“Publication” Class Notes

Mark Nuckols (Col ’90 CM) has published Travels with Ferdinand and Friends: A Centennial Journey Through Austria–Hungary, which won Hidden River Press’s Panther Creek Nonfiction Book Award. Beginning at Franz Ferdinand’s castle in the Czech Republic, Nuckols trekked through former Habsburg lands to Sarajevo for the centenary of the Archduke’s assassination, visiting old friends from Slovakia—where he taught English after graduating from UVA—and singing with local musicians in Dubrovnik, Prague and elsewhere. He lives on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where he translates, plays music and chess, and is active in the local alumni group.

Tom Gilroy (Col ’73 CM) has published Out of Season, a political thriller set against the backdrop of a 1980s civil war in West Africa, which Gilroy covered as a reporter based in Douala, Cameroon. The book also explores deeper themes like race, religion, colonialism and the high cost anger and resentment inflict on relationships and judgment. Gilory’s book of short stories, In Bikole, based on his two-years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in Senegal, was published by Alfred A. Knopf. 

Peter Capuano (Grad ’09) has published Dickens’s Idiomatic Imagination, an analysis of how Charles Dickens’s use of “low” and “slangular” language allowed him to express and develop his most sophisticated ideas. Capuano considers Dickens’s use of bodily idioms—”right-hand man,” “shoulder to the wheel,” “nose to the grindstone”—against the broader lexical backdrop of the nineteenth century.  Capuano is associate professor of English and a faculty fellow in the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska.

Dr. Chuck Edwards (Col ’69 CM) has published Late Fragment: Notes on the Later Stages of Life, his second book helping the aged find hope in their later years. His first book was Much Abides: A Survival Guide for Aging Lives. Sales support Memory & Movement Charlotte, the nonprofit medical practice Edwards founded to treat Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.   

Lawrence E. Jordan (Arch ’80 CM) published his first book, The Way: Meaningful Spirituality for a Modern World. The Way integrates religion and science and reconciles Eastern and Western worldviews, confirming with the mystics and the scientists that everyone is related, and everything is connected. Larry lives in Arlington, Texas and Crestone, Colorado. He retired in 2011, after a 25-year career in investment banking. He and his wife, Jill, have two grown children and three young grandchildren, and they enjoy playing with their grandchildren, traveling, and volunteering.

John Armstrong (Col ’69 CM) has published Breaking Stories, a novel in which the principal character, Jake Morris,  is a young journalist who launches an unauthorized investigation of a corrupt politician. When his editor seems to balk at publishing the story, Jake quits and goes on a journey leading toward discovery of the reason for his editor’s reluctance. Breaking Stories is available through Amazon/Kindle. John lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife Val, who he met at the UVA.

Nora Stone (Col ’07) has published her first book, How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960-2022. 

Since the 1960s, documentary films have moved closer to the mainstream, thanks to the popularity of “rockumentaries”, the independent film movement, support from public and cable television, and the rise of streaming video services. Documentary films have become reliable earners at the U.S. box office and ubiquitous on streaming platforms, while historically they existed on the margins of mainstream media. How do we explain the growing commercialization of documentary films and the conditions that fueled their transformation?

Streaming and the growing interest in reality TV are usually offered as initial explanations whenever a documentary enters the cultural conversation or breaks a box-office record, but neither of those causes grapple with the overlapping causal mechanisms that commercialized documentary film. How Documentaries Went Mainstream provides a more comprehensive and meaningful periodization of the commercialization of documentary film. Although the commercial ascension of documentary films might seem meteoric, it is the culmination of decades-long efforts that have developed and fortified the audience for documentary features. Author Nora Stone refines rough explanations of these efforts through a robust synoptic history of the market for documentary films, using knowledge of film economics and the norms of industry discourse to tell a richer story. This periodization will allow scholars to compare the commercialization of documentary film with other genres. Drawing on archival documents, industry trade journals and popular press, and interviews with filmmakers and film distributors, Stone illuminates how documentary features have become more plentiful, popular, and profitable than ever before.

Kristin Kisska Mehigan (Com ’90 CM) published her debut novel, The Hint of Light, under her pen name Kristin Kisska. The book follows a grieving mother who, after learning that her late son may have fathered a child, desperately searches for the granddaughter she never knew existed. The novel is in the UVA Authors Collection in the Rotunda Dome Room.

Mehigan, who lives in Richmond with her family, including her daughter Elyse Mehigan (Col ’23 CM), has also published mystery and suspense short stories under her pen name.

James R. Talbot Jr., Capt. USN (Ret) (Col ’53 CM) privately published the Talbot family history, covering the period from Jared Talbot, who landed in Taunton, Massachusetts, in about 1660 to C. Scott Talbot (Eng ’81, Law ’87) and Zachary B. Talbot (Col ’16 CM).

Natasha Saje (Col ’76) has published her fourth book of poems, The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023). She has also published a postmodern poetry handbook, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014) and a memoir, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020). She teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program and lives in Washington, DC.