1997

1997

Congratulations to Susan Barba on the publication of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide, a collection of poems, essays, and letters from the 1700s to the present focusing on wildflowers and their place in our culture and in the natural world.

Susan edited the literary anthology, which celebrates diversity in many forms. There are foreign-born writers concentrated on American plants and American writers on non-native plants. There are rural writers with deep regional knowledge and urban writers who are well-acquainted with the nature in their neighborhoods. There are female writers, Black writers, gay writers, and Indigenous writers. There are botanists, horticultural writers, and prose writers. The literary field guide also features the poetry of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Lucille Clifton, Louise Gluck, Natalie Diaz, and Jericho Brown.

Susan, who works as a senior editor for New York Review of Books, is also the author of Fair Sun and Geode. She was a finalist for the New England and Massachusetts Book Awards and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. Her poetry has been translated into Armenian, German, Romanian, and Swedish.

1995-2000

Emily Sohn was on NPR recently discussing her National Geographic article on post-Covid sleep troubles. Emily reported that a Cleveland Clinic study found more than a third of long Covid patients reported sleep disruptions up to six months after initial infection. “If the sleep disruptions really go on, the No. 1 recommendation is to talk to your doctor, maybe see a sleep specialist,” Emily said. “The experts I talked to said that cognitive behavioral therapy is really a key technique, and that’s incorporated into a lot of apps that you can get on your phone and can help you work on good sleep habits.”

Emily covers health, science, the environment, kids, and adventure. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Outside, and Nature.

Rosi Kerr will lead a Dartmouth alumni travel six-day voyage in Iceland this summer aboard the National Geographic Resolution. The trip will feature an exploration of Reykjavik, ijord hiking, and a visit to the northern region’s volcanic landscapes. Rosi is the College’s director of sustainability and works to help transform Dartmouth into a global leader of sustainability scholarship, leadership, and action, (see more on her work on page 26.)

Take care everyone and keep sending your news.

—Jason Casell, 10106 Balmforth Lane, Houston, TX 77096; jhcasell@gmail.com

Jason Casell