Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/646476
124 | APRIL 2016 nshoremag.com BY JOHN TAMILIO III, PH.D. Local political writer Michael Hartigan wins accolades for his first novel, Stone Angels. Author, Author! photographs by Fawn DeViney in-depth FACES "We were clearly lost and the dashboard light blinked desper- ately, telling me I was running on empty." So begins the story of Augustine Shaw, setting the tone of his literal and metaphorical journey into the past to wrestle with the guilt that plagues him. Shaw is an amalgam of characters brought to life in the stories Michael Hartigan wrote as an undergraduate at Provi- dence College, which happens to be the principal setting for his first novel, Stone Angels. In fact, Hartigan stitched these stories to- gether over the course of a decade to produce this book that earned him the 2015 Merrimack Media Outstanding Writer Award. Merrimack Media is a small press in Cambridge, which ena- bles independent writers to self- publish. Each year, though, they host a contest in which the "win- ner receives full publication of his or her book, both as a paperback and e-book with a custom cover, [and] an interview on the Author Connection," the online channel featuring independent authors. Hartigan entered on the advice of a co-worker. Now this Saugus na- tive is hailed as "a master builder of suspense and plot" by literary colleagues such as Kelly Easton. Much of Augustine's story is told in retrospect as he travels Michael Hartigan penned his first novel, Stone Angels. in-depth FACES