Authors and Artists

Winter 2017

Books

Made for Love

Alissa Nutting, assistant professor of English and writer-in-residence, published Made for Love (Ecco/HarperCollins, July 2017) to rave reviews. The novel tells the story of Hazel, who has just run out on her marriage to Byron Gogol, CEO and founder of Gogol Industries, a monolithic corporation hellbent on making its products and technologies indispensable in daily life. For more than a decade, Hazel put up with being veritably quarantined by Byron in the family compound, her every movement and vital sign tracked. But when he demands to wirelessly connect the two of them via brain chips in a first-ever human “mind-meld,” Hazel decides what was once merely irritating has become unbearable. As she tries to carve out a new life for herself in this uncharted territory, Byron is using the most sophisticated tools at his disposal to find her and bring her home. 

My Own Words

Mary Hartnett ’80 and Wendy Williams co-wrote an authorized biography/autobiography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My Own Words (Simon and Schuster, 2016) is Ginsburg’s first book since becoming a Supreme Court associate justice in 1993. 

Pep Talks for Writers

Grant Faulkner ’87, executive director of National Novel Writing Month, has written Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo (Chronicle Books, October 2017). In July he served as the Aspen Institute’s writer-in-residence. 

Rescued by My Breath

Natazha Raine O’Connor ’84 attended Grinnell College as Bunny Connors. Her book Rescued by My Breath depicts a “real-life respiratory fairy tale” illustrating that how we relate to our breathing can either kill us or fulfill us. 

Silver medal winner

Dennis Maulsby ’64’s book of short stories, Free Fire Zone (2016, Prolific Press), received the silver medal award in the science fiction category at the 2017 Military Writers Society of America annual meeting in San Antonio in September. He has two haiku in the Fall 2017 issue of Mused: The BellaOnline Literary Review. bit.ly/2z4oSws

Staging Creolization

Emily Sahakian ’02, assistant professor of theatre and French at the University of Georgia, published Staging Creolization: Women’s Theater and Performance from the French Caribbean (University of Virginia Press, June 2017). In her book, Sahakian examines seven late-20th-century plays by French Caribbean women writers and theorizes Creolization as a performance-based process.

The Austin Cookbook

Paula Forbes ’06 collected recipes from beloved Austin, Texas, restaurants for her cookbook, The Austin Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from Deep in the Heart of Texas. It will be published by Abrams in March 2018.

Art

Saving Brinton

Filmmaker Andrew Sherburne ’01’s latest documentary feature, Saving Brinton, premiered at the American Film Institute’s prestigious AFI DOCS film festival in June 2017. The film then debuted in September at the World’s Oldest Movie Theatre in Washington, Iowa, followed by nine screenings throughout Iowa and the heartland. Saving Brinton is the story of an eccentric Iowa collector who uncovered five hours of film from the early 1900s that once belonged to Frank Brinton, one of America’s most successful barnstorming, moving-picture exhibitors. In October the film premiered in Arkansas at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. Sherburne produced and co-directed the film. Watch the trailer. 

The Vietnam War

Peter (Cohon) Coyote ’64 narrated the Ken Burns PBS documentary The Vietnam War, a 10-part, 18-hour film series which immerses viewers in a 360-degree narrative, telling the story of Vietnam as it has never been told on film.

Professional Publications

“Iowa, Grinnell College never far from mind of this East Coast resident”

A personal essay by Peter Guthrie ’75 appeared in The Des Moines Register in September. The essay describes his arrival in Grinnell for his first year of college. Read the essay at dmreg.co/2xDgDXd.