Early Years
Maia Cavelli one of our founding editors died in the years following the Covid pandemic, but her presence remains woven into the early life of The Linnet’s Wings. This page showcases the work she brought into the magazine and some of her editorials. The page is in progress.
This 2008 photographic collection moves through the quiet rooms and open landscapes of Ireland: mist over Lough Owel, the broad stillness of Connemara, a swan approaching across dark water at Carrick-on-Shannon, and winter fields near Edgeworthstown. Alongside these rural scenes, C. Mannheim’s Rooms draws the eye through a succession of doorways towards a distant piano. Together, the images explore stillness, distance and passage—those moments when light, water and familiar places briefly arrange themselves into something memorable.
Fog on the Portnashanagan Road
November Fog overlooking Lough Owel, circa 2005. Bare branches rise in dark silhouette against a landscape softened almost to disappearance, while a pale winter sun glimmers through the mist above the lake.
Marie Fitzpatrick, 2004
Connemara, 2004. A quiet lake rests among broad stretches of russet bogland, with distant mountains fading into the soft western light. A lone white bird punctuates the open landscape, lending scale and life to its stillness.
Marie Fitzpatrick 2006
Carrick-on-Shannon, 2006. A solitary swan glides towards the camera, its brilliant white plumage emerging from the dark water. The spreading wake creates a strong, almost sculptural pattern of ripples, movement and reflection.
Gina Kelly
Among the photographers Maia introduced to The Linnet’s Wings in its early years was American photographer Gina Meyer Kelly, whose work helped launch the magazine’s inaugural Summer 2007 web issue.
Kelly’s professional credits included the cover photograph for the 2001 Penguin edition of Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Icy Sparks, selected for Oprah’s Book Club in March 2001. Her work continued to appear in The Linnet’s Wings in later years.
Credit: C. Mannheim, 2008
Rooms, photograph by C. Mannheim, 2008. A succession of open doorways draws the eye through quiet, light-filled rooms towards a distant piano and two vivid red paintings. Repeating frames, tiled floors and measured symmetry give the interior a contemplative rhythm and depth.
Credit: Marie Fitzpatrick
Winter reeds and tangled branches fill the foreground, their muted browns and greys forming a dense natural screen. Beyond them, a dark fence and scattered sheep offer a quiet glimpse of the working fields