Alum Authors 2023
The 2023 Alum Authors Celebration took place during Reunion Weekend on Saturday, May 27. Alums from reunion classes who've published new books within the past five years, pictured above, spoke about their work.
Two Sisters of Fayetteville
by Tamar Anolic '03
Recognize and Give Thanks
by Marcia Cantarella '68
My grandkids - - on both sides of my family both Black and White - - are the fifth generation to go to college. That makes them essentially unicorns.
I come from a long line of educators, disruptors and change agents.Beginning with my grandfather Whitney Young Sr. who ran a school with a secret college prep curriculum from the 1920s to the 1950s, to his son Whitney Young Jr., my father, who was the architect of the War on Poverty with LBJ, or his sister Arnita who flew planes for the Red Cross during WWII we have been engaged in making change. I have known powerful leaders, black and white who have been change agents and many have been part of our family legacy, and many continue that legacy today. We have had friends and allies from the white community whether serving with the National Urban League for my father or being life partners like my late husband Fancesco Cantarella, a leader in corporate responsibility.
I have had the chance to engage with college students, especially students of color to see them now in key leadership roles themselves. There have been the friends, classmates and allies with whom I have worked and played and who are change agents themselves yet unsung. There are so many that I know, and love and value who have been part of the battle for social good and equity. Yet so many are not recognized, let alone fully thanked for all they do or have done. This is my chance to do that through telling the story of how these people have been an amazing gift in my own life
Find Praise for January
by Shirley Sullivan '63
The stark beauty of the winter tree is a strong metaphor for this collection of contemporary poems that explores the themes of aging, divorce, cancer, and loss with raw honesty; yet also celebrates the elegance and healing we find in the natural world.
Railroads of the Eastern Shore
by Treese, Loretta '73
Railroads played a critical role in the development of the Eastern Shore for over a century.
The history of the Delmarva Peninsula is inextricably entwined with the story of its railroads, the earliest of which were short, locally-funded lines. The dream to connect Norfolk directly to eastern seaboard cities farther north was first realized by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad in the 1880s. The line ran north-south along the peninsula to Cape Charles City, Virginia, where freight cars were loaded onto barges for the trip across the Chesapeake Bay. This line was eventually absorbed by the giant Pennsylvania Railroad, and the ferry service was eclipsed when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was completed in 1964.
Regional historian Lorett Treese tells the story of these railroads and the development they brought to the Eastern Shore.
Beleaguered Oases
by Ann Tweedy
In Beleaguered Oases, a surprising bestiary—fox, hummingbird, moth, newt—gathers to impart its wisdom on the most displaced member among them—the human animal. Ann Tweedy’s poetry is a lyrical celebration of the emotional truths and hard-won lessons that speak to us through the natural world. For those who feel disoriented by the “ecstatic cacophony” of our harried lives, never fear, the still-water clarity of these poems is healing. Listen: “home is the structure you build when nowhere else will have you.”
– Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of Other Fugitives and Other Strangers and Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa
Ann Tweedy’s poems are finely tuned soul-breaking songs of empathy and engagements with longing. These poems always look to the transformative, as bodies, natural affinities and words seeking spirit and wholeness. With Tweedy’s work we enter into in a natural quiet observation, into ironies of contemporary life. In these oases, beleaguered by time, hope, futility and humor, readers will find real poetry, considerate and direct, lyrical and mystifying, with an eye, ear and heart, for image, speech, rhythm and situation, in poems cast with sensual immersion in ways of the world and people. I look forward to reading more of Tweedy’s work in days to come.
– Gordon Henry Jr., author of The Light People and The Failure of Certain Charms and Other Disparate Signs of Life
Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs
by Anna Williams BMC '74
Archaeology is the key that unlocks our deepest history. Ruined cities, golden treasures, cryptic inscriptions, and ornate tombs have been found across the world, and yet these artifacts of ages past often raised more questions than answers. But with the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the 19th century, everything changed. Illustrated with dazzling photographs, this enlightening narrative tells the story of human civilization through 100 key expeditions, spanning six continents and more than three million years of history. Each account relies on firsthand reports from explorers, antiquarians, and scientists as they crack secret codes, evade looters and political suppression, fall in love, commit a litany of blunders, and uncover ancient curses.
Pivotal discoveries include:
Registry of Survival
by Ann Tweedy '93
Ann Tweedy’s A Registry of Survival is a deeply moving portrait of her fraught relationship with her mother. Tweedy’s story-poems explore the minutiae of her mother’s struggles with mental health, and Tweedy’s own attempts to find some safe balance in her relationship with her mother. In this short, but richly woven collection, Tweedy gives voice to the bitter struggles many fight quietly every day, offering a bit of solace to society's stigma of mental illness.
It’s like the words of A Registry of Survival were extracted from the heart, like clean sharp needles pulling out, but true and hard and needing to be said. The child, Ann Tweedy, might have survived her mother’s mental illness and homelessness, but the adult daughter has to live with the legacy ever after. This book is about the living with what comes after.