For years, no one heard a word Lori McKenna wrote.
Then one night around 1996, the then-28-year-old mother of three mustered up the courage to sing at Old Vienna Kaffeehaus in Westborough.
“That was my goal: If I had the guts to get up at the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus,” says Lori McKenna, now 52 and a mother of five, from her Stoughton home.
“I thought, if music isn’t my thing, I’m happy just continuing on the way I was, raising kids. But we have such a nurturing live music scene in Boston. Once I stepped into it, I just got the bug.”
HOMEFRONT
HomeFront: Albums and books of the year, Pixar with âSoul,â gifts to order now for immediate delivery
By Marie Morris Globe Correspondent,Updated December 23, 2020, 8:36 p.m.
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âFolkloreâ and âEvermoreâ landed Taylor Swift on the Globe s list of the top pop albums of the year.Beth Garrabrant/Universal Music Group
Welcome once again to HomeFront, where prehistoric solstice rituals are currently resonating more than any tradition cooked up since living indoors and spying on the neighbors became a thing. Weâve been studying the night sky, admiring the way we look by candlelight, and clinging to every extra minute of daylight. Winter and the longest year we can remember are both rounding the turn and heading into the homestretch, and not a moment too soon.
And so this is Christmas. And what have we done?
I reflect on those two simple lines every December.
It was 40 years ago this month that the world lost John Lennon.
To mark the anniversary, a slew of new Lennon books were released this year.
Lennon died in 1980, before I was born. People under 50 probably don’t remember him alive, though we all know his music and his legend.
On this weekend before Christmas (or xmas) I want to focus on Lennon.
Because this was a year we needed him specifically the word he tried to spread.
The word was Peace.
Tristan Strong Destroys the World,” by Kwame Mbalia.
Bestselling author Rick Riordan publishes this New York Times best-selling and award-winning series from Mbalia. They’re fantastic. According to the synopsis:
Strong, just back from Alke, the land of African American folk heroes and African gods, is suffering from PTSD. But there s no rest for the weary when his grandmother is abducted. Tristan must return to Alke to rescue Nana and stop the culprit from creating further devastation…
“
I love everything about this book.
A beautiful New York Times bestseller and Newbery Honor Book about a young girl, Jude, who has to leave her dad and brother in Syria, and a travel to Cincinnati with her mother to stay with relatives. Here Jude is called Middle Eastern, an identity she s never known before.