Author: Taryn McBryde

Nantucket fishing legacy
Nantucket Essays, Nantucket History & People

It’s a Family Tradition

“It’s in his blood.”

“He comes by it naturally.”

How many times do we hear someone say things like this? I’m guessing that these are common refrains if you’re hanging out around the University of Texas football field, watching young Arch Manning warming up. Arch, projected to be one of college football’s better quarterbacks this season, is the son of Cooper Manning. Cooper was a football player at one time as well, destined to play for Ole Miss, but a diagnosis of spinal stenosis caused Cooper to leave the game. Cooper went on to have a successful career as an entrepreneur, a slight variation of the quarterback business.

Poison ivy on Nantucket
Island Science

It’s a Love-Hate Relationship

As June settles into true summer, the flora of Nantucket really comes alive. The beach roses scent the air along the dunes, our yellow thistles open for pollinators, and the golden heathers carpet the moors. This past week, while enjoying the early summer splendor, another blossom caught my eye: small clusters of whitish-green, each flower only ¼-inch in size. The delicate five-petal flowers aren’t showy or brightly colored, but they are pleasant, gently draping in small clusters. These flowers, however, aren’t the kind to put in an arrangement or bouquet. These deadly beauties actually belong to the poison ivy plant.

Juneteenth Nantucket 2025
Nantucket Events, Nantucket History & People

Honoring Juneteenth

This Thursday, June 19 a collaboration of Nantucket organizations are hosting an island gathering to memorialize and honor Juneteenth. The block party at the African Meeting House, 29 York Street, runs from 11 am to 3 pm and will include music, a documentary screening, games, arts & crafts, food, and […]

Nantucket Events

Looking Back to the Past & into the Future

Egan Maritime Institute invites the public to attend the season’s first Foghorn Speaker Series event, Fishing for Food and Money, this Wednesday, June 25 from 5:30 to 7 pm in the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum. The evening will feature a panel discussion that expands on the themes explored in […]

Nantucket Book Festival 2025
Nantucket Arts, Nantucket Events

A Rare Alchemy of Writers & Readers

This week, from Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, June 15, more than 20 distinguished writers will be on Nantucket Island to talk about their craft in onstage conversations, readings, and panel discussions, and they will interact with readers in several informal social gatherings. Tim Ehrenberg, creator of Tim Talks Books and President of the Nantucket Book Foundation, says the four-day Nantucket Book Festival as a favorite among “year-rounders, summer residents, weekenders…the commonality is a love for books. There is such a genuine feeling of connection all weekend long…this connection has been at the root of the Book Festival since the very beginning.”

Reading Jackie
Nantucket History & People

A Voice Alive on the Page

In contemporary American literature, Dawn Tripp stands out as an author who bridges the worlds of poetry, essay, and historical fiction with a strong voice and impressive literary finesse. A nationally bestselling author whose novel The Season of Open Water won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, Tripp is a writer with an extraordinary ability to paint with her words a compelling picture of complex historical figures and intimate human experiences. Tripp’s literary craftsmanship and storytelling skills overlay deep and careful research of her subjects—her newest novel, Jackie, took her ten years to research and write.

Nantucket fishing charter story
An Island Point of View

A Day in the Tuna Life

Oh man, what was I thinking to book a 6 am fishing charter on a Saturday? Well, it had to be, as some medical appointments had shuffled my week pretty thoroughly. I somehow woke up a minute before my alarm went off. Now I’m not flexing here, but this ability is something of a superpower. I was fairly beat from bass fishing the night before. Maybe not my wisest decision to go but those stripers aren’t going to catch themselves, right?

Azalea fungus on Black Huckleberry. S. Bois
Island Science

Zombie Apocalypse or Just Our Island Spring?

The zombie apocalypse has been on my mind a lot lately. That may sound dramatic, but if you’re someone who reads and watches fiction like The Last of Us, 28 Days Later, or the sequels: 28 Weeks Later and the new 28 Years Later, you know that the zombie hordes are all around us. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, a lot of zombie or similarly-themed fiction base their monsters around the idea of humans being infected by something which takes over their brain function. And, like all of the scariest things, that fiction has some basis in fact.

Nantucket Arts

Real and Unreal in Federal Gallery

A dynamic new exhibition showcasing large-scale photography juxtaposed with abstract and semi-abstract works in a variety of mediums has just opened today, June 12, in the Artists Association of Nantucket’s Federal Gallery. Titled Real and Unreal, this art show will be on display through Monday, July 7. Federal Gallery is […]