Boarding School Blues By Louise Peloquin Chapter 11: Cinephiles The atmosphere during lunch was as icy as the showers. On the menu that day was French-Canadian cottage pie called “Pâté chinois” (Chinese Pâté). Blanche had never understood what was “Chinese” about a layer of ground beef topped with kernel corn…
We are pleased to present here the opening scenes from a new historical novel by writer Tom Sigafoos. “The Cursing Stone” is set on Tory Island, off the coast of County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The year is 1884 and the islanders are threatened with mass evictions. What are they…
Dive Into Matt W. Miller’s New Book of Poems, Tender the River Prize-winning writer Matt W. Miller has a new book of poems in which he drills deeply into the bedrock of the Merrimack River and City-of-Lowell on its banks—as deep as any writer springing from the local watershed…
The Band that Never Got out of My Basement By David Daniel Like everyone, I was in a band once. Before guitars, drums, and keyboards replaced the accordion, bongos, and the ocarina as the staple instruments of rock-‘n’-roll. I was fourteen. The band was me (Manny LaPlante), my big brother…
Massachusetts By Tim Trask Most people know the Bee Gees as a phenomenon of the late 1970s: Disco, Saturday Night Fever, and all that, but I was introduced to them in January 1968 in Vung Tau, the Republic of Viet Nam. I’d been in-country for three days, the first…
Hearing Things Differently By Sheila Eppolito My parents met at a party near St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, in Brighton. My mother was a nurse there, and my father was invited by his brother, who was a resident. The story goes that amidst all the singing, boozing, smoking and dancing going on,…
What better way for Trasna to honor the conclusion of National Poetry Month in the United States–and celebrate the First Anniversary of Trasna–than with the current work of Daniel Wade, a rising star in the world of poetry! An award-winning playwright and a novelist as well, Wade appeared in Trasna…
As Trasna celebrates National Poetry Month, we pause on the singular event of this past week, the guilty verdict in the killing of George Floyd, and reflect on the power of poets to be agents of change. This week, we proudly present the poetry of Dr. Martina McGowan from her debut…
Boarding School Blues By Louise Peloquin Chapter 10: Math Manoeuvres Blanche had always felt uncomfortable in math class. In grammar school, when she began having a hard time deciphering numbers on the board, her teacher expressed concern. Papa immediately guessed that his daughter needed glasses. After a diagnosis of myopia,…
As Trasna continues to celebrate National Poetry Month, we also note that this week marked the one-hundred and ninth anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The ship was constructed by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and its last port of call was Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland.…