Erica Abeel ’58
Wild Girls
Fiction / Texas Review Press, 2016
In the 1950s, three friends from an elite Northeastern college upend their era’s stifling social norms as they forge their own paths in love and work. Though they sometimes pay heavy penalties for their irreverence, they draw strength from their friendship and eventually come out on top.
Nicki Pombier Berger MFA ’09, Helen Georgas MFA ’09, Nicole Haroutunian MFA ’08 (editors)
Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront
Anthology / Damiani, 2016
New York City’s 600-plus miles of coastline are explored through rare photographs, history, new fiction, and contemporary art, with a focus on the area’s lesser-known waterfront spaces. Contributing poets include Stacia L. Brown MFA ’07 and Kamilah Aisha Moon MFA ’06; contributing fiction writers include Nicole Miller MFA ’09 and Nelly Reifler MFA ’96.
Eleanor Chai (Beer) ’88
Standing Water: Poems
Poetry / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016
Each poem in Chai’s debut builds toward a singular story that blends memoir and mythology, using the subject of Rodin’s Head of Sorrow, Little Hanako, as a throughline.
Clay McLeod Chapman ’00
Nothing Untoward: Tales from The Pumpkin Pie Show
Short Stories / Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2017
Each of the 40 new tales from the storytelling session “The Pumpkin Pie Show” is meant to be read aloud, like a ghost story. Except these are ghost stories told from the perspective of the monsters: those “on the darker side of domesticity.”
Karen Chase ’64
FDR on His Houseboat: The Larooco Log, 1924–1926
History / State University of New York Press, 2016
For two years in the early ’20s, future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt wintered on a houseboat in Florida, hoping the warm air and water would help cure his polio-paralyzed legs. In Chase’s sixth book, she juxtaposes FDR’s daily nautical log entries with photographs from the Jazz Age merriment taking place in the background.
Gillian Cummings MFA ’09
My Dim Aviary
Poetry / Black Lawrence Press, 2016
Cummings slips into the persona of Parisian model and prostitute Miss Fernande, the rumored mistress of Pablo Picasso, in this series of sensuous prose poems.
Nicole Dennis-Benn MFA ’12
Here Comes the Sun
Fiction / Liveright (W. W. Norton & Company), 2016
Against the backdrop of paradise at an opulent resort in Jamaica, Margot struggles to keep her younger sister Thandi in school and shield her from the world of sex work Margot has had to rely on. Meanwhile, plans for a new hotel bring threats as well as opportunities to the women of the village.
John Freeman Gill MFA ’95
The Gargoyle Hunters
Fiction / Knopf (Penguin Random House), 2017
Griffin Watts, a 13-year-old New Yorker, is enlisted by his estranged father to help steal 19th-century gargoyles right off the faces of historic buildings. Griffin is swayed by the money as well as his desire to be close to his dad, but he must soon decide whether this is really the path he wants.
Noah Hawley ’89
Before the Fall
Fiction / Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group), 2016
When a plane crash leaves only two survivors—a child of wealth and a painter down on his luck—tragedy and mystery collide. Allegations about what happened on the flight unfold alongside the backstories of the passengers and crew, and the two survivors form an unlikely bond.
Micheline Hess ’93
Malice in Ovenland Vol. 1
Young Adult Graphic Novel / Rosarium Publishing, 2016
Lily Brown is a bright and curious girl from Queens. When her dreams of summer fun are dashed by the mandate of chores, she fumes. Little does she know that the greasy oven in the kitchen is about to offer her more adventure than she can handle.
Patrisia Macías-Rojas ’94
From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post-Civil Rights America
Nonfiction / New York University Press, 2016
The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) was designed to relieve overcrowded jails and prisons by removing noncitizen inmates. Macías-Rojas shows how CAP has changed policy as well as the lives of Border Patrol agents, law enforcement officers, human rights activists, migrants, and others.
Derek B. Miller ’92
The Girl in Green
Fiction / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017
In 1991, a British war correspondent and an American private from the Midwest meet at the end of Operation Desert Storm. In a surprise attack, the two try to save a girl in green, but fail. Years later, the men cross paths again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves.
Ann Patchett ’85
Commonwealth
Fiction / HarperCollins, 2016
Patchett’s latest novel spans five decades and explores the ownership of stories. The Keating and Cousins children have bonded in the years since an affair between their parents merged their families. When Franny Keating tells their story to a prominent author, he turns it into a bestselling book, impelling the siblings to come to terms with their past and the affection that’s grown between them.
Barbara Schoichet MFA ’81
Don’t Think Twice: Adventure and Healing at 100 Miles Per Hour
Memoir / G.P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin Group), 2016
After losing her job, her relationship, and her mother all within six months, Schoichet decides to hit the open road. On a Harley motorcycle purchased on eBay, she journeys from New York to Los Angeles and discovers the healing power of adventure.
Ruth Vincent ’06
Unveiled
Mystery / Harper Voyager Impulse, 2017
Mab Jones is a private detective. And a changeling. In this second book in Vincent’s Changeling P.I. series, Mab’s attempts to return to normal life are interrupted by a summons back to the fairy world and an investigation that reveals unsettling secrets.
Carol Zoref ’76, MFA ’97
Barren Island
Fiction / New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2017
Zoref, director of the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Center, received the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2015 Prize for the Novel for Barren Island. In Zoref’s first novel, narrator Marta Eisenstein Lane tells the story of her family’s life on Barren Shoal, a sandbar where New York City’s horses used to be taken to be turned into glue.
Kathryn Barush ’03
Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790–1850
Religion / Routledge, 2016
Barush draws from a rich array of sources, including paintings, manuscripts, reliquaries, and architecture, to show how the concept of pilgrimage (walking to a sacred space for the purposes of personal and spiritual transformation) shaped British ideas about religion and art in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Emma Bolden ’02
medi(t)ations
Poetry / Noctuary Press, 2016
In her second full-length book of poetry, Bolden explores the connection between the self and body through the out-of-body experience of illness.
Yasmain Broady ’80
The African Seed
Spirituality / Millennia Books, 2014
Broady relates anecdotes, tips, and tools from ancient African cultures to help 21st century readers connect with the spiritual wisdom of their ancestors.
Claudia Cortese MFA ’09
Wasp Queen
Poetry / Black Lawrence Press, 2016
Cortese’s first full-length book of poetry centers on a single character: 12-year-old Lucy.
Amy Dupcak ’06
Dust
Short Stories / Lucid River Press, 2016
Dupcak’s debut collection dives headfirst into the complicated waters of youth. Littered with songs, secrets, subculture, and a dash of the surreal, the volume’s 14 stories shed light on the harsh realities of growing up and making decisions in our modern world.
Melissa Febos MFA ’08
Abandon Me
Memoir / Bloomsbury USA, 2017
The connections we make with family, friends, and lovers are all different, but the need for them is universal. In her second memoir, Febos explores major relationships in her life—including those with her sea captain father figure and a long-distance female lover—and the ways that love, loss, and compulsion have shaped her identity.
Alma Gottlieb ’75 (co-author)
A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Eight Societies, Second Edition
Nonfiction / Cambridge University Press, 2016
In this revised and updated edition, co-authors Gottlieb and Judy DeLoache provide different answers to a variety of childrearing questions. Opinions vary greatly depending on the culture from which they’re drawn, showing that what is assumed to be common sense is not always universal.
Allison Havey ’88 (co-author)
Sex, Likes, and Social Media: Talking to Our Teens in the Digital Age
Self-Help / Vermilion (Penguin Random House UK), 2016
For many digital natives, self-esteem is measured in Likes, dates have been replaced with swipes, and crude sexual innuendo is the norm. Co-authors Havey and Deanna Puccio offer parents new strategies for talking with their teens in the Information Age.
Lauren Hilger MFA ’11
Lady Be Good
Poetry / Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016
In her debut book of poetry, Hilger alludes to films both known and obscure, but readers need not come to it with a complete catalogue of cinematic knowledge.
Tamam Kahn ’66
Fatima’s Touch: Poems and Stories of the Prophet’s Daughter
Biography / Ruhaniat Press, 2016
Kahn explores the life of the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest daughter, Fatima al-Zahra. The Sunni/Shia conflict originated with an attempt to exclude Fatima’s husband and sons from guiding Muhammad's followers, but few English texts focus on the family and personal life of the woman also known as the Mother of Her Father.
Amy Laprade MFA ’15
So Nice to Finally Meet You
Fiction / Human Error Publishing, 2016
Laprade’s debut novel follows 15-year-old Gina as she seeks a closer relationship with her unstable aunt, the closest thing she has to a mother.
Tirza True Latimer ’72
Eccentric Modernisms: Making Differences in the History of American Art
History / University of California Press, 2016
Having already studied Gertrude Stein, Latimer now turns her attention to Stein’s support network: a cohort of primarily gay men whose careers she helped to launch. Latimer looks to the edges of modernism in America in the 1930s and 1940s to trace its cosmopolitan and queer strains.
Meg Lindsay MFA ’98
A Painter’s Night Journal
Poetry / Finishing Line Press, 2016
Lindsay channels both her writing and painting selves in this book of poetry that explores creativity, color, emotion, and relationships.
Rebecca Marks ’67
Four Shots Neat
Mystery / Black Opal Books, 2016
In another Dana Cohen mystery, the NYPD detective has retired, but her life refuses to settle down. The women in her father’s nursing home have been dying suddenly, and Dana’s attraction to the new male nurse only complicates things.
N. West Moss ’90
The Subway Stops at Bryant Park
Short Stories / Leapfrog Press, 2017
Bryant Park is a Midtown Manhattan sanctuary and a microcosm of New York: a city famous for its cast of characters. Moss’ stories peek into the lives of the many urban dwellers and visitors who pass through the green oasis daily.
Gunilla Norris ’60
On the Wing: Lyrical Moments
Poetry / Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2016
A ‘book of days’ for capturing the important moments of life, this journal features haikus, poems, and inspirational quotes from Norris as well as hummingbird paintings by Toinette Lippe.
Bruce Post MFA ’95
Fleeing Steady Habits
Fiction / Black Rose Writing, 2016
When he comes home for Christmas, Junior finds his father murdered. Turning tragedy into opportunity, he takes his father’s car and cash and heads toward Mexico with his best friend Courtney. A priceless icon hidden in their glove compartment, a thieving hitchhiker, and Courtney’s abusive father all complicate their journey.
Lev AC Rosen MFA ’06
The Memory Wall
Children’s Fiction / Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2016
Nick, age 12, is sure his mother's diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's is wrong, and becomes convinced that a character in the video game he plays is actually her, trying to tell him how to rescue her.
Diane Schetky ’61 (editor)
The Women of ’66
History / North Wind Publishing, 2016
Dr. Shetky shares the stories of 10 pioneering women who joined the class of 1966 at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Dianalee Velie ’93
Ever After
Poetry / Loose Moose Publishing, 2016
In her fifth book of poetry, Velie explores the lives of fairy tale characters after their supposed happy endings. Among the stories told in verse: Cinderella goes to a high school reunion, Alice leaves Wonderland for a substance abuse meeting, Pinocchio enters politics.