Once considered a “melting pot,” my hometown, the City of New York, is now more of a test tube, and a harbinger of where – for better or worse – the nation is heading.

When my friend and Martha’s Vineyard neighbor Samantha Look contacted me recently about judging for the Vineyard Conservation Society’s Art & Writing Contest, I felt honored and thought I should give it a try. I had never judged a contest before. But I’ve judged and edited a lot of writing; that feels second nature to me.

Recently I’ve been reading the “Barrøy Chronicles,” a wonderful four-novel saga by the Norwegian writer Roy Jacobsen. The books are about a woman’s life (and it is a very hard life) on a tiny Norwegian coastal island before, during, and right after World War II.