INTRODUCTION TO THE EVENING BY JOHN HOUGH JR.
Wally Bullock writes fiction with psychological motifs. His work also deals with the nuances of racism as it relates to the black upper middle class and the broader society. He is currently working a novel about a young African- American man in search of identity.
– Leslie Eaton – I’m writing a story about a young woman growing up through the sixties and seventies and how the politics, the social movements and revolutions of the times, shaped and misshaped her.
I have not decided if the story I am reading tonight will stand alone or show her fifty years later, still coming to terms with the changes around her.
– Leigh Fairchild-Coppoletti – I am a history teacher at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and an MA student at Bread Loaf School of English. I will be reading from my novel-in-progress.
– Christine Ferrone has lived on Martha’s Vineyard since 1998 with her husband, Chip Story. She is mother to Nate and Iyla, and an English teacher at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
– Whit Griswold – I’ve always loved short stories, and I wrote several back in the 1970s, but I had no idea what I was doing. In the last six months, with John Hough’s guidance, I’ve written several more, trying to learn how a good story is constructed.
– Rob Hauck writes historical fiction, mysteries involving art crime in particular. He will read a selection from Adrift, a twice-told tale of Vichy and post-war France involving the fate of a portrait of a young woman by Pierre Bonnard. A young man learns that long after treaties are signed, and monuments are erected to the dead and the victorious, the legacy of wartime betrayal can reach through time to reshape the lives of successive generations.
– John Hough Jr.grew up in Falmouth, Massachusetts and now lives on Martha’s Vineyard. He is a graduate of Haverford College, a former VISTA volunteer, speech writer for Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, and assistant to James Reston at the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. His grandfather and his father edited the Falmouth Enterprise and his great-uncle was for many years the editor of the Vineyard Gazette. Hough is the author of five previous novels, including Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, winner of the American Library Association’s 2010 W. Y. Boyd Award, and three works of nonfiction.
– Ilka List has a Masters’ Degree in Sculpture from SUNY, New Paltz, and a Doctorate from NYU in Art and Art Professions. She is the writer and illustrator of several Children’s Books on natural history subjects such as Butterflies, the seashore and the forest. Her book publishers include Thomas Crowell, G.P. Putnam, Obolensky, Scholastic and Watts. She was Director of Education at the Mohonk Preserve in the Hudson Valley, writing, illustrating, creating exhibits, and leading nature walks, She is a licensed Creative Arts therapist in New York State and worked with children, adults and family groups. She moved to the Vineyard in 2010. (She told the admin that this story is true!!)
– Janet Zeller devoted her 50-year career to advocating for the educational rights of children with special needs and disabilities. As a doctoral student, she was the Manuscript Editor of the Harvard Educational Review and a Teaching Fellow in the Harvard University Department of Psychology and Social Relations. She was a professor at Wheelock College and at Tufts University, where she taught in the Department of Child Study from 1982 until her retirement in 2008. She has written articles about inclusive education and co-authored a book, Proactive Parenting:Your Child From Two to Six. Retirement on Martha’s Vineyard has allowed her to shift her passions to writing fiction.