence summaries written by book people with smarts. One is the plot; one is the pulse. Or, as Vivian Gornick says, one is the “situation” and one is the “story.”

Situation: A burned-out teacher leaves New York City for the Center, a bucolic retreat compound, where, despite a nationwide paper ban, she’s forced to secretly document her past in notebooks and reinvent her story on paper for future generations.

Story: At the Center reckons with the loss of printed material, the climate crisis, and the destabilizing rise of AI; a visceral, courageous meditation on the power and risk of telling one’s story—out loud and on paper.

Which one do you prefer? Which one makes you want to preorder 100 copies?

Anyway, I love the cover. Regal House wanted my input— not all publishers do—and I suggested a reddish color, a key and a maze/labyrinth. These images are linked to plot points. The yellow lines also represent the long path to publication for this novel— for every book I write—from draft to maddening draft. (Will it ever be done? Will anyone read it? Should I quit and just raise hens?) The daily, meandering twists and turns.

I have a fear of getting lost even when I’m not at my writing desk. I get nervous on back roads, unmarked trails and in shopping malls. I’m scared of getting swept away in settings that are unfamiliar (forbidden forests, Victoria’s Secret stores). For this reason, I love maps of all kinds. Especially Maps. I like to know what lies ahead.

Stone labyrinth.

It seems counterintuitive that I would enjoy labyrinths, which are so often depicted as bewildering, malevolent places. See The Shining, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Pan’s Labyrinth. At best, impenetrable hedges loom high above eye level and fog machines churn. Make a wrong turn and you could end up in David Bowie’s puppet lair (Labyrinth). Maybe these spooky associations stem from Greek mythology, in which King Minos commissioned the craftsman Daedalus to build a labyrinth, wishing to trap the monstrous Minotaur—half man, half bull.

But these confounding places are not actually labyrinths. They’re mazes, with many options and choices, known as multicursal. A genuine labyrinth contains only one path: unicursal. As long as you keep going, you’ll end up back at the beginning. No Maps required.

I know that labyrinths have existed for at least 4,000 years, as evidenced in pottery fragments, ancient graffiti, and stone carvings throughout Southern Europe, in rock pilings near the White and Baltic Seas, in prehistoric petroglyphs in India, and in Hopi Native American culture, where labyrinths have long represented “Mother Earth.”

I know that in Chartres Cathedral, near Paris, the medieval floor engraving (circa 1200) allows pilgrims to walk as an act of devotion. In Britain, from the mid-1800s until World War I, garden labyrinths served as playgrounds for children and “places for dalliance by young lovers,” says Jeff Saward, author of Magical Paths: Labyrinths and Mazes in the 21st Century. The first recorded hedge labyrinth in the United States (1815, in Harmony, Pennsylvania) signified the spiritual quest of the Harmonists, religious objectors displaced from their native Germany.

Key West labyrinth

Now labyrinths are commonplace. I attended a delightful birthday party last week with one on the lawn. (Like a giant Twister sheet draped on top of the grass.) I found one during a recent trip to Key West. I’ve seen them outside hospitals and schools where they’re used as a form of gentle, calming exercise. Simply tracing the outline of a labyrinth on paper can be a soothing practice to counteract anxiety, I read online. (Must try this.) For some, the seven circuits of the classical design recall the seven chakras in yoga philosophy.

Seven circuits of the classical design.

“There are revivals of interest in labyrinths that occur throughout history,” says David Gallagher, executive director of the Labyrinth Society. They tend to be popular during times of upheaval. (Hello, 2026.) According to the Worldwide Labyrinth locater, where you can search by zip code, there are now 6,772 labyrinths in the United States. Included in that number is the seven-path classical design at a nearby wellness center in the Berkshires, conceived and built in 2001.

Since then, the pine bushes that line the spiraling path—which arrived for planting in one-gallon pots—have become full-fledged trees. The surrounding wildflowers, which bloom from spring until fall, include lupines, oxeye daises, rudbeckia daisies, coreopsis, and Sweet William. Ten thousand people visit this particular labyrinth each year, in all seasons.

Walking the labyrinth is a chance to notice the changing seasons in the features of the landscape—and the vacillations in my own brain. First I pause at the entrance and breathe deeply. I close my eyes and try to notice smells, sounds, sensations, thoughts. I might dedicate my walk to someone or pose a question. (Maybe the answer will bubble up by the time I reach the center.) Sometimes I just pay attention to the rhythm of my steps. I leave an offering in the center (a leaf or a stone), the place where the Minotaur once lived.

I walk the labyrinth because there’s only one real decision to make—whether or not to enter. I can walk during times of confusion or celebration, in inquiry or meditation, and I never get lost. *

At the Center is about getting lost and found. (Too short for a one-sentence summary?) I can’t wait to share it with you next year.

PROMPT: Take a walk and pose a question— the first one that comes to mind. (You don’t have to locate an actual labyrinth. You can walk to your mailbox and back.) See what comes up by the time you return and write it down. (You don’t have to come up with an answer.)

NEWS:

Thank you, Regal House and Publisher’s Weekly, for featuring At the Center on the front cover!

EVENTS:

WRITING WORKSHOPS

FREE workshops in Western MA: Sign up in advance. (Details below.)

Saturday, May 30, 4:00 -5:30 pm, Becket-Washington Athenaeum, Becket, MA: Inspired by Nature: Writing Prompts from Ross Gay, Mary Oliver and other Naturalists. Registration: Please contact the Athenaeum to sign up: info@BWLibrary.org or (413) 623-5483. This workshop is supported by the Athenaeum and the Washington Cultural Council, a local organization supported by Mass Cultural Council.

Saturday, June 6, 2:00 - 3:30 pm, Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, MA: Memoir Writing: What’s Your Story? Registration: Please send a message via my website contact page to sign up. This workshop is supported by the Pittsfield Cultural Council, a local organization supported by Mass Cultural Council.

Wednesday, June 17, 5:00 - 7:00 pm, (New) Town Offices, 21 State Line Road, West Stockbridge, MA: Pick Up the Pen: Start Your Writing Project. Registration: Please send a message via my website contact page to sign up. This workshop is supported by the Friends of the West Stockbridge Library; preference given to residents of West Stockbridge, as space is limited.

Sunday, June 28, 2:00 - 3:30 pm, The Williams Inn (Pine Cobble Room), 101 Spring Street, Williamstown, MA: Pick Up the Pen: Start Your Writing Project. Registration: Please send a message via my website contact page to sign up. This workshop is supported by the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshires, a local organization supported by Mass Cultural Council.

See my full 2026 class schedule here.

MUSIC:

Bobby Sweet Band - Becket, MA - Saturday, May 30, 8:00 pm, The Dream Away Lodge, 1342 County Road, Becket, MA. With Pete Adams, Abe Guthrie and Lara Tupper. Singing harmonies with the BSweet Band.

Bobby Sweet Band - Otis, MA - Saturday, June 13, 6:30 - 8:00 pm - Otis Ridge, 159 Monterey Road, Otis, MA - 413-269-444 - Singing harmonies with the BSweet Band.

SOLD OUT! Bobby Sweet: Family Tree Concert, Guthrie Center, 2026 Troubadour Series, Great Barrington, MA - Saturday, June 20, 7:00 pm, The Guthrie Center, 2 Van Deusenville Road, Great Barrington, MA - The BSweet Band features Abe Guthrie (keyboards), Pete Adams (pedal steel), and Lara Tupper (harmony vocals)-- with guest artists. Special multimedia concert featuring songs, stories and archival material from seven generations of Sweet musicians. (Look for future Family Tree concerts in the coming months.)

Bobby Sweet and Lara Tupper at the Den - Spring Residency, Stockbridge, MA - Thursday, June 25, 7:00 -10:00 pm. Join us at the Lion’s Den, Red Lion Inn, 30 Main Street, Stockbridge, MA. “$10/person music charge.” A mix of Bobby’s original Americana songs and new arrangements of our folk/roots favorites with harmonies.

See our full music schedule here.

And finally, if you’re still reading, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers have access to 150+ archived writing prompts and my gratitude for supporting the writing of my next book (Daughter of Congress), a memoir/biography about my father. (New founding members will get a special mention in the acknowledgments.)

*Adapted from “Walking in Circles: The Lore of the Labyrinth” for Kripalu.org

Image by Erik Mclean