“Publication” Class Notes
Jill Tietjen (Engr ’76 CM)
Jill Tietjen (Engr ’76 CM) has an upcoming book titled Over, Under, Around, and Through: How Hall of Famers Surmount Obstacles, which will be released May 3, 2022 by Fulcrum Publishing. The book provides the secrets of how Hall of Famers overcame the obstacles in their lives to become stronger, smarter and more resilient. The stories in the book show how the fifty successful women, inductees into Halls of Fame in the U.S. and around the world, used ten key characteristics either singly or in combination to surmount the many obstacles that they faced in their lives: mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, social support, moral compass/spirituality, determination/perseverance/persistence, optimism, creativity, resilience, action-orientation and passion.
Richard McGonegal (Col ’75)
Richard F. McGonegal (Grad ’75 CM) has published the novel Ghoul Duty with Cave Hollow Press.
The mystery is the second in the Sheriff Francis Hood series, which began with publication of Sense of Grace in 2020.
McGonegal is a 1975 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he received a master’s degree in English Language and Literature. While attending UVA, he studied creative writing with Peter Taylor, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
“Ghoul Duty” is the unofficial moniker for the task of recovering corpses unearthed by Missouri River flooding. After the sheriff and his chief deputy retrieve a body, they learn it did not come from the cemetery.
The revelation begins the process of determining who the man is and how he died. Complicating Hood’s efforts are his early recovery from alcoholism; his separation from his wife and daughter; a new twist on a relationship from his past; and the puzzling behavior of an ex-convict, whose father was killed by Hood in a shootout.
McGonegal is also a 1973 graduate of Rutgers University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature.
He retired in 2017 after a 41-year journalism career at the Jefferson City News Tribune, a daily newspaper in Missouri’s capital city. McGonegal and his wife, Kristie, live in Jefferson City, Missouri, where their two adult daughters, Heather and Jane, also reside.
Print and Kindle versions of his books are available online at Amazon.com.
Patrick McCreesh (Col ’02 CM)
Patrick McCreesh (Col ’02 CM) recently announced the acquisition of his company, Simatree, by Galway Holdings, a financial services distribution company. Patrick will continue to serve as the Managing Principal for Simatree under Galway. Additionally, Patrick will be releasing a new book, Stuck, How to WIN in Business by Understanding LOSS, on March 1, 2022. Patrick resides in Vienna, Virginia with his wife Courtney Lodge McCreesh (Col ’03 CM) and four daughters.
Paul Gaston (Grad ’66, Grad ’70 CM)
Paul L. Gaston (Grad ’66, ’70 CM) has published Credentials, a study of the academic and employment connection, with co-author Michelle Van Noy, director of the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University. His other recent books include The Challenge of Bologna (2010), about European higher education reform, and Higher Education Accreditation (2014). All are published by Stylus Publishing, LLC. He is the author also of Ohio’s Craft Beers (2016) published by Kent State University press. Gaston is a former provost of Kent State and a former acting dean of Trinity Cathedral (Episcopal) in Cleveland. At UVA he was elected to the Raven Society and to Phi Beta Kappa.
Jon Blankenship (Col ’08)
J. Ross Blankenship (Col ’08 CM) published his first book, Assessing CEOs and Senior Leaders: A Primer for Consultants with the American Psychological Association in 2021. Written for graduate students, psychologists and other professionals interested in better understanding how to work with executives, the book builds on theory, research and practice to provide an overview of senior leadership assessment, the contexts in which this work takes place and the tools and methods used. It also discusses ethical issues and future directions for practice.
Richard Miller (Col ’75 CM)
Richard B. Miller (Col ’75 CM) published Why Study Religion? with Oxford University Press. Miller’s book argues that scholarship in religious studies, especially work in “theory and method,” is preoccupied with matters of value-neutral procedure and thus inarticulate about the goals that can justify scholarship in the field. The book assesses six methodologies that symptomatize this inarticulacy and then offers an alternative framework for thinking about the purposes of the discipline. Miller’s framework, Critical Humanism, rests on four values toward which work in the study of religion can aim: Post-critical Reasoning, Social Criticism, Cross-cultural Fluency, and Environmental Responsibility. Mr. Miller is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Religion, Politics, and Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and in the College. He is the author of five other books and numerous articles on matters of religion, ethics, and public life.
Anne Hampford (Col ’83 CM)
Anne Hampford (COL ’83 CM) published a poetry chapbook Everywhere Is North in October 2021. The poems of Everywhere Is North are both self-portraits and portraits of the Antarctic continent—its ice, its creatures, and the ocean that surrounds it. They are meditations on home and rootedness in a most inhospitable but alluring place.
Brandon Thompson (Col ’20)
Brandon Richard Thompson (Col ’20), Donald Cooper (Col ’20) and Joanne Lee (Com ’21 CM) are contributing authors to Social Class Supports: Programs and Practices to Serve and Sustain Poor and Working-Class Students through Higher Education. Their chapter was based on the Hoos First Look program and how similar institutions can adopt the program into their universities. Thompson has been working in the consultant space since graduating in May 2020 and will be pursuing Ed-Tech based jobs going into 2022.
Casey Chalk (Col ’07, Educ ’07)
Casey Chalk (Col ’07, Educ ’07) published his first book, The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands. (Sophia Institute Press)
Jim Ambuske (Grad ’16)
Jim Ambuske (Grad ’16) is co-creator and co-writer of the new podcast series, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Intertwined is an eight-part docuseries that tells the story of the more than 577 people enslaved by George and Martha Washington, through the lives of Sambo Anderson, Davy Gray, William Lee, Kate, Ona Judge, Nancy Carter Quander, Edmund Parker, Caroline Branham, and the Washingtons. It is available wherever you get your favorite podcasts and at www.georgewashingtonpodcast.com
Carole Sargent (Grad ’92, Grad ’94 CM)
Carole Sargent (Grad ’92, ’94 CM) has written Transform Now Plowshares, a book about the nun who committed the largest breach in U.S. nuclear security history. It will be published in December 2021 by Liturgical Press. In August, 2020, in time for the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Georgetown University Press published A World Free From Nuclear Weapons – The Vatican Conference on Disarmament, co-edited by Sargent under the guidance of one of Georgetown’s Jesuits who advises the Holy See on disarmament issues. Their article on the book in The Conversation was published in hundreds of newspapers worldwide. Sargent’s article in The Conversation about Sister Ardeth Platte, who inspired the character of Sister Jane Ingalls in Orange is the New Black was also published in hundreds of newspapers. Sargent is a literary historian of early modern women’s political thought and founding director of Georgetown University’s Office of Scholarly Publications.
Winfrey Blackburn (Col ’61, Law ’64 CM)
Winfrey P. Blackburn (Col ’61, Law ’64 CM) and R. Scott Gill have published Gideon Shryock: His Life and Architecture – 1802-1880, the first and definitive book about Shryock, Kentucky’s first formally-trained architect and one of the most important architects of his era. It chronicles the peaks and valleys of Shryock’s life and work, all within the fascinating historical context of 19th-century Kentucky. Order online at www.butlerbooks.com.
Michael Pillow (Col ’79)
Michael Pillow (COL ’79 CM) has published his second novel, Summer Brush Men. The novel tells parallel stories of a younger man and an older man “coming of age” in their own ways. Michael has retired from his day job and lives with his partner Stephanie in Crozet.
Natasha Saje (Col ’76)
Natasha Saje (Col ’76) published Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020), a memoir-in-essays that was a finalist for Pen, Lambda, CMLP, and Indie Book Awards, and was awarded first prizes for the essay by Foreword Reviews and IPPY/ebook.
Lorisa Bates (Col ’91)
Lorisa Bates (Col ’91) has published Benita Renee Jenkins 2: Boxing Rings and Cages, the second edition in the Benita series. It is is an action-packed page-turner filled with intrigue, romance, and twists – a perfect read on those crisp cool fall and winter nights! An entertainment veteran and author, Bates has always had a zest for telling stories. As a young child, while children her age were playing with dolls, she was developing characters and writing short stories. As she got older, her love for writing only grew. With a career in the media industry spanning over two decades, her talents have expanded to include development, writing, producing and editing for film and television. Benita Renee Jenkins 2: Boxing Rings and Cages and Benita Renee Jenkins: Diva Secret Agent and are available everywhere books are sold.
Betty Roberts (Nurs ’53)
Betty Lou Roberts (Nurs ’53) has published her fourth book, Still Climbing, a combination of biography and fiction, featuring 13 short stories. She would love to hear from classmates.
daivd cook (Grad ’71)
David A. Cook (Grad ’71) published A History of Three-Dimensional Cinema with Anthem Press, London, in September 2021. This is a companion volume to his A History of Narrative Film (New York: Norton, 1981, 1990, 1996, 2004, 2016), W. W. Norton’s longest running publication, translated into eight languages, and one the world’s best-selling film history textbooks. He also wrote Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970-1979, Volume 9 of the History of American Cinema series (New York: Scribner’s, 2000, and Berkley: University of California Press, 2002). After teaching in the Purdue and Emory University English departments, 1971-1985, he served as Program Director and Chair of the Emory’s Film Studies Department, 1986-2007, which he also founded, and then served as Head of the Department of Media Studies, 2007-2012, at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where he still teaches and does research.
Jehnie Burns (Grad ’07)
Jehnie Burns (Grad ’02, ’07) published Mixtape Nostalgia: Culture, Memory, and Representation in October 2021. Mixtape Nostalgia tells the story of the mixtape from its history in 1970s’ bootlegging to its resurgence as an icon of nostalgic analog technology.
Suzanne Miller (Engr ’60)
Suzanne Miller (Engr ’60) has published I Am An American: Is America Racist? It uses the stories of her ethnically-mixed heritage (English/Scot/Native American/West African Black) to tell the story of America, and their place in that story. Carefully researched, the book contains or cites a substantial amount of relevant documentary evidence. The goal is to give readers a sound factual basis to form their opinion on this topic of current national importance. Many will may learn quite a few things about America that are not widely known, such as: Where did the phrase “all men are created equal” come from? Why were the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution written as they were? How were colonists with little military training able to defeat the most powerful military force on the planet at that time, the British Army? How and why did racism take root and develop in America? What does the very concept of “race” really mean? It is available as both an e-Book and paperback through Amazon, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble.
Lynda Rozell (Col ’84, Grad ’86, Law ’88)
Lynda Marie Rozell (Col ’84, Grad ’86, Law ’88) recently published a bestselling non-fiction book Journeys with a Tin Can Pilgrim: from corporate attorney to Airstream nomad, finding joy in everyday life with st. john’s press. Three years ago, Lynda retired from her position as project manager and in-house counsel with a non-profit in northern Virginia, sold her home, bought an Airstream travel trailer and a RAM 1500 truck, and hit the road full-time. She writes a travel blog about shrines, religious sites, and areas of natural beauty. Her book chronicles how she came to be a nomad ministering to the people she encounters on the road. Based on her personal experience, the book shares entertaining stories and tips for how to live and travel in an RV. Lynda’s travels take her all over the United States (except Hawaii because, although an Airstream resembles a submarine, it does not float!). Lynda currently is on a book tour and has been interviewed in podcasts, radio stations, and publications listed on the media page of her book web page. She frequently speaks at churches, RV parks, and community events. On occasion, she rolls into town in Fairfax, Virginia to visit her grown children and spends several months each year visiting friends in Florida. Previously Lynda served as Attorney Advisor to two sequential Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. and worked in private practice for Hunton & Williams.
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