Katy writes for this issue: Hope your 2023 is going well thus far. We have a full range of news—sad losses, pictures of everyday life, and encounters with many other alumni. This round features many first-time contributors—we’re so excited to hear from you and it’s never too late to get in touch!
First some very sad news of the death last year of one of our classmates, Alyson Tischler. Longtime friend and roommate Alice Moore writes: “My college roommate of four years, Alyson Tischler, passed away in April of 2021. You can read a lot about and by her online. But you can’t hear her, that awesome laugh, all in as she told the student hairdresser to just shave my head already, as we manipulated her little wooden man in our room in the Bayit, as we danced—at Wesleyan, in Germany, in Paris, in Poland. Alyson took me to my first Broadway show and we cried together in front of the mound of spectacles at Auschwitz. When I visit Wes, I can still see and hear us, careening down the hill on Church Street, pointing bananas at each other and screaming ‘It’s been so long!’—an inside joke that will never be funny to anyone else, shaped by a shared college experience.” You can read Alyson’s obituary at: https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/20717196/Alyson-Tischler.
Andrew Hindman writes: “I was selected to be on a team of 25 riders (out of 500 applicants!) who will be riding the Tour De France 2023 (one week ahead of the professional cyclists). Literally we are riding the whole course of TDF 2023 (starting in Bilbao, Spain, and ending in Paris). 2,200 MILES. The purpose is to raise >$1.5M for leukemia/cancer research and patient care. More can be found out on www.TheTour21.co.uk—it’s a great charity organization where all funds go directly to patient care and research to cure leukemia/cancer. I am riding in memory of not one but two family members (mother and brother) who died of cancer in 2022.” Let’s all wish Andrew a meaningful experience and keep him in our thoughts June 23–July 16, 2023!
Andrew Dickson writes: “Still holding it down in Portland, Oregon. Working as a copywriter by day for companies like Apple, Adidas, and Absci. Performing, auctioneering ,and hosting storytelling shows for The Moth by night. Hanging with my teen, tween, and wife Susan, who is a craft book author, by evening. We often see Ryan (Myers) Tinsel and family, and I keep in close touch with Bill Tsitsos who is teaching sociology at Towson University. Shouts-out to Wells Tower ’96, Vanessa Grigoriadis, and Henry Myers for looking me up when they’ve been in town over the years.”
Alison North writes: “I live in Seattle where my fabulous grown kids, their partners, and their kiddos bring me freaking daily joy!! I work a lot because, well, the city I love is expensive. I’m a nurse midwife primarily providing abortions, transgender care, and, well, anything that others feel judgmental about. I dance a lot to keep my sanity.” Cheers to Alison!
Suzanne Snider writes: “Hello from the Hudson Valley. I have been living and working in both Hudson and New York City for the last decade plus, more fully upstate since 2019 with my nine-year-old daughter. I continue my work as an oral historian and writer, moving into my 11th year of directing Oral History Summer School (which now runs yearlong) to train documentarians/folks of all stripes in principles of ethical documentation, collecting trauma-centered narratives and recording stories to radicalize the dominant record. I also teach at the New School and currently engage with Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies as visiting faculty. I have the pleasure of collaborating, this year, with Wes alum and podcast wizard/executive producer Mia Lobel ‘97 on a project for Johns Hopkins University and Pushkin Industries, centered on the subject of bioethics. I newly discovered that I love to play tennis with Wes alum Ed Morris ’94 who relocated to Hudson with his partner Susannah Sayler ’93; they run, together, an amazing organization called Toolshed out of Hudson, New York. Adrienne Truscott ’94 claims she will join us on the tennis court when she finds her racket. In the meantime, Adrienne continues to create incredible performances and also to manage Bard’s Center for Human Rights and the Arts. Last summer, I visited Elsie Kagan’s (’99) amazing art residency, Interlude, upstate and was happy to learn that Elsie and her partner are also Wes alums. Holler if you’d like to connect with more Wes friends in the Hudson Valley!” Great to hear about all of the Wes activity in this great region (but being from the Hudson Valley myself, I should declare a bias . . . ).
Ben Lee writes: “I live in Cheviot Hills (Los Angeles) with my wife and our three sons. After graduating Wes, I worked in the music industry before heading to law school and then worked as a lawyer for a few years before pursuing a career in residential real estate. I’ve been with Coldwell Banker Beverly Hills for many years now, focusing on Los Angeles’ westside. When I’m not buying and selling houses, I spend as much time surfing as I can, even got the opportunity to surf in Indonesia for a few weeks, which was a dream come true. I try to stay connected to my Wesleyan roots—in fact we host an annual reception for Los Angeles families with high schoolers applying to Wes. We look forward to hosting this party every year—the best part is meeting so many people interested in attending our fabulous school!”
Eric Meyerson writes, “It’s been an exciting year getting back to post-pandemic life and travel. I just marked 20 years in San Francisco and 22 in the Bay Area. Back when we were in school, I never figured myself to become a Californian, but here I am raising a family in this amazing region. My daughter is a junior in one of the Bay Area’s largest public high schools, and she’s now looking at colleges. (I know one school in central Connecticut that might actually be a pretty good fit for her interests.) We took a quick family trip to D.C. this past summer, where we had a big night out in Capitol Hill with Seth Kaufman and Bill Goldberg ’94. Bill also had a big birthday in Vegas back in February with a lot of ’94 Cardinals, and included a super-cool Red Rocks hike in a snowfall. I recently took another hike through the Oakland Hills with old buddy Ben Foss, who, like me, has spent the last few years in the climate tech industry. I’m always excited to hear from more Wes alumni in the Bay Area.”
In early 2022, after 20-plus years of being an editor at Ugly Duckling Press, Matvei Yankelevich left the Brooklyn nonprofit publisher, which grew out of his Wesleyan-era zine The Ugly Duckling. He is now editor-in-chief of World Poetry Books, a nonprofit press that publishes a diverse range of poetry from around the globe for English-language readers and brings attention to literary translators. It’s based in New York City and affiliated with the UConn’s Humanities Institute and Translation Program. After a yearlong grant for translation and research from the National Endowment of Humanities, Matvei is back to teaching literary translation for the writing MFA at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Meanwhile, his most recent chapbook of poems—Dead Winter (Fonograf Editions, 2022)—has been reviewed in Tablet, Zyzzyva, and other journals, and his translations of Osip Mandelstam have appeared in the New Yorker, Harpers, and elsewhere. In May, he visited his cousin Katya Semyonova ’98 and her two boys in D.C.”
As for my own alumni encounters, in early December I saw Stacy (Theberge) Taylor in Portland, Maine. I was there with my eldest, who has a passion for animation; as you’ll recall, Stacy and her husband run an animation firm (Little Zoo Studio), and graciously talked to us about the field. So lucky to have such an engaging alumni network!
Keep sending us your news and updates—we love to hear from you!
