Authors and Artists

Fall 2020

Books

With an overview of the broader draft resistance movement, Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War is an exploration of the sweeping landscape of the American left during the Vietnam War era. The book, written by Ted Glick ’71 and published by PM Press, takes readers on a journey through Glick’s personal evolution from a typical white, middle-class American teenager to an anti-war, nonviolent draft resister.

In March, Academic Press published Exploring Mathematical Modeling in Biology, co-authored by Anne Walter ’73. It is an introductory modeling text designed to fully integrate biology and math students by having them work together. The text supports a course that addresses the topic with case studies, a wet lab, and lab-based projects as well as the mathematics and process of modeling along with the requisite computer coding.

Author Ken Augustine ’68 spent five years as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Grinnell. But 40 years later, almost no one knew much about that eventful segment of his life. His sister, Kay, pointed this out to him recently, prompting Augustine to write Flying the Line, a collection of stories and memoirs from those early days spent flying cargo planes to far-flung corners of the earth.

Finishing Line Press published My Coney Island, a chapbook of poetry by Susan E. Oringel ’73, in 2019. The book tells the story of one family and of the country: the lives and deaths of the parents of a Jewish, second- and third-generation immigrant family beginning in Coney Island

Poetics of Still Life: A Collage, by Robert Vas Dias ’53, to be published in November by Permanent Press in the U.K., is a cross-disciplinary exploration of still life from the earliest times to the present. The book combines 65 still-life color images; commentaries by art historians, critics, curators, and writers; and poems and prose poems by Vas Dias.

Grinnell College Life Trustee Ronald Sandler ’62 recently published Practicing Medicine in the Third World, 1967–2010. In this book, Sandler recounts his experiences practicing medicine with his wife in 14 different countries as well as his time as a Peace Corps physician in Bolivia.

Princely Power in Late Medieval France by Erika Graham-Goering ’10 was published earlier this year by Cambridge University Press. While studies of medieval political authority often privilege royal, male, and exclusive models of power, Graham-Goering reveals how there were multiple coexisting standards of princely action, and it was the navigation of these expectations that was more important to the successful exercise of power than adhering to any single approach.

Ralph Savarese, Grinnell professor of English, released two collections of poems this fall. Republican Fathers, published by Nine Mile Books, is a poetic memoir of growing up among big-time Republican players of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. When This Is Over: Pandemic Poems was published by Ice Cube Press in October, and the poems in this collection evoke images from today’s news headlines — with a touch of whimsy.

In May, Kathleen Snow ’65 released the nonfiction book Taken by Bear in Glacier National Park: Harrowing Encounters between Grizzlies and Humans, published by Lyons Press. This is a companion to one of her previous books, Taken by Bear in Yellowstone.

Monique McLay Shore ’90 wrote a story regarding feelings during COVID-19 to share during the children’s message at Grinnell United Methodist Church. After a strong positive response, she worked with a local Grinnell printer to create a paperback version of the tale, titled The No Good Stay at Home Days. She offered the book for sale, with all proceeds benefiting local mission funds, including Mid-Iowa Community Action, Tiger Packs, and the Good Samaritan Fund.