Tom Ryan, Author

Tom Ryan, Author

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our way of giving back

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Tom Ryan
Nov 27, 2025
∙ Paid
Thanksgiving Day, 2012. A rare photo of Atticus following me. We hiked with a girlfriend that day, and had the dramatic Franconia Ridge mostly to ourselves.

On this day of gratitude, the three of us have much to be grateful for. You are among those. 

A writer needs a reader, and I am blessed to have so many who have gathered here after we left behind Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

The goal was a more thoughtful space on the internet to tell and share stories. In a world now beset by AI, which will surely make us even more distant, just as social media has, I’m thankful that words and photos, and the occasional song, still work to connect us. 

When I moved to Newburyport, I was a lost dreamer at 33. Out of nowhere, I began the Undertoad, my biweekly newspaper that would go on to reshape our community. After eleven years, Atticus and I took an abrupt left turn, shocked our friends, and headed to the mountains. 

A friend recently wrote about our time in the White Mountains, “You and Attic…

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