It is no coincidence that the loveliest woman I’ve ever met raised the loveliest boy I’ve ever known. Happy Mother’s Day to the one and only Sass @sarahschneidersmith
Book Launch! May 19th at 7:00 pm at Magers and Quinn Booksellers I take the stage with my mate and travelJohn Munson John Munson for a lovely Q & A followed by questions from the audience.
Today, I visited the city of Derry in Northern Ireland. The people of Derry have suffered some of the worst sectarian violence and civil rights abuses in the long and painful history of the British occupation of Ireland (Outside of Derry is where “Bloody Sunday” happened) As I walked through the historic Bogside neighborhood, I met an older Irishman at a crosswalk. We said hello to each other and got to chatting. He heard my accent and asked me where I was from. “I’m Todd from America. I’m from the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis.” “That’s where that woman was shot by ICE.” “Yes, it is.” “Now I see that they are telling you to not believe your own eyes. I’ve been through this before.”
I was half way around the world and suddenly all the miles of land and ocean and history between our lives had shrunk to zero. We were connected through the trauma in our streets. More importantly, this old Irishman said, “My name is Billy McVeigh and I’m the man in that mural behind you.” I turned around to gaze at one of the most famous murals in Derry: a young man standing alone with nothing more than a shield and a stone and he’s facing down a British tank. Billy went on to tell me about his life and the wounds he has suffered and his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the British military. At the end of our conversation, we stood on a street corner that had witnessed decades of sectarian violence and, finally and mercifully, the rise of the Irish people and their fight for civil rights. That’s where Billy told me that the people of the Bogside stand with us in our fight to save Minneapolis and our country. “Believe your own eyes. God Bless you, Todd from America, safe travels on your journey back to Minnesota.”
A few days ago, I posted a picture of a wall in the stonebreakers yard at the Kilmainham Gaol without any text. This was out of respect for the men and women that died at the base of this wall. They were executed for their roles in the 1916 Rising, a rebel movement that tried to free Ireland from the tyranny of the English empire, a global power that had oppressed and stripped away their rights and language and music for centuries. The men and women that were killed by a firing squad at this wall were normal people. They had jobs and families. Their deaths became the wick that burned deep into the country, spreading that fire to every corner of this sodden island, and sparked the historic 1918 Easter Rising that freed 26 counties that now form the free Republic of Ireland. A day after I took this photo, a citizen, a woman with a child and a dog, was shot and killed in my city of Minneapolis by an ICE Agent, a goon squad designed from a tyrants textbook. Then the ICE Agents went to the local high school and detained kids and teachers.
It is weird to be so far away and watch my city burn. But it is cathartic to be here in Ireland, a place where there is a constant reminder in the streets and in every museum and in the bullet holes in its post office from the 1918 Easter Rising and in its murals and in the sadness as heavy as stone in Kilmainham Gaol that there is always a light even in the darkest of times. It is a reminder that the power is in the people.
Rest in Peace Renee Good, may your life be the spark that brings the light back to my troubled country.
This is the second time that one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors @csittenfeld has come across my path during my long book journey to publication! The first time was in Ullapool, Scotland, a tiny port city, and her book was in a bookstore in the lobby of the hotel. At that time, I was suffering from a crushing bout of Imposter Syndrome, a desperate feeling that I wasn’t good enough to pull off a travel memoir through the world of English football. The second time was today at the Amsterdam airport as I was on a victory lap through Amsterdam and Scotland and Ireland to celebrate finishing the manuscript and it being published in 2026. Seeing @csittenfeld book again was a gentle reminder that two writers from Minneapolis could, in fact, grind out the wonderful AND brutal work it takes to write a manuscript and release their book into the world. That is such a lovely little light to start off the New Year. Cheers everyone!
