Amy Ellis Nutt won a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for “The Wreck of the Lady Mary,” about a boat that sank off the New Jersey coast. She followed that newspaper story with a nonfiction book, Shadows Bright as Glass, tracing a man’s remarkable recovery from brain surgery. "Lady Mary was one of those stories that was hiding in plain sight. It was a back of the paper story, briefly on … [Read more...] about A Passion for Reporting
Writers and Poets
Review of Books
Recently published books of Irish and Irish-American interest. Recommended Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes Thirty-six years after publishing Legs, the first book in his acclaimed Albany Cycle, William Kennedy, 83, has added an eighth book to his dedicated rendering of his home town. Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes tells the story of Daniel Quinn, another son of Albany, … [Read more...] about Review of Books
Poem: The Stones of Culdalee
By Timothy Walsh
Culdalee We took the winding road west from Aclair, arrived at where we thought the turnoff should be, the boreen so overgrown you’d hardly know it had ever been the way. We waded down through the uncut field, down the steep hillside to the wild valley below. Thankfully, the cottage still stood, looking much as it did when I saw it last, forty years ago. “Culdalee,” my cousin … [Read more...] about Poem: The Stones of Culdalee
Banville on Black
"Sometimes, in the middle of the afternoon if I’m feeling a little bit sleepy, Black will sort of lean in over Banville’s shoulder and start writing. Or Banville will lean over Black’s shoulder and say ‘Oh that’s an interesting sentence, let’s play with that.’ I can see sometimes, revising the work, the points at which one crept in or the two sides seeped into each other.” If … [Read more...] about Banville on Black
Scarlett is 75 and Still Going Strong
On the 75th anniversary of the publication of Gone With the Wind, David O'Connell explores how Margaret Mitchell's Irish background influenced her writing. Writing in the second edition (1940) of his monumental and influential study The American Novel, Carl van Doren wrote: “Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind not only gave a revised version of the Civil War in the South, … [Read more...] about Scarlett is 75 and Still Going Strong