Bookshelf

(New York: Abrams Books, 2022).

Described by the publisher as “the perfect gift for every parent,” this book translates the science on what babies need for optimal growth from infancy through toddlerhood into a language that is easy for parents of all ages and backgrounds to understand. “Children’s minds are molded by experience, and science tells us that the way a parent touches, holds, looks at, and responds to babies and toddlers has a lifelong impact on the way that this brand-new person will come to see the world and their place within it,” the publisher notes. The book is filled with beautiful images of babies and toddlers matched with captions “spoken” in their voices and summaries of the research on the powerful impact of nurturing interactions.

(Newbury, Mass.: Sparrow Press, 2022)

The author shares her heart-wrenching story of growing up in a family of wealth but lacking in love and support. As one reviewer noted, “Artist Helen Morse’s gripping and revealing memoir, The Difficult Girl, is an astonishing story of the improbable survival of a sensitive child exposed to generational horrors, success, privilege, and abuse, all behind the gilded walls of a story F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters Gatsby and Daisy might relate to.”

(Washington, D.C.: National League of American Pen Women, 2021).
This collection of 45 essays by Kirkland College alumnae, faculty, and administrators addresses subjects as wide-ranging as aging, loss, parenting, feminism, place, and the Kirkland experience.

Kirkland, the last private women’s college created in the United States, merged with Hamilton in 1978. The college fostered independent learning and creativity, with academic disciplines such as American studies, visual arts, dance, and history of science. Kirkland also offered one of the first undergraduate creative writing majors at a four-year college. Lost Orchard II captures the reflections and talents of those who knew it best.

“This collection of writing is a window into the minds and souls of the women Kirkland students became,” Christie Bell Vilsack K’72 notes. “What we did in the years we spent together is reflected in the words collected here. I read every word with the growing awareness that what we created together — founders, teachers, students, administrators — in rural upstate New York during the 12 years Kirkland existed, changed the trajectory of our lives and the many we’ve touched.”

This book follows Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community (SUNY Press, 2014), which featured a diverse collection of poems, short stories, novel excerpts, creative nonfiction, and one-act plays by the Kirkland community. All proceeds from the sale of Lost Orchard II support the Samuel & Natalie Babbitt Kirkland Scholarship Fund.

* Special thanks to associate editors Nancy Avery Dafoe K’74, P’04, Liz Horwitt K’73, and Jo Pitkin K’78. Cover illustration by Linda Branch Dunn K’77.

(Claremont, N.H.: Laurel Elite Books, 2021).
“Meadowlands is a compilation of haiku and photographs inspired by walking the meadow paths in my little corner of the world,” the author notes. “I started writing haiku and taking photos during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to both interpret and find solace in the beauty of nature.”

(Little Cottage Press, 2020).

Beautifully illustrated by Mariia Luzina, this picture book teaches both young children and their adult readers the history behind different names for the moon, from January’s Wolf Moon to June’s Strawberry Moon to the Harvest Moon of September, all in lively rhyme.

(NP: Rogue Phoenix Press, 2018).
This is the second book in the author’s Vena Goodwin murder mystery series. The publisher describes it as beginning with two discoveries — “a murdered woman found on the Arch of Constantine and the revelation of a John Keats’ poem written at the end of his life in Rome, Italy. Disclosure of the invaluable poem causes events leading to murders with bodies deposited at historical sites in Rome. The Vena Goodwin mystery is also an exploration of Keats’ concept of ‘negative capability,’ in which intuition and uncertainty are prized over absoluteness. The speculation refers to light and darkness in the plot, bringing in the European refugee crisis, the Keats’ poem, and why we seek out uncertainties, including mystery. Familiar characters from book one in the series are the protagonist Vena Goodwin and her Italian lover Elio Canestrini.”

(Salem, Ore.: Rogue Phoenix, 2017)
Hard at work on her dissertation, the last thing on Vena Goodwin’s mind is solving a crime. But that’s where she finds herself after a man for whom she had feelings is assumed to have committed suicide. Believing it to be murder, she acts alone on her suspicions to trap the killer. Dafoe’s stories, essays, and poems have appeared in several literary publications.

(New York: Kensington, 2017)
This compelling page-turner tells the parallel stories of one woman’s lifelong quest to escape a family enmeshed in criminal activities and another woman’s attempt to find answers to some unsolved mysteries. Their paths combine and secrets are revealed. A former executive at Sun Microsystems, the author is now a high-tech consultant. This is her first novel.