Less is More: A Collection of Ten-Minute Plays
Thomas Wolfe once wrote: “One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.” The ten-minute-play can have the same draw, creating a sense of place, suspense, and drama in the sweep of time that is as immediate as it is measured. My play, “The Tea Gown,” included in this collection, is inspired by designer Jessie Franklin Turner and the tea dress she created in 1926. The play spotlights the relationship of a young New York couple caught in the crosshairs of a business start-up and the passion for expressing their hearts’ true desires.
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Family Literacy in Action: A Survey of Successful Programs
Reading shapes a child’s mind forever and the best of programming for young children focuses on reading together as a shared experience. Journalist Maura Conlon-McIvor highlights innovative family literacy programs from around the country that occur in a variety of settings—from schools to literacy councils to prisons. Issues such as program germination, funding, key players and logistics are covered in this brief and helpful book. Syracuse, New Readers Press, 1990.
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SPRING Journal: Irish Culture and Depth Psychology
As a young, Irish-American girl with an unusual name growing up in suburban Orange County, California, Maura Conlon-McIvor highlights Irish influences upon the germination of her early imagination. She speaks to the creation of a mythopoetic childhood and how nature and connection to one’s roots remain central to this formation. This volume also includes an interview with Thomas Moore about Ireland and an excerpt from the work of Irish writer John Moriarty; articles about contemporary Irish poets Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney as well as articles about James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, and Joseph Campbell; plus essays on contemporary Irish culture and Celtic mythology.
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Visitations from the Afterlife: True Stories of Love and Healing
According to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, almost 70 million Americans believe that it is possible to communicate with the dead, and millions of people the world over have experienced a visitation. When people feel that it is safe to speak openly of these encounters, they tell stories that in the past have been kept close, “secretly whispered from parent to child, from friend to friend, from heart to heart.” Included in this collection of essays assembled from author Lee Lawson, Maura Conlon-McIvor writes about a dream portending the date of her father’s demise and subsequent surprising connections with him that occurred each year on the anniversary date of his death.
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“Vince Scully Gives Voice to the Dodger Body.” —Orange Coast Magazine
Announcer Vince Scully, who recently retired after nearly seven decades calling games for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was a childhood hero of Maura Conlon-McIvor. She enjoyed listening to his sandy voice, insightful anecdotes about baseball, and his irreplaceable art form of storytelling. Years later, as a young journalist in the 1980s, Maura had the honor of sitting in the press box with Mr. Scully at Dodger Stadium for this interview.
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