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Stewart Lytle is the lead reporter for The Town Common newspaper. Before joining The Town Common, he was a national correspondent for Scripps-Howard Newspapers in Washington, D.C., covering the Pentagon and Congress. He has also written for newspapers in Dallas, TX, and Birmingham, AL.
As a national reporter for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain, Stewart wrote the inside story on military life of soldiers and sailors and their families. He landed on aircraft carriers, experienced oxygen deprivation for high-altitude flight training and crawled through the mud with Marine snipers.
One of his proudest achievements outside of journalism was assisting USAA Chairman Robert McDermott in securing federal legislation that mandated air bags in vehicles.
Stewart is also a novelist and has written non-fiction books. He is currently working on a non-fiction book and screenplay about an incident that occurred in Boston.
His first novel, Iron City Conspiracy, explores power in a city. It features a black newspaper editor solving the bombing of a historic black church in a tough Alabama town.
Following in the footsteps of his idol, Ernest Hemingway, Stewart has completed a new novel about a love affair in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. The book, Montserrat, is based on a true story and has been made into a screenplay that will become an international feature film.
A graduate of Phillips Academy and Princeton University, Stewart lives with his wife, Mary, in Newburyport.
NEWBURY – When one thinks of a gravestone carver, the conjured image is probably that of a humorless, gnarled man hunched over a large stone slate, his chisel and hammer tapping away to memorialize the birth and death dates of the deceased. That is not Michael Updike,...
REGIONAL – When Steve Baran came to lunch recently to talk about the Lions Club Clipper City Rail Trail project for low vision people, he who has been blind from birth picked up the menu and started to select his choice. Am I being scammed? this writer thought. Baran...
LAWRENCE – After months of intensive sand mining at the Zibell Farm with large trucks, bulldozers and other noisy equipment disrupting a quiet Georgetown neighborhood, the town last week won an emergency freeze on the operations. Superior Court Judge John Frazer,...
NEWBURYPORT – In years past, when veteran Yankee Homecoming leader Dennis Palazzo came home from managing Yankee Homecoming, his wife would ask, “What is the drama today?” This year, except for a couple of days of heavy rains, which postponed the bed race and the...
HAVERHILL – Critics last year of approving a new building for Whittier Vocational Tech Regional High School often complained that not enough students from their towns and cities were being accepted. According to a new report on the admissions from each of the 11...
NEWBURYPORT – The Custom House Maritime Museum may hit a record this year with as many as 16,000 visitors walking through its doors, which is double the museum’s 2023 attendance. Much of that success has to do with a series of transformations and additions designed to...
GEORGETOWN – The town’s lawyers on Friday filed for an injunction against Robles Excavating Co., Todd Champlain and Mary Potter Friday to stop the sand mining operation at Zibell Farm. It asked for a preliminary injunction on the mining operation. The action, which...
REGIONAL – The Newburyport YWCA will no longer be one of the few in the nation with a male executive director. After leading the YWCA for 16 years, bringing it out of financial distress, expanding services and keeping its doors open through the Pandemic, John Feehan...
GEORGETOWN – A frustrated Planning Board last week postponed for a third week deciding whether to grant a permit for the export of sand and the import of undisclosed material at the 100-year-old Zibell Farm. Planning Board Chair Harry LaCortiglia asked the farm...
SALISBURY – Even with unpredictable financial times staring them in the face, the indominable leadership of The Link House refused to give up on providing a safe residential space for women who are recovering from addictions. Headed by executive director Christine...
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