We reach wide today.

And that’s active voice. You’ve almost certainly heard of it and its counterpoint: passive voice. But did you know there’s a voice that exists between those two? Our resident wordster, Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster in Springfield explains how to get your sentences within that liminal space.

Speaking of Springfield, there will be dancing there this weekend. This Saturday, Nov. 11th, Pathlight hosts “Let’s Dance”, which brings folx together to raise money for their organization that supports children, teens, and adults with developmental disabilities and their families. We chat with Syndy Meininger and Billy McBride who make up the team The Ballers and will be dancing onstage that evening, their instructor Loryn Englebrecht, and Pathlight Communications Director Leslie Tane all about the many programs the organization provides, as well as the fun of getting everyone to dance.

Not everyone thinks that toys can be for everybody, but The Toy Box in Amherst is out to change that opinion. They will hold an event on Nov. 9th, “So you think you’re too old for a toy store” which encourages adults to find joy in more things they may have thought they’ve aged out of. We speak with proprietor Liz Rosenberg about the joy that can be found in games, novelties, and play.

And as we get closer to The March for The Food Bank 14, we take a look at the some of the organizations that The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts helps along its mission. One of those is the largest food pantry in Berkshire County. The South Community Food Pantry services over 1100 families each week, and we speak with director Mary Wheat and Treasurer Pam Kueppler about the ins and outs of their operations, an incredibly successful drive they’ve just finished, and the many needs they still have to meet the demands of an increasingly hungry population.

We’re discovering things right under our noses.

Or in our basement, in the case of the Berkshire Museum. They’ve just opened an exhibit called “One of a Kind Wonders” that gathers some of the oddities that have joined their collection over the years. Chief curator Jesse Kowalski shows us around cursed paintings, creepy dolls, and the delicate art of drawing together seemingly disparate articles.

In Holyoke, youths are discovering themselves and the power they have within. Pa’lante Transformative Justice started within the Holyoke Schools but has evolved to be an outside organization working towards the same mission: engendering the inherent power within young generations in order to create strong, healthy, intergenerational communities free from oppression and injustice. We speak with Katelynn Cruz, who not only is currently on staff at Pa’lante, but is an alumni of the program as well.

And it’s election day! Time to go exercise our civic duties in the small elections that often go unnoticed, and unvoted. We have a rundown of the seven contested mayoral races in western Massachusetts with NEPM reporter Adam Frenier.

It’s the night before elections and all through the area everyone is stirring.

In our continuing efforts to talk with each of the candidates in contested mayoral contests, we reach one last stop. City Councilor Delmarina Lopez seeks the seat for Chicopee and joins us in studio to explain her vision for the city, her insights from being the first woman on city council in 10 years (and the first BIPOC person in nearly as long), and the direction the community has been asking her for.

We hear from Mr. Universe, Hampshire College’s Salman Hameed about how cosmic bodies crashing together caused the Earth to birth our moon, what changes that made to Earth itself, and some of the previous theories about the process.

And we’re walking in music in the Berkshires. The Berkshire Jazz Sprawl starts today and goes through Nov. 12th at various locations in the south of the westmost county in the Baystate. We speak with Ed Bride, director of Berkshires Jazz about creating a culture for jazz to thrive in the mountains and sharing a love for the genre with everyone.

There’s all sorts of festivities to get excited about today!

We head to Lenox, where our Dare Bottleshop & Provisions is about to celebrate it’s 2nd anniversary. In addition to the many delights they have in store for folx this weekend, Mary and Ben Daire take us on a tour through the styles of a grape that is often highlighted around this time of year: Beaujolais.

We’ll meet the latest addition to the NEPM jazz host line up: legendary bassist Avery Sharpe, in an interview we brought to the recent NEPM open house with NEPM newsroom legend, senior reporter Kari Njiri. Starting on November 3rd, Avery Sharpe will be hosting Fridays for Jazz a la Mode, and their conversation explores his origins in jazz as well as what he’d like to bring to our airwaves.

Our showcase of the work the Media Lab has done this summer concludes with Serenitee Graham’s interview of Hannah Moushabeck’s “Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine”, which now has much different impact, from the summer when this initially take place, so we also have an addendum of sorts from the author herself.

And after all of that, we need to dance. Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness or BCUC got started just a stone’s throw from Desmond Tutu’s home in Soweto South Africa, but they’ve brought their afro-psychedelic future punk to the area for two shows, including one on Nov. 4th at Gateway City Arts. We somehow manage to cram their high octane movement inducing rhythms into our studios for Live Music Friday to inject a little energy into our weekends as well.

In our very humble opinions, one of the best things about this time of year is the apples.Even a year of devastating frosts and floods couldn’t keep all of this years crop down. And that is to be celebrated for sure.

And celebrate is exactly what Franklin County has done for this crop for nearly 30 years. Franklin County Cider Days happens each year on the first weekend of November, sharing all things apple with not just other western Mass folx, but people from all over the world. As the location that really revitalized cider in the US, keeping this weekend going is more than a labor of love, and we speak with some of the new faces taking over leadership for this event, Field Maloney of West County Cider, Brady Shearer of Pine Hill Orchards, and Ben Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farms, about the changes, workings, and constants of this festival Kaliis has dubbed “The Best Time of the Year”.

Some of that cider will be transformed into a home remedy that has kept immune systems bolstered for ages. We chat with Kara Peters of Ahlbin’s Fire Cider about making a passion project into a business while keeping production and ingredients local.

On the other end of that spectrum one the worst things about this time of year is having to change your clocks from Daylight Savings Time (that happens this weekend on Nov. 4th, everyone!). However there is a growing contingency of folx interested in keeping the clocks in one system, and it’s backed by science. We invite Dr. Karin Johnson to the studios to talk about the many benefits of keeping our clocks in Standard Time and the bill introduced by Rep. Puppalo to keep it that way in the Baystate.

As the temperatures dwindle down along with the sunlight, our minds turn to keeping warm. It’s the tail-end of harvest time, and we are thinking of those who for many reasons do not get to share the bounty of food we have here in western Massachusetts.

One organization that is trying to tackle the problem of hunger across all four counties is The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The Food bank provides much more than support and sustenance to over 170 food pantries, survival centers, and other organizations that also seek to combat hunger on a local level. They’ve also just moved into a larger facility in Chicopee, just across the way from NEPM HQ. So we head over to get a tour of the new digs with Director Andrew Morehouse, who also gives us a peek into some of the more nuanced ways that the Food Bank is hoping to alleviate hunger, and a run down on their biggest fundraiser of the year which swiftly approaches: The March for the Food Bank 14, helmed by a one Monte Belmonte.

And to lighten the mood a bit, we get enlightened by our resident wordster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, Emily Brewster, about the fancy ways to describe some actions we do on the daily.

Happy last day of October everyone! This is a time both for things unseen, and for those unseen things to be respected.

In the realm of discovery for this the last of the spooky days, we turn to folklorist and author Jeff Belanger. He’s the host of New England Legends, which is both an award winning tv show and a podcast, and the author of over a dozen books. Looking into the stories of New England every week means that he’s definitely got some about western Massachusetts, and we pick his brain for terrifying tales of the four counties.

And tomorrow, Nov 1st, is Dia de los Muertos. Ofrendas in commemoration of the day are being erected throughout the region, and we speak with Iohann Rashi Vega and Jason Montgomery about expanding the number of ofrendas they are building from just one at the Wistariahurst Museum, to three monuments across Holyoke and Easthampton. The meaning of this day means many things to many people, and we venture into some of those connections, and how more community can be built by honoring those we’ve lost.

Change is in the air.

We’re helping people make room for loss. Out in the Berkshires, Latinas 413 have teamed up with both Hot Plate Brewing Company and the Berkshire Historical Society to bring Dia de los Muertos celebrations to Pittsfield. We speak with Liliana Atanacio, America Lopez, Tanya Romero, and Laura Cabrera of the newly minted non-profit, as well as head brewer at Hot Plate, Sarah Real, about transferring the traditions they’ve known to the place they’ve made home.

We’re also adjusting people’s perspectives of community spaces. We head to Holyoke, where The Wistariahurst Museum is about to end its spooky season programming and prepare its own Dia de los Muertos ofrenda. Director Megan Seiler takes us through the history of the building, and manages to show us some of what it will present in the future. And we attempt a little ghost hunting, as ‘tis the season.

And we’re discovering the places that allow us a little rest. The news has been overwhelming as of late, and Mr. Universe, Hampshire College professor Salman Hameed finds some solace in the grandness of space and science, some of which is portrayed in a short film. Perhaps the cosmos could be key in making humanity more humane? We can certainly hope so.

So much to do today!

We find ourselves in discovering the bounties being stored and picked at a women owned, women run farm as they transition their fall crops into their winter stores. Riverland Farm in Sunderland is exploring what the land can give us and we get to talk with owner Emily Landeck about the impact of the summer rains, shifting away from CSAs to wholesale, and some of the freedoms that actually allows them.

And speaking of harvests, Leverett Village Co-op will host it’s first Fall Harvest Festival this weekend. The event will have food, hay rides, demonstrations, and plenty of other activities from 11-4 on Sunday, Oct. 29th. We head up to the only store in Leverett to find out about what fun things we can get up to with the general manager at the co-op, Ken Washburn. And maybe we sneak in a very pretty Spanish red in for good measure.

We continue our showcase of this summer’s Media Lab Fellows and their series “Books for Young People”, This time Jeremiah Merced interviews Fabulous 413 host Kaliis Smith about the book she co-authored, “Sir Morien: A Tale of a Knight of the Round Table”.

And Louis Phipps joins us for Live Music Friday. A participant in one of the early years of the Youth Performance Festival we learned about earlier this week, Louie started his musical journey at 6 on ukelele, but in as much time has adopted guitar as his main instrument, and has 2 albums to show for his efforts. He celebrates the release of the second album, “Under The Sky We Play” on Oct 27 at The Parlor Room in Northampton.

Today, more than most, we’re looking at tiny things on a much larger scale.

There is a geological structure that is unique to Franklin County and which currently is seeking state recognition. Jurassic armored mud balls are an incredibly rare sedimentary structure, only known of for about fifty years, and we sit with their discoverer, retired professor Richard Little, to talk about the House bill that could make their status state official, as well as some of the other neat things that happen on our patch of the earth.

Then there is a re-examining of a notorious New England historical figure. Over the next few weekends, Ghost Light Theater will be presenting the musical “Lizzie!!!” at the Divine Theater in Holyoke. The work is a rock examination of Lizzie Borden and the circumstances surrounding the deaths of her parents, and we chat about how theater reframes both its main character’s frame of mind and her historical circumstances with director Kevin Tracy, and actor Shealyn Berube, who plays Lizzie herself.

And it definitely does not feel like a small thing to have a new speaker of the house, or to still be seeking to help your constituents flee a burgeoning warzone. This week our mcgoverning with congressman Jim McGovern seeks to keep all of these fast-moving, fraught events firmly in perspective.

Correction: During the course of our conversation with Rep. McGovern, we mistakenly referred to newly-elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as being from Kentucky. Mr. Johnson is in fact from Louisiana.