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Just a little bit of news from a few Class of ’82 folks. Elon Musk says he’s glad to live in interesting times, so I guess we can all decide if it is a curse or not.
Book news from two of our classmates: Virginia (Ginny) Pye writes, “I’ve had an active fall with book events for my new novel, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann—a Gilded Age story of a dime novelist who sues her Boston publisher for underpaying her as a woman. And I’d be happy to visit book clubs, in person or virtually, of any fellow Wes alumni!” Michael Lucey was nominated for the Modernist Studies Association book award and took honorable mention for his quite incredible work about what happens when we talk, What Proust Heard: Novels and the Ethnography of Talk.
Carlos Hoyt, with a PhD and MSW in social work, teaches, practices, and leads in the Boston area. He is doing amazing work on race and other identity constructs, and shares that he had the good fortune of being featured (with an old family photo!) in this Washington Post article, “Race isn’t real, science says. Advocates want the census to reflect that.”
Emilie Attwell writes, “I am still working via telepsychiatry for the Harris Center (the huge multicenter place that covers Houston). I saw today a mother and her two daughters that have autism and ADHD. It boggles my mind to have one daughter that is nine years old and still needs help taking a bath, much less two, and to have to do it as a single mom. . . . Thank God the punitive heat from the summer has abated, and the plants can take a breather.” Thank God for your work, Emilie.
Diana Moller-Marino was an acting professor/director for over 20 years at the Hartt School, University of Hartford. “Loved preparing actors for the profession. Recently left there to teach privately out of my home. I’ve loved teaching students of all ages. Don’t miss the university setting one bit. Still work at Wes every year, guiding monologues written by current students on issues of identity (In the Company of Others) as a key part of new student orientation. It’s wildly appreciated and I find it both satisfying and weird to be back in the Jones Room. I recently directed my first documentary about folks who hang out by the soup kitchen: folks dealing with housing insecurity, addiction and/or mental illness.” You can see her Meet the Streets (about Middletown!) on YouTube.
Steve Maizes has been keeping in touch. “Michael Zeller, Vincent Bonazzoli, and our respective spouses enjoyed a fantastic night of ping-pong, swimming, weightlifting, nostalgic reminiscing, and delicious Italian food around a campfire.” Weightlifting? I didn’t do that at my last alumni get-together, but I read that we will all age better if we do that.
I will report that your co-secretaries spent Thanksgiving together in San Miguel de Allende, with Laura’s husband, Wes alum, Peter Eckart ’86, and with my wife, Laurie, and our eldest. My first Thanksgiving out of the country and it was lovely. After finally figuring out together that pumpkin and pecan pies cook quite differently at 6,200 feet of elevation, a sense of peace finally arrived.
I decided not to write about what I learned about so many of you from your out of office replies: what programs you run, that you are retiring, etc., and decided only to include what you’ve intended to share with the class. Perhaps I’ll have the courage (or guile) to do that next time. The years pass so swiftly, so please stay in touch, especially during these interesting times.
LAURA FRASER | laura@laurafraser.com
MICHAEL OSTACHER | mostacher@gmail.com