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On All Hallows’ Eve By Malcolm Sharps I don’t know why it is, but so often what gets written about the world makes it seem like a worse place than it actually is. According to every book and newspaper article I’d read before I came to Livonia, Livonians hate Russians…
Read More »Thy Sister’s Keeper By Stephen O’Connor It was back in ’92. While I attended UMASS, Lowell, working toward a degree in English, I had a job working for the Massachusetts Guardian Security Services. Armed with my radio and Maglight Tactical Flashlight, I would prowl the darkened alleys and hollow hearts…
Read More »Three for Halloween By David Daniel 1: Speed Dating at the Lonely Monsters Club When they get off the elevator, the sign is on an easel outside the function room: SPEED DATING EVENT TONIGHT Nervously, Shanna runs her hands down her hips. “This is going to be another big fail,”…
Read More »Here’s a press release about statewide recognition of two great Lowell-based organizations, Angkor Dance Troupe and Free Soil Arts Collective. Angkor Dance Troupe and Free Soil Arts Collective Selected for Statewide Initiative Supporting Community-Rooted Arts Free Soil Arts Collective (www.freesoilarts.org) and Angkor Dance Troupe (www.angkordance.org) were selected to participate in…
Read More »Lunch.Break.Haiku. By Doug Sparks After leaving my job for a publishing company last month, I began picking up odd hours working as a substitute teacher in the public schools. You may have heard, there’s a shortage. While this job doesn’t give me a lot of spare time, I get a…
Read More »Rooted in Brooklyn By Malcolm Sharps Prompted by Betty Smith’s iconic novel of childhood, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Malcolm Sharps reflects on his own childhood and family life and attempts a comparison Betty Smith, author of the semi-autobiographical A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, wrote in an introduction to a…
Read More »The original grant for the town of Lowell only included about 20 percent of the land that makes up the city today. Over the rest of the nineteenth century, the Massachusetts State Legislature annexed portions of Tewksbury, Dracut, and Chelmsford to Lowell to give the city its current configuration. Here…
Read More »Remembering the 1980 Winter Olympics By Dean Contover We woke up at 7:30 a.m., warmed up the van and left Waitsfield, Vermont, heading for the Olympic Games at Lake Placid, New York. It was the last day of the XIII Olympic Games. The final games were going to be played…
Read More »Wormwood By Stephen O’Connor Just before noon, the cloud bank that had hunched over the city like a great gray cat skulked off to the west, giving way to light. Lowell always looked beautiful to me in the sun: red brick and gray stone under blue. Along the cobbled streets…
Read More »Marvelous Marvin Hagler and the Godfather By Charles Gargiulo My Uncle Arthur was more than an Uncle. He was my Godfather, which is like being picked to become Vice-President. You get an important sounding title but you never have to do anything unless the main guy dies or fails to…
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