What would happen if we actually were able to live with the celebrities we fawn over? You’d need to fully restock your kitchen three times a day to support Michael Phelps. Annie Oakley would surely stir up trouble with the neighbors. Whoever it is, normal life would simply go awry.

In her work-in-progress play, Wild Nights, award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates portrays the attempted assimilation of not only a celebrity, but one of the greatest literary names of all time — Emily Dickinson.

Remembering Helen (Hellcat) Lamb is like remembering a comet. Something fiery and awe-inspiring, hardly comprehensible to the average person — and even in Hellcat’s case of 97 years — fleeting.

It takes just one person to inspire a community. That is the legacy of the late Della Brown Hardman, educator, artist, writer, mother and friend. As residents and visitors in Oak Bluffs have witnessed since Della’s death in 2005, an inspired community can keep alive such a legacy through continued effort.

The annual Della Hardman Day celebration of the arts is tomorrow in Ocean Park. This will be the eighth year that a neighborhood, town and Island gather to celebrate art and life, Della-style.

Daniel Beaty is a man of many talents. And in his off-Broadway, award-winning play called Through the Night, he is a man of many men. Tonight, July 27, Mr. Beaty is bringing this one-man performance to Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, courtesy of Monina von Opel.

“I’ve been watching his career evolve over time,” said Ms. von Opel. “I like to watch people evolve. I am very interested in the creative process.”

Anyone can watch the world change and stare with wonder. But for Carolyn Forche this wonderment turned her into a poet.

“I publish a book every decade or so,” said Ms. Forche. “They reflect changes in my life and concerns and interests, and formal changes as well.”

People in Oak Bluffs late this week won’t be thinking about the next number 13 bus leaving for Edgartown — they’ll be thinking about the legendary Freedom Rides that bused through the Deep South and hostile racism during the Civil Rights movement.

On Thursday and Friday, The Cottagers Inc. of Martha’s Vineyard sponsor the eighth annual African American Cultural Festival, an event packed with free educational programs and culture. The festival takes place in Hartford Park off Massassoit avenue and at Cottagers Corner on Pequot avenue..