“Publication” Class Notes

William H. Venema (Law ’81 L/M) has written a novel that is loosely based on a murder case he prosecuted in Panama shortly after graduating from law school.

Death in Panama tells the story of Captain Robert E. Clark who arrives in Panama on his first tour of duty as a lawyer. He struggles to reconcile his Southern upbringing and West Point training with a strange new environment. Panama is a muddled mix of conflict and corruption, where, among other things, marriage vows don’t mean what they did at the First United Methodist Church of Pemberton, Georgia. When Clark is assigned to prosecute a murder case involving the death of a thirteen-month old little girl, his ambition causes him to neglect his wife and daughter more than usual and—even worse—bend the rules in ways that call into question what kind of man he is and what he truly values.

Death in Panama has been described as an intriguing, thought-provoking tale of unrestrained ambition and its consequences. Death comes in many forms, each lethal in its own way.

Bill Venema is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He also earned an MBA from Georgia State University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. His legal career spans over thirty years and includes time in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, in law firms, and as in-house counsel in major corporations.  He has written extensively on legal topics and published a book entitled The Strategic Guide to Selling Your Software Company.  Prior to entering private practice, Bill served in the U.S. Army in Germany, Panama, and several stateside assignments. He is a graduate of the Army’s Airborne and Ranger schools, as well as the Command and General Staff College. His author website is at: www.williamhvenema.com.

David Black (Educ ’64 L/M) just published a short limited-edition collection of clerihews, Shortcomings: Around the Grounds & Corner (Persimmon Tree Press, Amazon, signed & numbered) based on the charter group of Echols Scholars and University life of the early 1960s.

Robert Frederick Jackson, Jr. (Educ ’70 L/M), published two historically set, interrelated fiction series, Magandang Pilipinas (set in the Philippines at the time of America’s conquest of those islands) and Sunny of the Old Southwest (about the relationship between a young female refugee from the Long Walk of the Navajo and a young white man from Virginia). Serious fiction, with positive messages, was always Mr. Jackson’s ultimate life goal and follows a teaching career in Virginia, Texas, and the Philippines and work as a portrait painter and muralist. These two series share the last two volumes, in which some characters from both interact.

Robert is married to the former Rosario Maria Taboada from the Visayan Islands of the Philippines, a region where some of his novels are set. The couple lived there for several years in the 1970s following their meeting at Virginia. She was a foreign exchange nurse at the University of Virginia Hospital. In those days, her parents owned a fifty bed hospital in the Philippines, built out of the devastation of World War II. Robert and Maria’s residency in the islands coincided with the martial law period of the Marcos presidency.

A dominant theme within the novels is the companionship, equality and determination that several mixed-race couples apply in their attempt to function normally in an era in which their relationships are abnormal. Mr. Jackson publishes through Amazon in trade paperback and Kindle editions.

Debbie Levy’s (Col ’78 L/M) latest book for children is Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War (Disney-Hyperion 2017). It’s the story of an impromptu concert that took place after the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, when the armies of North and South went into winter camp on opposite sides of the Rappahannock River. The terrible battle left soldiers on both sides bitter and angry, yet a song about missing home—that old tune, “Home, Sweet Home”—drew Federals and Confederates together for one night. Interwoven with soldiers’ letters and journal entries, this true story shows the power of music, and the possibility of seeing the humanity in those with whom we are locked in conflict. In other news, Debbie’s New York Times-bestselling 2016 picture book, I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award and the Sydney Taylor Book Award.

Cameron Jefferies (Law ’11, ’14) has published Marine Mammal Conservation and the Law of the Sea (Oxford University Press, 2016). The book analyzes and critiques the state of marine mammal regulations and details threats to marine mammals including climate change and collisions with ships. It also discusses options for reform under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and existing treaties. Ms. Jefferies is an assistant professor of law at the University of Alberta. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on oceans law, shark and marine mammal conservation and environmental law.

Walter Watkins “Watt” Hamlett Jr. (Coll ’93 L/M) and Jill Olinger Vinson (Engr ’01) have published Reston A to Z (Mascot Books, 2016), a children’s book about Reston, Virginia. The book was written by Mr. Hamlett and illustrated by Ms. Vinson. A squirrel modeled after the town’s founder provides readers with a tour of the town, an early planned community.  Mr. Hamlett lives in Reston with his wife and two sons. Ms. Vinson lives in Herndon, Virginia with her husband and two sons.

Kelly Cherry (Grad ’63) has published Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer (Louisiana State University Press, 2017), a collection of poems about the titular physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. Ms. Cherry is Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue­­­-Bascom Professor Emerita in the humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She and her husband live in Virginia.

Jennifer Van Horn (Grad ’09) has published The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). The book is an interdisciplinary study of the role of commodities and consumption in the development of American communities and citizenship. Ms. Van Horn is assistant professor of art history and history at the University of Delaware.

Macye Lavinder Maher (Com ’96) has published her debut novel, Fireworks and Fertility (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2017). The book follows an embryologist through romance and a series of incidents that lead her to discover her true identity. Ms. Maher is an owner of Live Water Properties, a brokerage firm specializing in hunting, ranching, fly fishing and conservation properties in the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest. She lives in Jackson, Wyoming with her husband and three children.

Michael Knight (Grad ’96) has published a new collection of short stories, Eveningland (Grove Atlantic, 2017). He is also the author of two novels, two short story collections and a book of novellas. Mr. Knight has received a number of awards, including a PEN/Hemingway Foundation Special Citation and the New Writing Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He teaches creative writing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and lives in Knoxville with his family.

Paul Stroble (Grad ’91) has published a new book, Walking with Jesus through the Old Testament (Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), and two poetry chapbooks, Dreaming at the Electric Hobo (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Little River (Finishing Line Press, 2017). He is adjunct faculty at Webster University and Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. 

Janice Rosser Allen (Nurs ’75 L/M) has published her first book. Entitled God in the Crossroads: Signs of Hope, the book details Janice’s experience as CEO of International Cooperating Ministries (ICM), an international nonprofit founded in 1986 by Janice’s father, Dois Rosser. The organization aids Christians in developing nations by enabling them to build permanent churches, schools and orphanages, and supplying them with Bible study materials in their language.  

A successful oncology clinical specialist and nursing educator, Janice initially had no plans to take an executive role at ICM. But when her husband of 27 years passed away from ocular melanoma in 2005, her life changed direction. In 2006, she accepted the position of CEO and Executive Chair of the board at ICM. 

God in the Crossroads outlines Janice’s personal journey to ICM, along with the struggles and triumphs of Christian believers in the field. From Tanzania to Peru, from Russia to Vietnam, the book offers powerful stories of faith and hope in spite of the odds.

Co-authored by New York Times bestselling author Ellen Vaughn, God in the Crossroads: Signs of Hope can be purchased at http://icm.org/shop.

Janice graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing from the University of Virginia Nursing School in 1975, then earned a Master’s in Nursing from Duke University in 1977.