Heather Newton – författare

Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 38 collects papers ranging widely on topics of the literary and material culture of the Celtic regions of Ireland, Wales, and Breton in the medieval and modern periods. Several articles concern the self-awareness of the literary elite in Ireland and Wales, whose members respected the traditional forms of their literature but used them to further contemporary purposes. For example, they introduce new references to foreign places and cultures, or use older topographical lore to describe and justify contemporary land use and settlement. Other articles review material culture as it is reflected in literary works of their respective periods and discuss how this in turn illuminates the attitudes of the authors and their intended readers. A number of contributions concern the grammatical structure and linguistic formation of the languages of Ireland, Wales, and Brittany, both early and modern.The special lecture for the Harvard Celtic Colloquium this year was given by Dr. Aled Jones, Senior Lecturer in Welsh and Medieval Studies at Bangor University, Wales, comparing modern astrophysics to the plasticity of time in medieval Celtic literature, a thought-provoking consideration of congruences in modern and medieval conceptions of time and space. This volume also contains the 2018 Kelleher lecture given by Dr. William Gilles of the University of Edinburgh on a problematic early Scots-Gaelic text, the Harlaw Brosnachadh.

The twelve linked stories in McMullen Circle explore the intertwined lives of faculty families at the McMullen Boarding School in Tonola Falls, Georgia in 1969 and 1970. The school community is isolated and idyllic, yet issues of race and the Vietnam War still intrude. Does heroism require physical prowess, or is there valor in a cafeteria worker enduring a cluttered, needy life with her four young sons, or an elderly librarian caring for her disabled lesbian partner? What does it take for a young African American girl to find the courage to assert her right to attend the all-white private school. The stories in this collection ask what, and who, are the real heroes.

*A 2022 FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK AWARD FINALIST*A new novel by the award-winning author of Under the Mercy Trees.Famed puppeteer and master manipulator Walter Gray surprises his three daughters by announcing there is a fourth at his 80th birthday party. An incomplete paternity test—and a will that places a condition on each daughter’s inheritance—suggest that the missing daughter isn’t a figment of his dementia. Jane, the eldest, is tired of her father’s eccentricities. She remembers the scarcity of her childhood and doesn’t want another sister to share the birthright. Rosie, born out of wedlock, sees the missing sister as her key to acceptance as a full member of the puppeteer’s family.Cora, the youngest, born after Walter achieved fame and fortune, is most concerned with extricating herself from running Walter’s company so that she can pursue her own life. The sisters each knew a different version of their enigmatic father, but all grew up in the presence of fairy tales acted out with marionettes and shadow puppets. If they are to find the fourth daughter and claim the legacy their father has left them, the three must confront their fractured relationships with their father and each other. Infused with fairy tales that sometimes spill magic into the sisters’ real lives, The Puppeteer’s Daughters is a stunningly-woven family saga about the cost and rewards of claiming a creative life.

*A 2022 FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK AWARD FINALIST*A new novel by the award-winning author of Under the Mercy Trees.Famed puppeteer and master manipulator Walter Gray surprises his three daughters by announcing there is a fourth at his 80th birthday party. An incomplete paternity test—and a will that places a condition on each daughter’s inheritance—suggest that the missing daughter isn’t a figment of his dementia. Jane, the eldest, is tired of her father’s eccentricities. She remembers the scarcity of her childhood and doesn’t want another sister to share the birthright. Rosie, born out of wedlock, sees the missing sister as her key to acceptance as a full member of the puppeteer’s family.Cora, the youngest, born after Walter achieved fame and fortune, is most concerned with extricating herself from running Walter’s company so that she can pursue her own life. The sisters each knew a different version of their enigmatic father, but all grew up in the presence of fairy tales acted out with marionettes and shadow puppets. If they are to find the fourth daughter and claim the legacy their father has left them, the three must confront their fractured relationships with their father and each other. Infused with fairy tales that sometimes spill magic into the sisters’ real lives, The Puppeteer’s Daughters is a stunningly-woven family saga about the cost and rewards of claiming a creative life.