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Brian Simoneau: Getting the Poems Out There
In Lowell literary history, the back-of-the-envelope version used to highlight Lucy Larcom, the women writers of the Lowell Offering magazine, and Jack Kerouac, along with legendary visits by Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier, and H. D. Thoreau. That envelope has more names now. In our time, many…
Read More »Lowell School Committee Meeting: Dec 19, 2018
I usually don’t report on Lowell School Committee meetings, but given the financial crisis that has engulfed the school department, I thought it important to pay closer attention to how the school committee is responding. Here are my notes from tonight’s meeting. I covered the entire discussion on the recently…
Read More »Lowell City Council Meeting: December 18, 2018
ROLL CALL – all present CITY COUNCIL – MOTION (taken out of order) Samaras – Req. City Mgr. provide a report to the city council and school committee/administration regarding school department reimbursement for the Digital Connections Partnership School Grant Program totaling $553,217.46 that was sent to the Lowell Treasurer/Collector’s Office…
Read More »City Council Preview: December 18, 2018
Mimi Parseghian previews tonight’s Lowell City Council meeting: Tonight’s City Council meeting is the last for this year. It is short on Council motions, just one; but very long on Motion Responses; thirteen of them. At the conclusion of the open meeting, the Council will meet again in Executive Session…
Read More »‘The Christmas Fruitcake’ by Henri Marchand
The Christmas Fruitcake: An Ageless Tradition by Henri Marchand A note from the author: Like its subject this essay has been around, appearing first as a Sunrise radio essay on WUML at UMass Lowell, re-wrapped as a “Guest Column” piece in the Sun newspaper, and showing up on this blog…
Read More »Non-fiction books for season’s gifts – or just for you by Marjorie Arons-Barron
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. You’re probably as sick of the daily news cycle as I am, despite the satisfaction of seeing the progress of the Mueller investigation. Still, I highly recommend House of Trump, House of Putin, by former Boston Magazine editor Craig…
Read More »Lowell Week in Review: December 16, 2018
The long-awaited outside audit by the firm of Clifton Larson Allen of the Lowell Public Schools was released late Friday night and according to an Elizabeth Dobbins story in the Lowell Sun (“Audit confirms Lowell schools’ fiscal quagmire”) it is a devastating indictment of fiscal mismanagement by the past school…
Read More »Stephen O’Connor: Killin’ It with Short Stories
Steve O’Connor: Killin’ It with Short Stories Writer, teacher, and soccer-man Stephen O’Connor of Lowell has been killing it on the short story front for the past few years, placing 14 stories (six this year) in Lodestone Journal, Southern Pacific Journal, Dimeshow Review, The Sandy River Review, Ricky’s Backyard, The…
Read More »Michael Casey: Book Review, New Chapbook, More
Here’s another literary update in my series about writers with links to Lowell and the region.–PM Michael Casey: Book Review, New Chapbook, More Mike Casey has been publishing his poems since the early 1970s. He’s a graduate of Lowell High School, UMass Lowell (physics, Lowell Tech), and the State University…
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