From the Archives: October 5, 2015

Five years ago Fred Faust contributed a series of blog posts about people in Greater Lowell who have taken initiative and achieved special things. In the following post which first appeared here on October 5, 2015, Fred wrote about Francey Slater and Lydia Sisson, the founders of Mill City Grows.…

Read More »

See Change

Linda Hoffman on her blog Apples, Art and Spirit, has a new post on an outdoor art show now on display in Brookline, Massachusetts. Here’s what Linda wrote: For those of you who live in the Greater Boston area, here’s something wonderful to see!  See Change is Studio Without Walls’…

Read More »

WPA Tour of Lowell from 1937

The Federal Writers’ Project was a New Deal program that provided jobs to unemployed writers during the Great Depression. The writers produced hundreds of publications including guides to states and cities and a variety of history projects. The best-known product of this effort was the American Guide Series which featured…

Read More »

“Summer’s Gone” by Jerry Bisantz

SUMMER’S GONE A short monologue By Jerry Bisantz This monologue is dedicated to my parent’s generation.  The set is bare. Actor enters Center stage in blackout. He begins to sing. ACTOR “When I think of what we wasted it makes me sad… we never ‘preciated the things we had… now…

Read More »

“Sleeping with the Kingfisher” and other poems by MARK ROPER

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 Mark Roper, who acted as a mentor…

Read More »

From the Archives: June 12, 2009

Here’s a post from eleven years ago as the country was trying to recover from the Great Recession. In the midst of the pandemic and its resulting economic distress, it seems a timely reminder that the old saying “in crisis there is opportunity” applies to city planning too. Is Lowell…

Read More »

Pandemic photos from London

Michael Leary-Owhin, London-based photographer and author of Exploring the Production of Urban Space: international comparisons of three post-industrial cities (University of Chicago Press, 2016), a study of Lowell; Manchester, England; and a section of Vancouver, Canada, who we profiled last month on this site, has posted a new batch of…

Read More »