“Publication” Class Notes

Ilana Berry (Law ’03) published her debut spy novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow (Simon & Schuster), in May 2023. Her pen name is I.S. Berry. After spying for the CIA for six years, including one year in wartime Baghdad, Berry decided she preferred writing about espionage to doing it. The Peacock and the Sparrow is about an American spy caught in the crosswinds of the Arab Spring who becomes involved in murder, consuming love, and an unpredictable revolution. Joseph Kanon, bestselling author of The Berlin Exchange, calls it “remarkable” and Joseph Weisberg, creator of the TV series The Americans, calls it “the most realistic espionage story I’ve read.”

Simon & Schuster

isberry.net

Carl Markowitz (Com ’67 CM) has published two novels. Churching Carla Carson is a story about religious zealotry and small-town corruption.  Let Them Die at West Point is the story of an assassination attempt on the U.S. President and a group of NATO officials who are attending a summer seminar at the United States Military Academy. His third novel, Here Lies Greasy D ,will be published in late June. It is the story of four generations of a family-owned farm in North Carolina, struggling to prevent an organized crime family’s efforts to take their property.

Before retiring in 2015, Markowitz practiced law in Virginia Beach, Virginia for forty-five years.

Abby Armistead (Col ’14, Law ’18 CM) recently covered two equestrian stories that beautifully document the horse life in Virginia hunt country: the Upperville Colt & Horse Show, the oldest event of its kind in the United States; and the national champion UVA Polo Teams. An equestrian and artist, Armistead regularly contributes to the magazines Virginia Wine & Country Life and Virginia Wine & Country Weddings. She has also founded an inspirational bespoke stationery company.

Winkfield F. “Wink” Twyman, Jr. (Col ’83 CM) has published Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America. The book, co-authored with Jennifer Richmond, chronicles Twyman’s experiences as a child of the New South in the 1970s suburbs, a place and time all but forgotten in modern discourse.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Twyman lived on Twyman Road in then-Chesterfield County until the age of eight. Everyone living on Twyman Road was a Twyman. He writes of a time in a southern suburb when the things people shared in common mattered more than racial differences.

An Echols Scholar driven by the goal of attending Harvard Law School, Twyman also writes about what happened to his American dream 40 years later. 

A former law professor, Twyman lives in San Diego with his wife. They have three children – a first-year student at Stanford Business School, an entering graduate student at San Diego State University, and a sophomore at Yale. 

Coleman Bigelow (Col ’97, Darden ’05 CM) has published In Rare Cases and Other Unfortunate Circumstances, his first collection of flash fiction, with Alien Buddha Press.

Divided into four parts: (Siblings, Lovers, Parents and Mourners) these stories take us on a journey through the formative stages of life’s relationships. With a keen eye for detail and a sharp sense of humor, Bigelow captures the nuances of human experience in all its messy, complicated glory.

Hajar Yazdiha (Col ’05) has published The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement with Princeton University Press.

In the post–civil rights era, wide-ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s, from people with disabilities to women’s rights activists and LGBTQ coalitions. Increasingly since the 1980s, white, right-wing social movements, from family values coalitions to the alt-right, now claim the collective memory of civil rights to portray themselves as the newly oppressed minorities. The Struggle for the People’s King reveals how, as these powerful groups remake collective memory toward competing political ends, they generate offshoots of remembrance that distort history and threaten the very foundations of multicultural democracy, fracturing our collective understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we go next.

Alden Abbott (Col ’74 CM) has published Trade, Competition and Domestic Regulatory Policy, coauthored with Shanker Singham. 

Trade, Competition and Domestic Regulatory Policy presents a combination of analysis of both international trade and investment policies, and competition and regulatory policies. This book contains a detailed treatment of how property rights protection, including intangible property rights, is a critical element of ensuring open trade and competitive markets. The book examines how property rights have developed over time and how they have been integrated into trade and competition policy, all while providing a comprehensive analysis of international trade theory and other failures to protect various kinds of property rights. 

Rusty Allen (Col ’81 CM) has published his debut novel, Ella’s War, a journey amongst women and men whose lives are deeply altered by the circumstances of WWII.  

It’s 1943 on the American home front, and Ella’s pent-up common-law husband finally decides to leave their farm and enlist. Ella must either depart their seafaring town in coastal Delaware to pursue other dreams inland or try to save their farm. Their grade-school son, Reese, won’t budge, and Ella sees that farmers have a patriotic duty to stay on the land.

The bay and ocean waters before them have been preyed upon by German U-boats, and their village has become a refuge for survivors. When an officer from a surrendered German submarine is sent to her as part of POW farm labor, can Ella embrace the help in order to survive? And what happens when Dieter becomes more than a hand to her, amid prying eyes and under her beloved but conflicted son’s watch? How will she choose when her explosive husband returns from Europe wounded from infantry duty against the Germans?

“Beautifully wrought, heart stopping, spirit lifting…. What a human brew!”
     –– Ron Suskind (Col ’81) Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Hope in the Unseen

Allen lives in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and can be reached through his website: www.rustyallenauthor.com

Mary P Harper (Educ ’75) has published her memoir, The Sound of Her Voice: My Blind Parents’ Story, which examines the challenges faced by both of her parents as they navigated life without sight. Her father was the first blind graduate of the Notre Dame University Law School, practiced law, and was elected Judge three times. Her mother raised four sighted children and ran the household. Kirkus Reviews called it “an inspiring story that avoids becoming saccharine…”

Richard E. Katholi (Med ’68 CM) has published Reflections Off a Vietnamese Moon: In Country or Boots on the Ground, a book about his experiences in Vietnam. Katholi recounts the year (1970-1971) he cared for patients in a war zone, describes the day-to-day outpatient care of troops, as well as the comprehensive military network of medical care provided by MASH units. The book title was inspired by how he reflected thoughts off the moon at night when he was walking back to his living quarters. 

Richard F. McGonegal (Grad ’75) has published The Forget-Me-Knot, a mystery novel. His book is the third in the Sheriff Francis Hood mystery series, preceded by Sense of Grace and Ghoul Duty.

McGonegal received a Master’s degree in English literature at UVA in 1975, where he was a student in Peter Taylor’s creative writing class. He and his wife, Kristie, live in Jefferson City, Missouri, and are the parents of two adult daughters, Heather and Jane.

Anthony J. Romanello (Col ’92 CM) has recently published The Girl Who Lived on the Third Floor, the story of how his fifth child came to live with their family.  All book proceeds go to Hope Tree Family Services, Inc. 

Anne Holub (Col ’99) has published her first chapbook of poetry, 27 Threats to Everyday Life. The poetry book was a semi-finalist in the press’ New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition, and the collection includes the poem “Mudslides,” which was chosen as runner-up in the 2021 Mountain West Writers Contest by the Western Humanities Review. After attending UVA, Anne earned a MA from Hollins University and a MFA from the University of Montana in creative writing. She now writes and lives in Montana. 

Dr. William T. “Bill” Sheahan, MD (Engr ’81, Med ’85 CM) has published A Doc Who Jots: The More you Know About Your Patient’s Story, his fourth collection of unique, uplifting or funny patient encounters. Proceeds will be donated to the Fisher House Foundation, which builds comfort homes at military and VA medical centers so families can stay free of charge while a loved one is in the hospital receiving treatment.

Ben Krakauer (Col ’03) has recorded an album of original banjo music called Hidden Animals.The album will be released March 22 by Adhyâropa Records. The music moves between blazing bluegrass romps, conversational jams, harmonically tender daydreams and chaotically cohesive grooves. It’s an album of gratitude, grief, hunkering down and celebrating the beauty of friendship, nature and human expression during a time when nothing can be taken for granted. 

Chapman Hood Frazier (Grad ’94) has recently published a collection of poetry entitled The Lost Books of the Bestiary. The collection of poems explores animals, culture, myth and the spirit through unusual perspectives. The book was a finalist for the V Press LC Award. 

The poems have won awards from The Virginia Poetry Society and some have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The South Carolina Poetry Review and other publications. 

Javier Escudero Rodríguez (Grad ’88, ’92) has published a photography book entitled Pierre Fatumbi Verger: United States of America 1934 & 1937 (Bologna, Damiani 2022). The book presents a collection of 150 photographs by Verger, as well as an introductory analysis that contextualizes the collection in the Great Depression. 

In the introduction, Javier Escudero Rodríguez discusses Verger´s important contribution to modern photography as well as the lasting relevance of this previously unknown collection of iconic images of the Great Depression. The 150 images, the majority of which are published here for the first time, were selected from among 1,110 negatives in the archive at the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador after laborious and meticulous research. 

Mary Brancaccio (Col ’81 CM) has published her first poetry collection, Fierce Geometry. Her poetry travels the emotive back roads and roadside attractions of one woman’s journey through longing, love and loss. 

Brancaccio’s poetry has appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Minerva Rising, Edison Literary Review, Lake Affect Magazine and Adana, among others. Her poem, Unfinished Work, was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is included in several anthologies of poetry, including Writing the Land: Maine, Writing the Land: Northeast, Farewell to Nuclear, Welcome to Renewable Energy (a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster) and Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. 

Holly Donahue Singh (Grad ’05, ’11 CM) published her first book, Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India (Indiana University Press), an academic monograph based on long-term fieldwork in North India.

In Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, the stigmas and colonial legacies surrounding sexual propriety and population growth affect how Muslim women, often in poverty, cope with infertility. Singh draws on interviews, observation, and auto ethnographic perspectives in local communities and Lucknow’s infertility clinics to examine access to technology and treatments and to explore how pop culture shapes the reproductive paths of women and their supporters through clinical spaces, health camps, religious sites, and adoption agencies.

Singh is a faculty member at the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida. 

For more information about the book: https://iupress.org/9780253063878/infertility-in-a-crowded-country/

Above left: Singh presents a copy of the book to Dean Charles Adams (Grad ’79, ’85) of the Judith Genshaft Honors College at the release event at USF.

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) wrote the introduction to a new edition of The Man Who Fell to Earth, published by Centipede Press. 

Dr. Mark W. Dewalt (Grad ’86 CM) published an article in The Journal of Plain Anabaptists Communities this past fall, entitled “Amish Mortality Rates in the Twenty-First Century.” 

Joseph A. Fry (Grad ’70, ’74) has published Letters from the Southern Homefront: The American South Responds to the Vietnam War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2023). This edited collection of letters provides a voice to southerners from across the region expressing a broad range of political, economic, racial, and cultural views on the war and its domestic impact. 

Alana Malick Ritenour (Col ’02 CM) and her husband, Rhodes Ritenour (Col ’00, Law ’05 CM) have published a children’s book called The Adventures of Rhodes and Alana: School Bus Secret. Eight-year-old Rhodes and Alana miss the school bus, leading to an exciting journey and an opportunity for Rhodes to tell Alana about living with type 1 diabetes. As a result, a new friendship is formed between these two spirited and confident kids. Proceeds benefit the American Diabetes Association, JDRF, and TheDiabetesSupportGroup.org. For more, visit www.RhodesandAlana.com.

Steven Schaikewitz (Col ’70 CM) recently coauthored “Variations on a Theme: Georgia’s Evolving Test for Interlocutory Injunctive Relief”.  The article appeared in the August 2022 issue of the Georgia Bar Journal.

Deborah Sheetenhelm Hammond (Arch ’82 CM) has released her 26th novel, The Very Thought of You. It follows the cases of FBI Agent John McIver, who is pulled from his customary undercover work to oversee the stalking investigation of a famous actress, Charlotte Meadows. Chased across two continents, the stalker seeks to overturn Charlotte’s life and end John’s. This novel and Hammond’s other titles are available on Amazon.com in both Kindle and paperback versions and at local book signing events. 

Lindsey Wray (Col ’03) released a debut musical album in December 2022 as part of The Flip Phones band. Titled Better in the Dark, the album features quirky lyrics and catchy melodies that explore themes of light vs. darkness and humans vs. nature. The Flip Phones’ sound lies at the intersection of indie, rock, and folk music. Lindsey (keyboard, melodica, flute, vocals) collaborated with her bandmate and husband, Ryan Kobb (guitar, vocals), to create the unique album, which includes the singles “Man-Made Moon” and “Fly Back to You.” 

Dr. Andrew G. Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM) has published his 12th textbook, Space Flight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS). The condition, known as SANS, is unique to long duration space flight. There is no known terrestrial equivalent.

Dr. Lee has worked as a consultant for NASA on SANS, but he has no intention of leaving Earth for the planned manned mission to Mars. Nevertheless, he remains committed to continued terrestrial research on the mysteries of SANS.

Karen Jones (Educ ’73 CM) has published her fifth book, The Summer of Grace. The southern coming-of-age novel, set in 1951 North Carolina, tells the story of a young girl’s transformation from victim to survivor through humor, hard truths and grace. 

Jones is an author, award-winning broadcast journalist and freelance writer. Her other works, both fiction and non fiction include Up the Bestseller Lists! A Hands-On Guide to Successful Book Promotion, Death for Beginners and The Highland Witch.

Jones lives in Virginia Beach and can be reached through her website, kjwriter.com

Judith Baroody (Grad ’85 CM) published her second book of short stories, Paris Gold: Ten Tales of Treasures Lost and Found in 2022. Like the first, Casablanca Blue, Paris Blue is a collection of fiction and fantasy based on her experiences and travel. Judith has worked as a foreign service officer, professor and journalist. She is also the author of the non-fiction Media Access and the Military.

John Guerard, (Grad ’76 CM) has published two books: The Leading Economic Indicators and Business Cycles in the United States: 100 Years of Empirical Evidence and the Opportunities for the Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), and the third edition of Quantitative Corporate Finance (Springer, 2022). Guerard, who taught at the McIntire School of Commerce from 1979 to 1981, has retired after 15 years as director of quantitative research at McKinley Capital Management in Anchorage, Alaska. He and his wife, Julie, have settled in Bluffton, South Carolina. 

Dwight Sullivan (Law ’86) has written Capturing Aguinaldo: The Daring Raid to Seize the Philippine President at the Dawn of the American Century, published by Stackpole Books.  Capturing Aguinaldo tells the story of five U.S. Army officers who disguised themselves as POWs.  Their “captors” were actually Filipino soldiers loyal to the United States.  Following a grueling 90-mile forced march, the ruse allowed them to infiltrate the enemy headquarters, helping to bring the Philippine-American War to an end.

Mary Beth Paradise (Educ ’93) has published Beach Santa, a children’s picture book which explores what Santa does on the day after Christmas. Paradise is donating 25% of the profits to Team LeGrand, which supports spinal cord injury research and quality-of-life initiatives. Out now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJ4RNHY8.

Kimberly Kenna (Col ’79) has an upcoming debut middle-grade novel, Artemis Sparke and the Sound Seekers Brigade, which will be published on Feb. 2, 2023, by Fitzroy Books. The book follows a group of underdogs who conjure up the ghosts of historic ecologists to help save a Long Island Sound salt marsh and appease Mother Nature. The second book in the Brave Girls Collection, Jett Jamison and the Secret Storm, will be published on Aug. 3, 2023, by Black Rose. Kenna’s poems and short stories have been published in American Writers Review, Mused, Plum Tree Tavern and Rubbertop Review.

Stephen B. Dobranski (Col ’88) recently published his tenth book, Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times (Stanford University Press). He is Distinguished University Professor at Georgia State University, and editor of the academic journal Milton Studies.

Jessica Hatch (Col ’12 CM) celebrated the debut of her first novel, My Big Fake Wedding (Hachette Book Group; Bookouture), on August 18, 2022. It debuted at #1 in Amazon’s Humorous American Literature category. Hatch has a second novel forthcoming from Bookouture in February 2023. Learn more at www.jessicahatch.com.

Gordon Bernhardt (Com ’85 CM) has written Buen Camino: What a Hike through Spain Taught Me about Investing and Life. The book will remind readers that although we’re all walking a different path, we’re all headed for a common destination. Gordon is the founder, president, and CEO of Bernhardt Wealth Management, a comprehensive wealth management firm based in McLean, VA. The company is an independent registered investment advisory firm that provides clients with financial planning and investment management.