REGIONAL – This year’s Newburyport Literary Festival, which begins on Friday, will be the last time that Victoria Hendrickson, its director, founder and muse, will head the popular event. She leaves the event that attracts some of the best novelists, writers and poets...
Stewart Lytle

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.
Gateway May Be Four ‘Classic’ Homes
NEWBURYPORT – By next spring, one of five major entrances to this historic city will likely be transformed from a collection of largely non-descript homes and buildings to four “classic” new homes that will share a dock on the Merrimack River. “Coming across the...
Could the Pink House Be Licensed?
PLUM ISLAND TURNPIKE – Maybe the non-profit Support the Pink House organization (STPH) could take a page from the Salisbury Historical Commission and propose to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (F&WS) that it license the almost 100-year-old icon while the community...
Butler’s Toothpick May Be Restored
REGIONAL – Since 1873, ship’s captains, fishermen and recreational boaters have used an odd looking, wooden triangle on the Salisbury side of the Merrimack River as a daytime navigational marker. Nicknamed Ben Butler’s Toothpick after the Civil War general,...
Moving Rowley 911 Center Hits Turbulence
ROWLEY — A proposal to transfer the Rowley Communications Center, the town’s 911 dispatch service, to a regional dispatch service has stirred up a nor’easter among residents. The proposed move to the North Shore Regional 911 Center in Middleton, which is designed to...
Pink House Supporters Face Its Demise
THE ROAD TO PLUM ISLAND -- The legions of Pink House supporters meet this week to discuss last-ditch efforts to keep the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (F&WS) from demolishing the beloved house. The meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4 at PITA Hall, 8 Plum...
First Parish Food Pantry Expands to Help the Needy
REGIONAL – It was raining on the Friday morning before Easter when dozens of volunteers for the First Parish Food Pantry gathered, as usual, to fill bags with groceries and a special candy treat for the needy. The rain forced the volunteers inside the...
Nuke Agency Studies Seabrook’s Emergency Plan Changes
REGIONAL — NextEra Energy, owner of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant, offered last week to conduct a demonstration of its proposed new emergency response program to prove to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that its plans for reducing its emergency...
State: Volunteers May Serve on Multiple Town Boards
REGIONAL – A challenge most small towns and cities face is finding enough volunteers to fill out the memberships of various municipal committees that regulate everything from land use to community health. At least two municipalities – Amesbury and Georgetown – are...
Watershed Council Fighting for the Merrimack
REGIONAL -- To raise money to continue the battle to clean up the Merrimack River, Curt Rogers, dressed as “King Sturgeon,” and 11 more hardy souls plunged into the cold Atlantic Ocean off Plum Island last month. Seventy fans watched from the shore. Rogers dressed as...
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