March 2009 Archives

The official book launch party for The King's Rose was held at Simmons College on the day of the book's release - fancy, eh? I work at Simmons GSLIS (Graduate School of Library and Information Science) so I'm blessed to be working with lots of book-minded people who were very encouraging and enthusiastic about celebrating the book. Especially my wonderful supervisor, Jen Doyle, who came up with fantastic ideas for the event and helped promote it to the library world. And she did a fantastic job promoting - we had a full house.

The event started with my first public reading from The King's Rose. I was NERVOUS. No joke. It was like I was thirteen years old all over again, wearing a shiny purple Bat Mitzvah dress and waiting to read my Torah portion. Not even that-I think I was MORE nervous than that. I had only ever read this piece for Prof. Anderson at Emerson College-a former professor who is brilliant at reading and gave me invaluable tips-and the dog, who would leave the room whenever I started. Though reading for an audience does make me nervous, this is sort of a fun bit to read. It's a dialogue between Catherine and her step-grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, about King Henry's intentions to marry Catherine once his divorce from Anne of Cleves is final.

After the reading, there was a panel discussion on "Risque YA: Controversial Topics in Literature for Young Adults." I was on the panel along with GSLIS Professors Amy Pattee and Melanie Kimball, both experts in the field of Young Adult literature. It was really interesting and we got some great questions from the audience. One that I found really interesting was from a librarian who found that young adult novels with sexy content were much more frequently challenged by parents than those with violent content, and she wondered (in fact, we all did) why this was. I think this was reflected in the panel discussion itself, as our answers tended to address sexy content more often than violent. It was really fascinating to hear different points of view from other experts.

I got a chance to thank some people, which was nice. I'm kicking myself now that I didn't point out my mother in the front row, to whom the book is dedicated, and my agent (he was in the crowd but I didn't see him until later). However, I'm thrilled that I got a chance to publicly thank the panelists, Jen Doyle, and a special thank you for Tom because my goodness, he deserves it.

Then I signed a whole bunch of books. I LOVED getting the chance to chat with people while signing the book-both with friends and with people I had never met before who were really interested in the book, and in young adult fiction in general. I got to meet some readers who enjoyed my first book-a shout-out here for Jenn and Madeliene!-and were excited about the second. Everyone had great questions about my books, research, writing, etc. What fun! It was also great to celebrate with the Simmons crowd, including some alums from the GSLIS program.

I'm happy to say that this was a success. I only hope that the audience enjoyed it as much as I did.

Here's one final entry about artists who portray cities and towns in their own unique ways. Gerald Schwartz's art caught my eye as soon as I saw it on dailypainters.com. (Check out this site to see nearly every variety of contemporary art you can imagine.)

As each faculty has his/her own area of expertise, from time to time we are asked to give talks to groups outside Simmons. I love doing this kind of talks because it is a great way to promote Simmons. It is also a great opportunity to meet different people, and teach nutrition to non-students.

Recently, I gave 2 talks in the greater Boston area. The first one was in February for the northeast regional meeting of the American Culinary Federation.  This is the professional organization for chefs, and many of them are executives chefs in big restaurant chains or instructors at culinary schools. My presentation was about disease prevention through diet.

The second recent presentation was last week at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Dietetic Association.  This is the state affiliation of the American Dietetic Association, the professional organization for Registered Dietitian (which I am one).  My talk was on preventing cognitive decline in the elderly. I gave an overview on the scientific data in this topic. In particular, eating oily fish such as salmon may be linked to maintenance of cognitive function in the elderly.  Also, having normal blood glucose appears to be important as well. 

Finally, after you've listened to me nattering on about it forever, the book is out. There are so many people who were integral to the process of creating this book, so I feel the need to thank them here: my ever-patient agent, Esmond Harmsworth; my wonderful editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel; Michael Frost for that delicious cover photo; Lisa Yoskowitz at Dutton for all of her guidance and assistance; and just Dutton in general. I send you all big blankets of love.

I also really, truly need to thank my husband, Tom. Not only does he put up with my stress/frustration/complaints, but he has listened and-more importantly-contributed to long debates about Catherine, her time period, her behavior and Henry's expectations. We would talk about her as if she were a real, living person, like a third roommate in our little abode. And in some ways, she was. I'm lucky he didn't try to evict us both.

As for the book: ideally, you'll listen to a little music written by Henry VIII before you sit down and read. "Pastime with Good Companie" is one of my favorites. Or maybe you'll listen to the opening segment of The Virgin Queen soundtrack, which I listened to probably over a thousand times while writing. And when you're done, when it's all over, maybe you'll listen to the song "The Other Side" by David Gray, which I had in my head quite often during the writing of this book.

I'll write again soon with a recount of my fantastic launch party that was held yesterday at Simmons College (bless you, Simmons College!) which I'm relieved to say was a really great, fun event.

As promised, I'm giving you a little more background on the history of roller derby in the US. The original roller derby was a game of endurance involving a pack of skaters racing around a flat or banked track, competing to be the first to complete a certain number of laps. It was a bit like a roller skating marathon and was first described as roller derby in 1922 (Wikipedia Article). During the fast-paced laps, skaters would crash into each other and pile up on the track. It was in the 1930s that Leo Seltzer, a roller derby promoter, quickly noticed that those crashes and pile ups prompted the biggest reactions from the audience. And thus, a revised version of roller derby was born. Of course there is far more to this story...Linking you to another site may seem like a bit of a cop out, but there's no way that I can write the entire history better than it has already been written. My favorite source, which I feel covers all the important angles, is from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby

Another great source for derby information is the WFTDA website...you can see just how many flat track derby leagues there are in association with us:

http://www.wftda.com/

Oh and did I mention there's a bout this weekend? That's right! I'll tell you more before the week is through.

I am feeling a little bit antsy today. Do you know that feeling where you have a lot of work to do and you have this big dealie coming up soon (my book launch party this Thursday) and you should really sit down at your little desk and get stuff done like a real grown up person, but all you want to do is just sort of...wiggle around the house, listen to Bowie a touch too loud, and generally fritter away time? I've been a horrible time-fritter-er today--I've even managed to subvert Tom's best intentions by distracting him with Youtube videos of Beaker. Yes, you read that right.

Well, now that I've confessed my wayward tendencies, I thought I would share a bit about the journey of this book which will be officially released in a mere two days.

I first got the idea to write about Catherine Howard when I was nearly done with my first book, The Blood Confession. I was a little sad knowing the book would be done soon, and nothing helps me let go of one project like finding another one to obsess about. Yes, like a rebound. I can't remember how I first came across her, but I recall watching a documentary about Henry and his six wives on PBS, and when Catherine came on the screen I said to Tom "That's her, that's my girl." On my lunch break at Simmons I scurried to the library to look her up on wikipedia. I was all furtive about it, like a girl with a brand new crush.

But all of this excitement aside, I wasn't immediately certain that this would be my next book. I had just spent years writing in the point of view of a murderess, and now I had stumbled on the story of this foolish girl who had a secret affair while married to King Henry VIII. Would this be enough? Was she enough of a character? If she did what she did out of sheer idiocy, is that really very interesting?

Somewhere along the way, I decided that there was a whole lot more to it than idiocy, and that it would be interesting. Further, I couldn't resist telling her story. By the time I emailed my literary agent with this idea, I realized that I would be crushed and disappointed if he told me it was no good. Lucky for me, he liked it. I started writing the first words in December 2004 on my big old computer. I remember this pretty clearly because we moved to a new apartment in January 2005 and I really should have been packing, but I couldn't resist writing about that young girl--a naive, sweet thing, not overly educated, very eager for attention. I had to do a whole lot more research, but I was starting, very slowly, to develop a character. Those initial pages were eventually cut, but that's a story for my next post.

Dear Readers,

When last I wrote I was just back in the US after two and a half years in Asia going from one adventure to another. It was 1973. A career now seemed not only a priority, but a necessity. I returned to New York City on my own with less than a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, not a hardship, but a fact.

I began looking for work as a graphic designer. No luck. I was told repeatedly that I was too experienced for an entry level job. I begged, promising that I would sign papers saying I would stay for at least two years. Finally I began freelancing as photographer, graphic designer, or city planning consultant, whatever role anyone needed. I did work off and on in all of these fields for about eighteen months in New York and Boston. I photographed the de-institutionalization of the Human Service Programs in Massachusetts for the commissioner; I took photos of Sarah Caldwell, the Boston Opera Company director, and of Elaine Noble, the first openly GLBT person elected to public office, for Ms. Magazine. My biggest contract was as designer/project manager for the Where's Boston? bicentennial souvenir book for the architectural firm, Cambridge Seven Associates. This was the first book I designed from beginning to end. It was nerve wracking not having enough experience for the job, but I was determined to make it a success. I sought advice from one of my graduate school professors working in Boston, we met every couple of weeks for a serious critique. I certainly needed it. I was not only responsible for designing the book, but for providing any extra photos that were required, soliciting printing cost quotations, and for supervising printing of this book, as well as two others. At last I had some professional design and photography experience that I could use in my portfolio.

But like the previous ten years of my life, career didn't necessarily determine my moves. As long as I could support myself (nothing elaborate, I might add), I would go where the life seemed most interesting. I had not taken a penny from my parents since the day I graduated from college.

Just as this project was finishing I met the man I am now married to, an Englishman. Once again I picked up and moved to another country. From the professional point of view not the most helpful place -- Cambridge, England -- the boondocks, from the graphic design or photography standpoint. Picture this as my change of address card.

Old address:
900 West End Avenue,
New York, NY

New address:
Gorse Cottage
Home Close
Little Eversden

Cambridgeshire, England. (This was a thatched-roof cottage built in the late 1600s.)

I spent the next twelve years in England and still return often. In those days it was not easy to commute back and forth across the Atlantic nor could I afford it. I took a gamble that I would find work when I left the US.

After a year commuting five hours a day to London to work at the well-known design firm, Pentagram (they had helped me obtain the foreign work permit I needed), I  started freelancing as a book jacket designer and a photographer. Luckily I had my photos especially those I'd taken after moving on from the training-ground of the Insight Guides in Singapore. The Sunday Telegraph Magazine offered me my first break into photojournalism. While reviewing my slides, the photo editor mumbled, "We have this one story, London's Unusual Shops, ready to shoot. I'll give you a try, but don't tell anyone you live in Cambridgeshire; the newspaper doesn't want anyone working whose expenses include travel to the headquarters and we need you on the spot." (I was happy, of course, to pay expenses for the opportunity to become a photojournalist).

This first assignment proved to be one of the hardest I've ever done. There was so little light in most of the shops that I could hardly record the faces of my subjects and there were shiny surfaces (metal, glass, mirrors, etc.) everywhere causing images of myself to bounce around and into view of the camera lens from who knew where. But the Telegraph liked the story and I continued to be hired -- mostly for assignments about people in the arts.

I shot stories about famous people at work and at home. I became a sort of arts specialist. One assignment had me taking pictures of the Royal Shakespeare Company's pre-production activities for The Tempest, including rehearsals, the wig room, and the props shop where they were making a ten foot wave of plywood covered in black patent leather for the storm scene. I was thrilled to do this work; it connected me back to design. I thought to myself, "I would have paid the Telegraph for this opportunity instead of being paid." I photographed Sir Ralph Richardson, Jonathan Miller, Joan Plowright (Laurence Olivier's wife), Michael Horden, Keith Simpson (London's most famous pathologist) and more.

I worked for the Telegraph a number of years until I was asked jovially, but seriously to go on assignment to an oil rig in the North Sea in December. I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. The editor said he would send a helicopter for me if I went into labor. It was then I began thinking how I might return to design. In the early 1980s I got a position teaching design and photography courses at the Cambridgeshire art college.

By the time I moved back to the US in 1987 I was able to freelance in a variety of jobs. Still my aim was to find interesting work rather than work that would lead me higher up a career ladder. I worked as a design coordinator on the kindergarten twelfth grade Reading Experience program at Houghton Mifflin (having developed a passion for how children learn to read while volunteering at my children's school in England). I love the way design can connect to so many different interests. This led to more design work in educational publishing. I also took photographs on commission including those of Saul Bellow, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Walcott for a Boston University symposium. Then I signed on to be a part-time design teacher at Boston University and later at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, which happily I could do while working on the text book projects.

Over the years teaching began to take priority over my other work. And now, as you know, I am a full-time design educator. I came to Simmons about ten years ago and began full-time in 2004. My special interest is in teaching design principles, typography, information and environmental design, in conjunction with research and writing to be used with original art and photography created by the students. These subjects cover not only essential skills for designers-training, but for everyone interested in communications. They also suit the mission of a liberal arts college. Consider how studying the 30,000 year history of writing and printing, many examples of which can be found in Boston's museums and libraries, adds breadth to a student's knowledge. I encourage students from all the Communications tracks to study design. I also hope to offer workshops throughout the college.

From my stand point, the job I have could hardly be more suited to my interests and expertise. Not a day goes by that I don't think to myself how lucky I am to be at Simmons in this job. I continue to take small design commissions and have had exhibitions of both my color and black and white photography. As I write this blog, I am working on a photo book, Likenesses, of writers and artists.


Philip Pool in his pen shop, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, 1977
























Norman Mailer, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 2007




Sir Ralph Richardson, London, 1978, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine

What better place than Simmons College to hold a book launch party? In what better atmosphere (in the building that houses our beautiful new library, no less) with what better audience, I ask you? I can think of none.

That said, here are the updated details:
Date: Thursday, March 19
Time: 12:30 p.m.
Location: Simmons College, Lefavour Building, Kotzen Room (ground floor)

The event will begin with a brief reading, followed by the panel discussion "Risqué YA: Controversial Content in Young Adult Literature" featuring myself and GSLIS Professors Amy Pattee and Melanie Kimball. A reception and book signing will follow. Books will be available for purchase and light refreshments will be served.

Come one, come all!

Now that my fellow bloggers Alisa and Professor White have blogged about books they read as a child, I felt that I should blog something about this as well.  Perhaps we bloggers can all write something on this topic!

I have always loved to read, and growing up in Hong Kong, I read a mix of English books and Chinese books from contemporary local authors.  Although I read quite a lot, I can't name any favorite titles I read during early teens. I did remember a book in Chinese by a woman who spent a few years in England as a student. The book was a series of short essays on her thoughts and experience. As I knew that I would have to go outside Hong Kong for college,  I was curious but also pensive about what my experience would be like.  A couple of years ago when I was looking at my old stuff in my parents' house (they have since moved to Canada), I re-read that book again. I also remember reading All Quiet on the Western Front right before Christmas one year -- not a good book to read for the season.

In college, having chosen science for my career, I made an effort to read well known English literature for I wouldn't be reading them for course work. I think the one that made the greatest impression was The Tale of Two Cities.  I found the ending rather chilling.

There are a lot of English literature that I didn't know about until the last 10 years or so. I didn't know about the Phantom Tollbooth until a few years ago. Although supposedly a children's book, the lesson is certainly suitable for any adults with a hectic life.

Nowadays, the books I read are mostly those useful for professional development. I have some Chinese martial arts novels that I bought a few years ago but I still haven't had a chance to read them.  After all those years in Hong Kong, I actually never read any martial arts novel (very popular at the time) though I did watch many TV and movies of that genre. My mom told me that martial arts novels are very addicting so I am still waiting for a time when I can afford the time if I can't put them down.

The moment I read the poem "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes stands out as a shining moment of revelation in my elementary school career: I can see the book, with its large print, spread open on my desk. I think that poem actually altered my brain from that point forward.

In fifth grade, I read The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. My sister Susan and I liked to build forts on Saturday mornings: a square of chairs draped with overlapping blankets, held in place with an assortment of rubber bands and laundry clips. It was inside such a fort, accompanied by my teddy bear companions, that I first read this book and wept with the beauty of the story. For the rest of the year, I was that kid who wandered around the playground staring at clouds, pretending I was the Lady Amalthea. This is why Beagle's book transformed my dreams: I looked like an ordinary girl, you see, but I was in fact something very different inside.

Junior high, heading to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a long summer weekend, I read a collection of Poe's short stories by the light of passing streetlights. I only closed the book when it was literally too dark to read. I already loved "The Raven" and I was thrilled by Poe's macabre voice--that crazed narrator, sputtering madness and beauty at the same time. I wonder if this is where my love of unreliable, somewhat lunatic narrators began; a precurser to my mirror-obsessed, knife-wielding Erzebet Bizecka.

Spring break has just started, and as students excitedly go off to their various plans, what will I be doing?

It will be burners rotation time. In a previous entry, I mentioned that my life is like rotating burners. Now that classes are not in session, I put teaching on the back burner and put research on the front burner. I need to finish up a research paper, and run some statistical analysis to see if certain dietary patterns is related to heart disease in men. I need to crank out those analysis quick because the PI (Principal Investigator, ie the head huncho of a research project) needs those data quick.  So I'll be very busy this coming week.

While I am at it, let me briefly explain the hierarchy terminology in research.  The person on the top of the totem pole is the PI, followed by the Co-investigators (ie Co-I's, I am a Co-I in a couple of projects), followed by the post doctoral fellows (ie, post docs), followed by the grad students. The PI and the Co-I's write grants to get money for research, the post docs may take part in writing parts of the grant or they may also write their own grants.  The PIs and Co-I's are the people who get money to support salary of the post docs and stipends for the grad students.  The post docs and grad students in turn work on the research projects under the supervision of the PIs and Co-I's.  So that is the very rough and basic description on the operation of life science research.

My last posting discussed ways that artists depict urban and some suburban landscapes and I mentioned that my husband and I are drawn to those paintings that convey a certain sense of emptiness and mystery. You've probably seen "Early Sunday Morning," a well-known work by Edward Hopper, a master of this style. Even when his paintings include humans (for example, in "Night Hawks"), there is an undeniable quality of isolation surrounding them.

I don't remember how I first came across the work of Karen Perl (karenperl.com), a Chicago watercolor and oil painter, but I was immediately struck by the silence and perhaps dread in her urban series. These paintings instruct us about the places we live and visit--and that we might lose to decay, demolition, or far more serious and irreversible threats. The scenes are satisfyingly pared down almost to abstraction. Though they represent Chicago, they could be almost anywhere. (See "Halstead Lake," 1^st image above.)

Her "Disappear" series is particularly haunting. In some of the paintings in this suite, I'm reminded of Hopper's Early Sunday Morning, because the areas depicted seem as though during a workday, they would be populated by active people going about their business. They would be energetic. Yet, in her treatments, only the streets, buildings, and other symbols of city life appear, as if in a mirage. In other paintings, there is a definite sense that the area has been abandoned--either by choice or accident. The images are very thought-provoking and unnerving, as if the population has fled, or is hiding behind close doors and windows, frightened.

Karen's watercolors are less unsettling, taking a long, and not incidentally, "green" view of a road. These are beautiful works, yet in "Highway 57" (2^nd image above), the sunny sky seems about to be overcome by clouds. "Towards New Orleans" (3^rd image above) is one I like very much, but still, perhaps because of the devastation that that city has undergone in recent years, it too, is a little sad.

The watercolors are all in the "affordable range; that is, around $250.

Karen also paints pets and classical images, which you can see on her web site. Her work will be exhibited in November, 2009 at Packer Schopf Gallery, 942 West Lake Street, Chicago, 60607, 312-226-8984. If you live in the area, try to get over there.

Call Karen on her cell: 312-504-2800 or email her at: karen@karenperl.com

As busy as he is, South African Human Rights Commission head Jody Kollapen has agreed to meet and brief our student reporters at the SAHRC's Jozi (Johannesburg) headquarters in May, during the first week of our trip. This will follow our tour of the Constitutional Court, built out of bricks taken from one of the country's most notorious political prisons, two of whose towers remain standing next to the court to remind South Africans--and visitors like us--of what the country endured on its way toward freedom for all its citizens.

Faces were smiling, on February 17, 2009, when math alumna, Jessica Ogarek (2006), along with fellow alums Alison Timm (2006), Sarah Lupa (2006), and Hannah Kimball (2007), returned to 300 The Fenway to share with current math students their graduate school and on-the-job experiences since graduating from Simmons.

 

Alison just completed a Master of Arts in Statistics at Boston University this past December, while Jessica works at John Snow, Inc., an international health care consulting firm based in Boston. Sarah, who was featured in last month's blog, teaches seventh grade math at the Memorial Boulevard School in Bristol, Connecticut. Hannah, like Sarah, earned her Master of Arts in Teaching from Simmons. She teaches fifth grade math at the Cyrus E. Dallin Elementary School in Arlington, Massachusetts.

 

Undergraduates were delighted at the diversity of math fields chosen by our talented alums; and, they were impressed by the evident enthusiasm which each alumna showed for her field! The following picture of Alison, Jessica, Sarah, and Hannah is a memento of our recent event:

                                    

In this month's blog we sketch a mathematical portrait of Jessica Ogarek. Jessica double-majored in Communications and Mathematics. An internship, in spring semester of her senior year, turned into a full-time job .... and an unexpected career! Please meet Jessica.

Jessica Ogarek, B.S. in Communications and Mathematics, 2006

How did you end up in math, Jessica?

I came to Simmons completely undecided. The reason I majored in math was because I took Calculus II with you!  I was doing well and you encouraged me to take Discrete Mathematics the following semester ... and then Linear Algebra, next. At first I thought I would just minor in math. Then, because I'd already taken a ton of Communications courses, I realized I had time to do a math major, too. You wrote me a complete schedule, and I followed it!

What did you think you wanted to do with a degree in math?  

I had absolutely no idea, at first. I was a Teaching Assistant in the Communications Department for video production and also for communications media. I was moving more in the video production direction. Once I got an internship at John Snow, Inc. (JSI) and began working in public health, I realized there's more to the world than holding a camera in your hand.

What have you been doing since leaving Simmons? How does the math you learned at Simmons impact you on a daily basis?

I use statistics almost on a daily basis. I'm constantly looking at data output and thinking about what it means. I find that having both a mathematics and communications background gives me a dual perspective on problem-solving, which is a great advantage.

After graduating from Simmons in May 2006, I continued interning at JSI and then got hired as a full-time staff associate. I've been working on many different projects. One example is the Infertility Prevention Project (IPP), a project funded by the Center for Disease Control that promotes chlamydia and gonorrhea screening and treatment and treatment for women. This is a national project that's divided into the 10 public health regions. My primary focus is on data management and database development, but my communications background helped me to contribute to the project website development for the New England IPP region, Region I, too. 

In another direction, I also work on projects for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH). I've done budget work for the HIV division, plus I got hired for the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program which developed the Try-To-Stop Smokers' Helpline. Try-To-Stop offers free telephone counseling to help people quit smoking, and sponsors periodic free-patch giveaway campaigns. The call center also handles QuitWorks, which is a provider referral program where patients are referred to be called and offered counseling. I work on state and health plan reporting (RI/MA/NH, separately), where I developed an Access reporting database. I also assisted in testing the new Oracle online database.

For the last year and a half I've been taking courses at the SAS Institute, in the Prudential Center, to learn more about databases and statistical analyses.

What's absorbing you right now, and what are your plans for the near future?

I'm passionate about all my projects, especially projects on HIV. But the Tobacco Control Program really hits close to home because I have family members who have suffered from emphysema. What I'd like to do next is earn a Master's in Biostatistics.

Do you have any advice for alumna?

I'd just urge everyone to get out of their comfort zone, and try something new. For me, I put myself out there when I chose to work in public health. It's been an unbelievably rewarding experience, one that I never imagined!

Do you have any questions for Jessica or about this blog? If so, please write!