I’ve never seen a copy of the newspaper written and published in the late 1920s and early ’30s by Jack Kerouac’s father, Leo Kerouac, when he owned Spotlight Print, a small printing business downtown that got washed out in the 1936 Flood. Called The Spotlight, the newspaper had items about local entertainment and goings-on, maybe even political commentary. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has copies or knows where I can find them.

The UMass Lowell Center for Lowell History doesn’t have The Spotlight in its collection of city newspapers, which is extensive for those who are interested. Here’s the list. The Center’s collection includes copies of The Communicator (1972-75), a radical grassroots paper published by community activists in the Acre.  I published some of my first poems in The Communicator in 1974-75.