Sue Nelson ’03

My book is How to Clone the Perfect Blonde, popular science, nonfiction. It was longlisted for the prestigious Aventis Science Book Award in 2004.

I started writing the opening chapter of this book during the 2002 fall Fellowship semester, in the evenings, after too much sherry. The book was divided, four chapters apiece, between myself and my husband and co-author, science writer Richard Hollingham. For us, it was a great experience. We edited one another’s chapters, began to truly appreciate each other’s discipline—mine physics, Richard’s biology—and discovered that we worked well together both personally and professionally. 

We learned that marketing is all when it comes to selling your book or even getting it off the ground in the first place, and that proofreaders miss a lot of stuff. Also, if you’re not a “name,” don’t bank on getting much help from the publisher’s publicity department. You are not their top priority. Or any priority. The publicists usually plow every resource into that book by a soap actress/TV presenter/second-rate pop star—the one who got paid several naughts more than you for the advance despite not even writing their own book in the first place. Let’s face it, the publishers have to recoup that huge advance somehow. So those who are in least need of publicity usually get the most. Go figure, as you Yanks say. Most of our big broadcast interviews—TV and radio—were therefore initiated by ourselves through contacts.

Despite the critical recognition, our book was never a best seller so all thoughts of a life of luxury were put on hold—and we weren’t paid a lot to write it either. But it was something we both genuinely wanted to do and enjoyed writing. Amazingly, mostly through selling foreign rights—including Japan, Korea and the States—we even made money out of it. Richard has just completed a sample chapter for the same editor on British meteorologists and, due to another Fellowship, I’m mostly writing screenplays and science-based radio dramas. Though I do have three chapters of a novel if anyone’s interested...

Tim Wendel ’96

My novel, Castro’s Curveball (Ballantine Books, 1999), was rewritten during my Fellowship year with the help of Nicholas Delbanco and his incredible MFA class that included Elwood Reid and Joel Lovell. It’s been optioned on and off to the movies, and it will be republished this fall by University of Nebraska Press.

The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America’s Favorite Sport (Rayo/HarperCollins, 2003) was named Top History Book for 2004 by the Latino Literary Awards. Not bad for a gringo sportswriter.

My Man Stan (Arbutus Press, scheduled for May ’06) is a novel for young readers (Grades 2–6) and opens in Ann Arbor. Hall of Fame hockey player Stan Mikita is a major character and penned the foreword. This is the first of the Magic Radio Series for kids.

My amazing spouse, Jacqueline Salmon, ghosted Jim Kuhn’s Ronald Reagan in Private: A Memoir of My Years in the White House.

 

Micheline Maynard ’00

I wrote The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market. It was published in hardcover in October 2003 and in  paperback a year later by Random House. Website: www.endofdetroit.com

I began sketching out the proposal for what became The End of Detroit while I was a Fellow and got serious about it a year or two later, while I was teaching a course, “The Global Auto Industry” to MBA students at the Michigan Business School.

The End of Detroit made the Business Week Best Seller list and was named one of the Top Books of 2003 by Borders Books and Music. It was published in Japanese, Korean and Chinese and has become a best seller in Japan.

 

Jay Gallagher ’80

The Politics of Decline: A Chronicle of New York’s Descent and What You Can Do to Save Your State (Whitston Publishing Co.) was published in October 2005.

It’s about how New York’s government, called the nation’s “most dysfunctional” by a NYU think tank in 2004, is helping to sink the state economically. It’s the outgrowth of a series I did for the Gannett papers in New York in ’03 and ’04.

It was a great experience for several reasons. I stayed on the payroll when I did the bulk of the research, occasionally writing a series on what I had at that point. When it came time to convert the newspaper stories into a book, I restored almost everything that had been edited out (the ultimate reporter’s revenge). And I learned that when you put everything on this topic in one place, people are shocked—shocked at what goes on at the Capitol in a way that piecemeal newspaper stories never seem to inspire.

The major frustration was that I was finished months before publication, and had to do several updates as well as a new foreword to try to keep up with events. The long lag time is tough for someone who has had daily deadlines for most of the past 36 years (except for that delicious year in Ann Arbor).

In marketing the book I have had to get used to being nice to reporters, even ones who try to interview me without reading the book. The highlight of the promotional efforts so far was a story in an alternative weekly in Rochester. The cover depicts a large finger pointing out at the audience with the headline: “New York Sucks, and It’s All Your Fault.” (I blame citizen apathy as the ultimate cause of our woes.)

 

Robyn Meredith ’99

I’m in the middle of writing my first book and wish I knew all that my fellow Fellows who have already written their books know. The Elephant and the Dragon will be published by Norton in the spring of 2007. The book is narrative non-fiction, and draws on my experience covering Asia for Forbes over the past four years. A summary:

The streets of India look like zoos: camels pull carts, elephants lumber past and monkeys race across roads. In China, men in Mao jackets pedal bicycles along newly-built highways, past skyscrapers shooting up like glassy bamboo. Yet exotic India is on the phone answering an 800 number for $1 an hour. Communist China is as close as the local Wal-Mart, filled with goods made in China for $1 a day.

The Elephant and the Dragon shows that the rise of India and China is about a significant shift in geopolitics, a thirst for oil, massive environmental change, and a future with lower prices along with softening American salaries. Not since the United States rose to prominence a century ago have we seen such tectonic shifts in global power. India and China are opposites who share this: a stunning ability to change our world.

 

Michael Vitez ’95

For years, I never felt any pressure to write a book. I figured I’d write one if and when the urge ever hit me. Well, the urge finally did. I have lived in the Philadelphia area now for over 20 years, and I often bike a loop around Fairmount Park and the Schuylkill River that passes the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Virtually every time I ride by the steps I see somebody run up them like Sylvester Stallone did in Rocky and celebrate at the top. The original movie is 30 years old this year, yet the people still come here from all over the nation and the world. As they run, and when they reach the top of the museum steps, they all share a certain momentary joy.

One summer day, after stopping to talk with two runners from Denmark, I decided I wanted to do a book. I wanted to capture this joy, explain it, celebrate it with stories and pictures, and share it. What I discovered, after spending a year at the steps, is better than even I had expected. The world, increasingly, is filled with chaos, sadness, madness, and hate. The “Rocky steps” (as they have come to be known) offer an escape from that, if only for a few moments. Even better, they offer a tonic to the world’s problems, a chance to celebrate hope. People come here and affirm their dreams. Rocky may have brought them here, but it is their own lives that they celebrate.

I recruited my friend and colleague Tom Gralish, an Inquirer photographer, to do the book with me. We started on New Year’s Day 2004, and we wrapped up the following New Year’s Eve. Our method was simple. Tom and I would just show up at the steps. We looked like tourists—a camera around Tom’s neck, a notebook in my pocket. We’d watch the steady stream of people as they approached the steps from both the top and bottom, and we quickly developed an ability to tell who was going to run the steps like Rocky. We’d position ourselves as best we could. We’d watch and listen and take photos as they ran, and only when they were finished celebrating, when their mission was accomplished, would I approach them and introduce myself. I’d tell them I was a staff writer with The Philadelphia Inquirer, but I was working on a book about people who run the Rocky steps. Many simply couldn’t believe it. Some would gladly have spent hours talking to me (and a few of them did).

Our first few months, we gathered enough material to convince ourselves the idea was as rich as we had hoped. We got a New York agent who loved the idea, and she sent proposals to nine big publishing houses. All turned us down. So on my own I found Paul Dry Books in Philadelphia, a small but superb publisher. Paul truly got the idea, and we have had fun. Just trying to reach Sylvester Stallone was a great adventure.

Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps will be published in September, and I’m sad to see the adventure come to an end. Writing this book has been wonderful, a chance to be creative in a completely new way. I see myself not only as a journalist, but as an entrepreneur, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment. I was always happy working on the Rocky book. As an experience, it ranks right up there with a Michigan Journalism Fellowship.

 

David Caldwell ’94, Spouse

I’ve written Speed Show, about the popularity of Nascar. The publisher is the Kingfisher Division of Houghton-Mifflin. The book is to be published in the fall, but they’re rushing it, so it catches as much of the Nascar season as possible.

What makes this interesting is that the book is part of a series that the Times is publishing for young-adult readers. As I’ve written the book, however, Houghton-Mifflin has become more interested in marketing the book for adult readers who’ve always been curious (but don’t want to ask) about Nascar.

I’m pretty excited about the project, because it will carry the Times logo and is being published by a top-line publisher and will be marketed heavily.

 

Ron French ’03

Driven Abroad will be published by RDR Books in Spring 2006. It  chronicles the movement of an assembly line that builds automotive wire harnesses from Michigan to Mexico, then to Honduras and finally to China. I explore the lives of the managers moving jobs around the globe like a giant game of Risk, as well as the lives of workers who seldom understand the global forces determining how long they are employed.

This book was an extension of a newspaper project, which itself was an extension of lessons learned during my Fellowship. My year in Ann Arbor surrounded by new friends from around the globe opened my eyes to Americans’ myopic view of the world. I wanted to give readers that same experience.

Having written a book is a great ego trip. Writing it, on the other hand, is pure torture. For newspaper reporters used to writing to length to fill a 10-inch hole, it is a daunting experience to hit the word-count tool on your computer and realize, Gee, just 40,000 more words and I’m done.

At some point in the process you break through a barrier built in your head by years of newspaper work, and instead of sweating how you can possibly write enough to fill a book, you begin worrying how you can fit all the good stuff in. Maybe writing your first book is like jumping out of an airplane for the first time. You may know in your head that your parachute will open, but it still scares the crap out of you. You’ll be fine. You just have to take that first big step.

 

Fatih Turkmenoglu ’04

The Interpretations of the American Dream (July 2005) tells of our extended Fellowship and experiences in Michigan, over our 15 months in Ann Arbor as Knight-Wallace Fellows. There are three layers of the book: On the first, the reader gets acquainted with the Fellowship and our own experiences in the U.S. The second layer is the people around us—our friends, fellow Fellows, teachers, neighbors, school friends, Turks living in the area, etc. On the third layer, we have the country itself. What was happening in the U.S.? The Patriot Act, Paris Hilton, American Idol, consumption, shopping, Halloween, kids...

Today the publisher is planning to print a second edition. The publicity was very good. It appeared in many magazines and internet sites. I appeared on CNN Türk as a 15-minute special guest at the culture program. On Habertürk, I was a special guest of the day: one hour! I was invited twice by the TRT, national radio. I was guest speaker for Rotary members, universities, various companies. Especially among Turks living in  the U.S., it became popular. I received many e-mails from them.

 

Idil Turkmenoglu ’04, Spouse

I published The Office Stories in November 2005, and it’s still on the best-seller list in Turkey.

This book is a collection of challenging essays on popular issues in career, people and organization management. Meanwhile a semi-real life story is told throughout the book, parallel to the essays: The story of my father, who has been working as a CEO for the last 35 years. The book presents two generations, different backgrounds and experiences but the very same issues in the offices: Office politics, de-motivating managers, staffing errors, victim psychology among employees, stealing from work, mobbing, self-fulfilling prophecies...

The book was written in Ann Arbor during our pregnancy and my husband’s Fellowship. It is widely read among human resources people, professional organizations and trainers.

I did a show on national radio, and The Office Stories appeared in many magazines and newspapers. Some companies bought dozens of copies and gave it to its managers as a New Year’s present.

 

Cynthia Barnett ’05

Mirage: Florida and the Disappearing Water of the American East, due in April 2007, tells a tale of how over-consumption and unwise development is drying up water supply all over the east—astonishing, given that the eastern United States is one of the wettest places on the planet. The great ater wars of the west have moved to the east. I use Florida as the narrative driver to tell tales of disappearing water all over the east, taking readers from the Everglades to sprawling Atlanta to the shores of the Great Lakes. Chapters cover wetlands drainage, privatization, the bottled-water industry, water wars, even the weather.

This book idea was part of my proposal to the Fellowship. Turns out I had no idea what was involved in writing a book proposal and sample chapters and trying to land a publisher. I have a full-time job and two small kids, so I would never have been able to do it without those nine months.

Courses in water policy helped me shape the content, and a writing class with Nicholas Delbanco helped me improve the narrative. I thought of the title while driving on I-94 in a snowstorm, but only after Charles told me that my original title was “awful.” One more thing: I went with the University of Michigan Press, maintaining my ties to Ann Arbor. I’m sure that landing the contract, too, would not have happened without the Fellowship.

 

Joanne Jacobs ’92

I wrote Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the School That Beat the Odds (Palgrave Macmillan, Nov. 24, 2005). It tells the story of a charter school created by two young teachers. Self-proclaimed “grumpy optimists” Greg Lippman and Jennifer Andaluz recruited
students who were “failing, but not in jail” and promised them a chance to go to college. 

The average Downtown College Prep student comes from a Mexican immigrant family and starts ninth grade with fifth-grade reading and math skills. All graduates in 2004 and 2005 went on to four-year colleges; 97 percent remain on track to earn a degree. DCP has hit a 731 on the Academic Performance Index, well above the statewide average.

After 19 years as a San Jose Mercury News editorial writer and Knight Ridder columnist, I quit in 2001 to freelance, blog on education at joannejacobs.com and report and write Our School. I observed classes, faculty meetings, board meetings, disciplinary hearings, parent sessions and school assemblies. I shadowed the principal, sat in on a teacher evaluation, helped the Mock Trial Club and tutored ninth graders at the school.  I hung around.

Our School shows how a do-it-yourself school with a work-your-butt-off philosophy can move students from the drop-out chute to the college ladder. Roberto finds his voice—in English—and fights his way to the honor roll. (He’s now studying agricultural business at Chico State.) Jorge, who’d read “ride the carousel” as “ride the carrot salad” as a freshman, stands in the outfield joking that “fair is foul and foul is fair.” He’d read Macbeth in sophomore English. (Jorge is a sophomore at Cal State Monterey Bay.) The girls’ basketball team loses every game by more than 20 points, keeps playing and wins in the end. (The star player, a five-two Cambodian girl, is now a pre-med at Cal Poly. Another girl won a full scholarship to Mount Holyoke.)

While Our School puts DCP in the context of the charter school movement, it doesn’t pretend to be a scholarly study. I was shooting for Tracy Kidder meets Up the Down Staircase.  

The book can be ordered on my blog, joannejacobs.com, or my new site, ourschoolbook.com.

 

Michele Stanush ’95

I returned to the Austin American-Statesman after my Fellowship before summoning up the courage to take a bold and perhaps foolhardy step. I left to tackle fiction: novels and screenplays. On the book front, I’ve co-authored one novel, All Honest Men (about cotton and crime; published in 2003), and am working on two others: A Piece of Cheese (about theology, war and art; also as a co-author) and Tonight the Inevitable Happened (about the loves of a 93-year-old).

The move into fiction was a logical progression. I love journalism; it’s one of the few professions remaining that actually encourages one to tell the truth. But fiction can also tell the truth, albeit in a somewhat different way. It involves peeling that odd onion we call human nature—exploring motivations, contradictions, the ways people skid along on psychological scar tissue. Fiction can also explore cultural trends and values.

All Honest Men, co-written with Claude Stanush (my father), is a biographical novel based on the true story of J. Willis Newton, a sharecropper’s son who fled the Texas cotton fields in the early 1900s to become a bank robber. On a deeper level, it’s a look at a pivotal period in U.S. history when the American Dream was changing from owning a patch of land to making big money—the more, the better, and to hell with how you got it. Not surprisingly, Willis Newton’s career was more lucrative than mine.

The book received a starred rating in Kirkus Reviews; was named a GEM by Pennsylvania-based Brodart Inc., a primary distributor of books to libraries and schools; was a BookSense 76 selection, and was reviewed/recommended by the American Library Association’s Booklist magazine. (Shameless call to publishers: We’re hoping for a paperback reprint.)

Surprisingly, I’ve discovered that I research fiction as compulsively as I did newspaper stories. A peek into the “novel section” of my industrial-grade file cabinets would reveal material on the economy of the Old South, the neurobiology of love, the Vietnam War, spiritual ecstasy, how redbone hounds chase down escaped convicts, the history of modern art, Roquefort cheese, Vatican II and geriatric courting—to name a few topics. I should add that I haven’t given up non-fiction: I’m also working on a book, The Language of Pain, with a talented rehab therapist who a decade ago helped save my arms, hurt by years of breakneck typing. The book will chronicle lessons learned over the therapist’s 17 years of body work and give practical advice for self-healing.

I can say with no risk of hyperbole that I divide my life into pre-Michigan and post-Michigan. The Fellowship came at a critical juncture in my career and gave me the validation and confidence to flap my wings and take off into risky areas of writing that I hope will contribute to something humanly worthwhile.

 

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