The passing of longtime Tisbury columnist Kay Mayhew has led to a search for a new columnist. While getting to know potential candidates, we asked our five living town columnists how they had found themselves in the position. Here are their stories. –Ed.
HERMINE HULL, West Tisbury
This is the story of how I came to write the West Tisbury column. Mary Jo Joiner had retired as the West Tisbury columnist, and we were without a town column for some while. My beloved father-in-law, Richard Hull, had recently been told that his cancer had returned, and he was facing the end of his life. He had been a writer and newspaperman for part of his career. Bobby, my mother-in-law, suggested that I should take on writing the column, that “it would be a distraction for Richard.” Mary Jo encouraged me to give it a try. Pat Waring was column editor at the time, and she agreed to hire me. Her advice: Tell a story in your own voice.
Every Monday morning, I brought the draft of my column next door. Richard and I drank coffee together while he read and edited my column. My in-laws had a pair of comb-back Windsor writing chairs in their kitchen, which is where we sat and worked.
After they died, and their house was sold, the only thing I wanted was those chairs. One was left to me, the other to my husband Mike’s brother, Jared. It is my most prized possession.
FYI: Richard always crossed out the adjectives in my drafts. I kept them in. They were my voice. Richard was a newsman, so clearly reporting the facts was what he did. I was telling stories in my own voice, a sort of diary of life in West Tisbury. My first column was in December 2004. Richard died in January 2006.
CLAIRE GANZ, Chilmark
I recall that it was dear Katie Carroll (current Chilmark town columnist for the Gazette) who suggested I consider the column. When Jane Slater wanted to retire from the Gazette’s Chilmark column, she’d tapped Katie to take over. Katie and her husband Marshall host the town’s front porch at their gas station in Menemsha.
The town columnist at the time, Valerie Sonnenthal, was facing health issues, spending more time in Rhode Island, and having trouble finding a replacement. Holly Nadler, then a new friend, was still writing for The Times, and said it would be good for me, because she liked my writing and was concerned that eldercare was consuming my life.
I was caring for both parents. Much of my time was spent reading to, researching, and helping my blind 90-plus-year-old father write his opus on the history of the imagination.
When I was a child, my father, a college professor of the “great books,” was frustrated by my brain; I have almost no short-term memory. He despaired over my trouble writing to his standards. In college, I studied psychology and statistics, and I had a career as director of clinical research operations for biotech companies.
Reviewing drafts of my column gave us a chance to heal what felt like a cavernous rift. He died three years ago on Easter.
JOANNE LAMBERT, Oak Bluffs
I was approached by Connie Berry to write the Oak Bluffs column when Megan Alley retired in 2021, after writing the column for more than 20 years.
At the time, my daughter Jenna worked as ad sales director for The Times, so I had met Connie and the staff. I have always loved to write — in fact, both my husband and I had written for a precursor to The MV Times called Island Light in the early ’80s. Having lived in Oak Bluffs for 40 years, I was deeply connected to the town, and involved in many different aspects of Vineyard life — through my work in hospitality, then early childhood education, and through volunteering. Plus I’m naturally a social person!
It seemed like a good fit to Connie, and I was happy to do it. I met with Megan Alley before I started, and she shared her experience — and her list of town birthdays! She was very supportive as I started, which I have always appreciated
KATHIE OLSEN, Aquinnah
In 1996, I became executive director of the Arts Council of Southern Oregon. Part of that job was editing a monthly arts newspaper that included a column for the executive director. I was loath to take that on, as my mother was a well-known writer, and I didn’t want to be compared with her … but, of course, I did it anyway, as it was part of the job. That column caught the interest of the editor of a local weekly paper, and before I knew it, I was writing features for them. I’ve had a column of one sort or another ever since.
When I moved to the Vineyard full-time 10 years ago, I always read the town columns in The Times, including those of Molly Purves, who was writing the Aquinnah column (my adopted hometown). After a few years, Molly left the paper, and for many weeks there was a small display ad asking for someone to take it on; meanwhile, Aquinnah remained unrepresented. Family and friends, including Nancy Aronie, who knew my book and my work from Oregon, kept urging me to do it. Finally, I wrote to Connie, sending her samples from some of the 52 past columns I’d written, and — ta-da — in late March 2022, I was given the privilege of taking it on. And so here I am!
MARNELY MURRAY, Edgartown
I’ve penned the Edgartown town column for almost a year now, but the truth is, I wanted it for much longer than that. About a decade ago, I was writing the food column for the Martha’s Vineyard Times, and I loved it, but I always had my eye on the town column. Gail Gardner had it for years, and she was wonderful at it, but every two or three years, like clockwork, I would reach out to her and just … check in. Planting a seed. Staying on her radar. Being genuinely, persistently interested without being annoying about it (and if you know me, you know how annoying I can get when I want something).
Eventually, when Gail decided to step away from it, she passed it on to someone within The Times — I think maybe two other ladies gave it a shot, until I finally got the call. It’s one of those things that taught me a real lesson about patience and about knowing what you want, and not letting go of it, not in a desperate way, but in a consistent, I’m-still-here kind of way. Sometimes the things worth having are the ones you’re willing to wait years for! To be writing the Edgartown town column now is not only an honor, but one of my favorite jobs to date.