Bruce Watson

The Attic’s American Places reports on Watson’s visits to such locales as Cadillac Ranch, the Grand Coulee Dam, Harpers Ferry, WV, the Mark Twain House, and Toad Suck, Arkansas. During the COVID-19 crisis, Watson is runnning a month-long feature on ‘’The Healers,’’ featuring the humanitarian work of Walt Whitman, Lillian Wald, Paul Farmer, and others.

The Attic, where Watson encourages readers to “rummage,” is a collection of articles, lists, songs, and quotations, all promoting ‘’a kinder, cooler America.’’ Themes include American Faces, American places, American history, literature, and arts, women, humor, plus smaller sections on science and music. Though the site avoids current politics, it has profiled such reformers as New Deal Labor Secretary Francis Perkins, United Farmworkers organizer Dolores Huerta, and African-American icons Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. “I want Attic readers to be constantly surprised and inspired by what they find up there,’’ Watson said.

The Attic has 1,500 weekly subscribers, several thousand followers on social media, and readers in 97 countries and all 50 states. Among the American Faces featured in The Attic are poets Langston Hughes, Tracy K. Smith, and William Carlos Williams, artists Jasper Johns, Judy Chicago. and Jacob Lawrence, novelists Jack Kerouac and Leslie Marmon Silko, and humorists James Thurber, Ogden Nash, and Robert Benchley. ‘’Finding and writing about people who worked against the grain in some way or pushed back against hard times is always a pleasure,” Watson said.

Since January 20, 2017, Watson has published an online magazine, The Attic — www.theattic.space . Watson conceived the site as a non-political response to the intensely partisan politics of our times. “I was tired of all the anger,” he said. “It seemed like it was driving so much of the coverage and content in magazines and newspapers. At the same time, it felt like something was really being lost with our history. You have to know your country, know the past to move past all the anger.”

Bruce Watson (born August 17, 1953) is an American writer who specializes in American culture and history. He has written six books as well as feature articles, humorous essays, and book reviews for Smithsonian Magazine, American Heritage, and other publications. Watson publishes an online magazine called The Attic that highlights true stories.

Watson was born on August 17, 1953 in Peoria, IL and grew up in Orange County, California. He studied creative writing at Pomona College from 1971-1973. He received a B.A. in journalism in 1976 from the University of California, Berkeley, an Elementary Education credential from California State University San Francisco in 1981, a M.Ed. in Elementary Education, specializing in Math, Science, and Instructional Technology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1990, and a M.A. in American History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. He has taught at Deerfield Academy, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bard College, and Hampshire College.