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This essay was initially published in The Lowell Sun on December 14, 2020. Can We Honor A Native Son? By Suzanne Beebe Jack Kerouac is a world-renowned writer. He opened new avenues for American writers of the 20th century. He was central to the Beat Movement of the 1950s…
Read More »The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg, a Biography by John Wooding A Review by Chath pierSath I had no idea who Richard Gregg was until I read The Power of Non-Violence: The Enduring Legacy of Richard Gregg by John Wooding. The book could not have come…
Read More »Former Alaskan poet Laureate Tom Sexton’s latest volume of poetry is “Cummiskey Alley.” The collection is named after Lowell’s first Irishman, Hugh Cummiskey, who walked from Boston to Lowell with a group of Irish laborers. Cummiskey and many other Irish labors dug miles of canals in Lowell, and helped birth…
Read More »Boarding School Blues is a fictionalized story by Louise Peloquin of life at a Catholic high school in 1960s New England. The full story will be presented in regular installments over the next few months with one chapter appearing every other week. Boarding School Blues, chapter 1 The Announcement By…
Read More »Rikki Don’t Lose That Number By David Daniel ~1~ We were a small, tight-knit crew of nine, linked by the dance that is youth. When high school graduation came, we didn’t want us to end. That autumn I went off to a small Christian college not far from home. The…
Read More »IRELAND’S MOST LOVED INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS This week on Trasna, we feature a few of Ireland’s Independent Bookshops. Ireland has over 200 Independent bookshops, and they fulfill a role that larger chains don’t: they are true members of their community. As poet Enda Wyley explains: “Here you drop in to browse…
Read More »THE 2020 ‘AN POST’ IRISH BOOK AWARDS Every year, the Irish Book Awards celebrate “the extraordinary quality of Irish writing” and help bring those books judged to be the best to a wider readership. These annual awards are also intended to promote the Irish publishing and book-selling industries. The awards include an…
Read More »Joe Blair is an occasional contributor to this publication. He lives in Iowa but grew up in the Merrimack Valley. His first book By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir (2012, Simon & Schuster) established him as a national voice. This prose sketch first appeared on Facebook in November, 2020. IT…
Read More »The month of November, with its decreasing hours of daylight and lengthening nights, offers an opportunity to turn inwards. It is traditionally a month in Ireland when we remember those who have passed on, indeed the 1st and 2nd of November are known respectively as All Saints and All Souls…
Read More »Congratulations to friend and blog-contributor Steve O’Connor whose book This Is No Time to Quit Drinking: Teacher Burnout and the Irish Powers was just named a finalist for the 2020 Best Book Award in the Fiction/Cross-Genre category by the American Book Fest. Steve was up against some tough competition as…
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