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This month Trasna is featuring writers participating in Words Ireland National Mentoring Programme. Every year, 22 emerging writers are selected for the program in the areas of literary fiction, creative non-fiction, children’s/YA fiction, and poetry. Each are paired with mentors. Featured this week is poet Martina Dalton. On participating in Words Ireland,…
Read More »Jack McDonough had a long career in academic and corporate communications and the media as a writer and editor. He proudly identifies as an “ink-stained wretch.” Our readers know him as an occasional contributor to this blog and as a past essayist for the Sunrise public-affairs radio program at UMass…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (7) by Paul Hudon 24 May, 2020 ‘The fitful apprehension of history’ is a phrase I picked up four years ago come September. Apparently it was coined by Fredric Jameson, “an American Marxist philosopher.” This poses a problem because the phrase could be very…
Read More »The Hill of Uisneach may not appear in many travel guides, but local historian Mawie Barrett explains why this ancient and sacred site in the geographic center of Ireland is not to be missed. Photo: Fergus Hogan As May filters into June, it is an appropriate time to offer an…
Read More »Bette Davis was born in Lowell on April 15, 1908. She went on to a long and legendary career as one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses and an international star. Nominated for an Academy Award ten times, including a stretch of five consecutive years, she won twice. The family home, a…
Read More »Diary in the Time of Coronavirus (6) by Paul Hudon 17 May Today would be Bob’s 95th birthday, my aforementioned brother, the navy guy. He died in November 2013, ‘’in the 89th year of his age.’’ I prefer that antique way of telling a person’s age. It’s more accurate because…
Read More »Isolation Scenes IV By Doug Sparks One: While driving the backroads of Groton, I waited for a turkey vulture to clear the road. He had been eating the guts of a turtle, whose shell was shimmering in the sun’s radiance. The vulture flew to the top of a nearby tree…
Read More »With wry humour, Irish novelist Alan McMonagle writes of the challenges of living through COVID-19. EVEN THE RAINBOWS ARE SOCIAL DISTANCING by Alan McMonagle Somewhere in Bedfordshire, England a ninety-nine-year-old man is hobbling lengths of his garden to raise money for the UK’s National Health Service, and here I am,…
Read More »The latest blog post by Linda Hoffman from Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, Mass. ‘Man in a Maze’ basket by Pima people
Read More »Haverhill Student Protests/CSN&Y (1970) By Mike McCormick My mind swirled as I drove to Haverhill High School one early May morning in 1970. The day before, a group of classmates had begun protesting President Nixon’s April 30 decision to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Another set of classmates, including…
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