Meet, most of, the JoyceWays team…
Logan Macomber’s path to James Joyce was less than direct. Journalist, photographer, and mediocre tin whistle player, Macomber hails from a town of 6,000 in Vermont’s rural “Northeast Kingdom.” Looking for a way to learn more about his mother’s Irish heritage and hear a few tunes in person, he stumbled upon Professor Nugent’s “Joyce in Ireland” summer course. He entered Dublin in 2010 with a major in Communication and no knowledge of Joyce, but left with a love of Dubliners and just enough courage to take Professor Nugent’s Ulysses course in the fall. In the summer of 2011 he returned to Dublin to photograph the routes that appear in JoyceWays, and he spent the following nine months organizing the app’s content. Macomber graduated from Boston College in the spring with a major in Communication and minors in Irish Studies and Music. He is currently the editor of MySecretVT.com, a travel-and-leisiure website that will launch this fall as the sister site of MySecretBoston.com.
Unlike the rest, Robert Scobie comes from a lesser known country named Scotland. Famous for bagpipes, kilts, and that national treasure…Mel Gibson’ s Braveheart. He was lucky enough to land a place on the Junior year abroad exchange program at Boston College, from his native University of Glasgow, and met Professor Nugent after, ahem, excelling in his James Joyce class. The opportunity to work on the app arose, and thus he spent his first few months conceptualising what the app was going be, look like, and how we were going to get there. Since then he primarily took over organising marketing and running the social media platforms. His life outside of JoyceWays is heavily influenced by theatre, majoring in the subject along with English Literature, and hoping to pursue a career in acting after completing his undergraduate degree.
Hailing from rural Pennsylvania, Louis Fantini is a first-generation college student whose love of literature brought him to Boston College. Eventually, an enthusiasm for modernism beat out a profound intimidation toward Joyce, and he wound up in Professor Nugent’s Ulysses course in the Fall of his sophomore year. The youngest student in the class, it took some practice and prodding before he learned that he could, in fact, “do” Joyce. This love didn’t end with the course, so the following Spring he joined the JoyceWays team. These experiences have been some of the most rewarding of his college career so far, and are set to continue, working with Professor Nugent on the upcoming Digital Dubliners project.
Eileen Kennedy comes from Marblehead, Massachusetts and graduated from Boston College this year with a degree in English and Film, and minor in Irish Studies. Her working relationship with Ireland developed in 2010 when she spent a summer working in Dublin, followed by a semester studying at NUI Galway. As this bio is being written she is currently in Derry directing a documentary about the Bogside Artists and the social activist murals they produced. Without her we would not have in our possession the beautiful Kickstarter video that so many people watched and subsequently donated because of. She has helped broadcast our marketing and fundraising campaigns, and though being a late comer to the JoyceWays team, has played an integral part in the process. Not to mention she has had manage a challenging group of post-pubescent males!
Born and raised in a small beach town south of Boston, Tommy King grew up like many in the Boston area, in an Irish-infused environment. With much of his family hailing from Galway, he spent many summers in Connemara—developing a palate for the sport, music, literature and the language itself. Introduced to Professor Nugent during his early years at Stonehill College—their friendship grew over the Irish language, Joycean banter and the occasional pint. Now a full time employee, part-time Irish language teacher, rugby player and Joyce re-reader—Tommy worked mainly on fundraising and U.S. marketing for the JoyceWays team.