Events
Nonfiction News
Reflexive political correctness, the often toxic fallout from social media, progressive enforcers of “proper” thinking, the cult of “weaponized victimhood,” are some of the topics social critic and personal essayist alumna Meghan Daum ’96 focuses on in her recently released The Problem with Everything. Fearlessly engaging such topics as fourth wave feminism and other divisive cultural and social issues affecting our lives today, Daum candidly braids her social observations with her own sometimes bruising personal experiences in this third essay collection.
From the mystique and fate of an outlier blue whale; to the civil war photography of Matthew Brady; to the spooky appeal of a computer game that allows users to create virtual selves; to the museum of broken relationships in Croatia, Leslie Jamison’s new essay collection, Make It Scream, Make It Burn, is, as NPR called it “[a] heady hybrid of journalism, memoir and criticism.”
In a work that was 10 years in the making, Professor of Professional Practice and future Writing Chair Lis Harris’ exhaustive and sensitive reporting in her new book In Jerusalem: Three Generations of an Israeli Family and a Palestinian Family manages to humanize a deeply polarizing and volatile conflict.
Léa & I, a documentary written and directed by current nonfiction writing student Camille Shooshani, premiered on Netflix on August 2, 2019.
Muri, a climate fiction chapbook by nonfiction writing alumna Ashley Shelby '02, was published by Radix Media. In this reimagining of Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, the polar bear population has dwindled, and the remaining pods have been relocated to the east coast of Antarctica in an attempt to save them using a process called “assisted colonization.” The last pod of Baffin Bay bears has boarded the Precession icebreaker, captained by a man who is keenly aware that previous crews on this run have gone mad.
Moonbound, a graphic novel by nonfiction alumnus Jonathan Fetter-Vorm ‘16 is available now. Released on the year marking the fiftieth anniversary of the voyage, Moonbound tells the monumental story of the moon and the men who went there first. With vibrant images and attention to detail, Fetter-Vorm conjures the long history of the visionaries, stargazers, builders, and adventurers who sent Apollo 11 on its legendary voyage.
The 2019 Firecracker Award for fiction was awarded last week to alumna Casey Plett ‘12 for her novel Little Fish, published by Arsenal Pulp Press.
Nonfiction alumna Marin Sardy '13 releases her debut memoir, The Edge of Every Day, on May 21, 2019 through Penguin Random House.
Writing professors Susan Bernofsky, Ben Marcus, and current adjunct Mitchell S. Jackson have all been named 2019-2020 Cullman Center Fellows by The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
Professor Brenda Wineapple's essay, The First President Ever to Be Impeached, is the cover story in the spring issue of The American Scholar. It is adapted from her forthcoming book, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, to be published by Random House in May.
Over the past couple of weeks, Writing students, faculty and alumni have been busy publishing new work. Read more in our weekly roundup.