We salute the Academy of Music in Northampton for celebrating the art of the written word with its “The Valley Letters Project: Live on Stage.”

Letters written by 24 nationally known poets, politicians, actors, abolitionists, an aviator and an inventor will be read by Valley personalities and literary figures during the show at 7:30 p.m. March 10. Debra J’Anthony, executive director of the theater, will introduce the readers and provide context for the letters.

The explosion of digital communications “is just a recent phenomenon, over the last 20 years or so,” she says. “For all that time before — for centuries really — we wrote letters to each other. Yet that’s become a thing of the past very quickly.”

It took 1½ years of research to produce the show as J’Anthony and Emily Curro, development manager for the Academy of Music, compiled a list of notable people with a connection to the area, and then searched for their correspondence. The sources for letters included special collections in libraries of the area colleges, the Library of Congress and family estates.

Some of the letter-writers were easy to identify because they lived or attended school here: Calvin Coolidge, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Sojourner Truth and Kurt Vonnegut, for example.

Others chosen for the show had less well-known connections to the Valley. Aviatrix Amelia Earhart was in Northampton during much of 1919 while she recovered from Spanish influenza at her sister’s house. Earhart’s letter chosen for the show was written in 1932 to Orville Wright about a new car he bought.

A letter written in 1865 by Truth to fellow abolitionist Amy Kirby Post describes how streetcar conductors physically abused Truth when she tried to desegregate the vehicles in Washington, D.C.

“We really looked for letters that were personal, that described what someone was feeling or thinking, or that might shed some light on what life was like in those days,” J’Anthony says.

The goal is to remind people that letters once played an important part in people’s lives. “Think about how it felt like to get a handwritten letter from someone, instead of the junk mail we mostly get now,” J’Anthony says. “Didn’t that seem special?”

It did, and it’s an important part of personal histories that should not be forgotten in the digital age.

The March 10 fundraiser also will include a silent auction. Details are available online at www.aomtheatre.com.

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The women training during StrongWoman Sundays at the Hampshire Athletic Club in Amherst are shattering stereotypes.

They do things like picking up a concrete ball that weighs 120 pounds and tossing it over a bar above their shoulder, and lifting a weight called a log that is similar to a 75-pound barbell. The women taking part in the 90-minute sessions are getting in shape, preparing for competitions — and sending a message that women can be successful in a sport dominated by men.

“It is assumed that women can’t lift heavy things or they shouldn’t — I feel like we are pioneers,” says Stephanie Mattrey, 36, an acupuncturist who lives in Amherst. “Women are just as competitive as men.”

Some of the participants will test their skills at the Fem and Fierce Strongest Woman competition in Connecticut during March. No matter the result, we commend them for making a statement that women can be strongman athletes.

StrongWoman Sundays are held at 9 a.m. at the athletic club, 90 Gatehouse Road in Amherst, and each session costs $20.

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Congratulations to Matt Whitcomb, who grew up in Worthington, for coaching two American women to the first gold medal ever won by the United States in cross-country skiing at the Olympics.

Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall, in an upset, won the team sprint freestyle race at the Pyeongchang Games. It was the first Olympic medal of any color won by American women cross-country skiers.

Whitcomb, who now lives in Vermont, was named head coach of the U.S. women’s Nordic ski team in 2012. His parents, Cath and David Whitcomb, still live in Worthington, a town of about 1,100 people.

“We’re very proud and we attribute his success not to us specifically, just to the whole community that helped to raise him,” says David Whitcomb.