Skip to main content

Flying Solo

Alumnae News

Album Cover of Little Busy
BY CHRISTINA BARBER-JUST

Published December 12, 2019

Fans of folk-pop artists Hannah & Maggie, take note: One-half of the Smithie duo has a solo project called Little Busy.

That would be Maggie Kraus ’12, whose sophomore album as Little Busy, So They Grew, was released in October. (Their debut album, Leverett, came out in 2017.) So They Grew was mostly recorded just after Kraus left western Massachusetts for Chicago, and this relocation is the album’s main preoccupation. Kraus’ lyrical storytelling focuses on what they call “the learning and longing that comes with starting over.” On the penultimate track, “Middleweight,” they sing,

I will start again
with an emphasis
on what could have been
and depart from it.

In addition to Kraus, So They Grew features nine Smithies—including, notably, Hannah Hickok ’11, the other half of Hannah & Maggie and Kraus’ musical partner since their Smiffenpoofs days.

SO THEY GREW
Little Busy (Maggie Kraus ’12) 

This story is part of the Smithies Create column in the Winter 2019-20 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.

SMITHIES CREATE

 

Whose Line Is It Anyway? Gloria Steinem ’56 and the late Molly Ivins ’66 are two of Smith’s most iconic—and quotable—alumnae. Smithies Create challenges you to a game of quotation identification. 

So You Want to Write a Memoir? Modern Memoirs, an Amherst, Massachusetts–based self-publishing company established in 1994, specializes in personal narratives and family histories. 

Wynter’s Tale: Christian-fiction writer Tosca Lee ’92’s The Line Between is a “perfectly crafted dystopian thriller [that] will keep readers up all night and have them begging for a sequel.” 

Junior Journalist: A true story, Cub is prolific author-illustrator Cynthia Copeland ’82’s first graphic memoir for kids.