Fantastic Fantasy

The third edition of the anthology Best American Fantasy has just been published and features what Publisher’s Weekly calls “20 eclectic and exceptional stories that graft fantasy with realistic fiction.” Included among the authors is none other than Stephen King. But two of the 20 stories are by writers with Washington and Lee ties.

Chris Gavaler is visiting assistant professor of English at W&L. An award-winning playwright, Chris is the author of “Is,” a story that appeared first in the New England Review. Rebecca Makkai is a 1999 graduate of Washington and Lee and was the subject of a September 2009 blog entry about her inclusion in Best American Short Stories. Her story is titled “Couple of Lovers on a Red Background,” and it was previously published in Brilliant Corners.

The anthology was edited by novelist Kevin Brockmeier, who cites both Chris and Rebecca in his introduction when he writes, “there are stories in which ordinary people are confronted with the fantastic and use its mechanisms to understand their own histories, such as … Chris Gavaler’s doorway between a forgotten childhood and an inharmonious present, … and Rebecca Makkai’s teasingly yearning composer-out-of-time fable. (Makkai’s story “The Briefcase,” by the way, from the same issue of The New England Review as Chris Gavaler’s, was bar none the finest non-fantasy story I read this year. Seek it out.)”

While you’re seeking out that edition of The New England Review (you can read “The Briefcase” online on its Web site) be sure to seek out Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy 3, which is available on Amazon. Congratulations to both Chris and Rebecca.

Inspiring Tweets

A Feb. 8 article in Forbes Woman identifies 20 Inspiring Women to follow on Twitter, and a Washington and Lee alumna is on the list. We blogged about the work of Robyn McCord O’Brien of the Class of 1993 last April. Robyn is the founder of the AllergyKids Foundation, which supports and inspires parents and caregivers in their efforts to protect the health of their children with food allergies, asthma, ADHD or autism. She’s also the author of The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It. The Forbes Woman piece is all about research on Twitter, which shows that men have 15 percent more followers than women do on the social networking tool. The 20 women in the article are, the author writes, more than worth following, and Robyn is among them. She already has 2,964 followers, but her Tweets about food reform are valuable enough to demand even more followers. You can follow Robyn at @UnhealthyTruth.

Staging a Race for the Ages

Charles Cella

Washington and Lee alumnus Charles Cella’s name was prominent on national and international sports pages this week: his race track, Oaklawn Park, in Hot Springs, Ark., will be the center of the thoroughbred horse racing universe in April when the world’s top two horses meet in the Apple Blossom Invitational. Among other outlets, The New York Times cited Charlie’s pivotal role in scheduling the race between undefeated mare Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, the unbeaten 2009 Horse of the Year. In the Times story headlined “One Man Creates Ultimate Duel,” Times horse racing writer Joe Drape wrote: “While you are anticipating what could be the greatest thing to happen to thoroughbred racing in America since Affirmed captured the Triple Crown in 1978, raise a glass to Charles Cella, the president of Oaklawn Park, who put the race together.” The race, which was increased to a total purse of $5 million, provided both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta start, was moved to April 9 and will be held the day before the $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn. “I’ve never had so much trouble giving $5 million away,” Charlie told ESPN. “We’ve got a solid commitment, assuming, of course, their health continues.” Charlie is the third generation to run Oaklawn and has been president since 1968, succeeding his late father. His grandfather and great uncle  were among the founders of Oaklawn, which also drew praise in the Times’ piece on the big race. “…Oaklawn’s focus on quality horse racing … has earned it the reputation as the Saratoga of the South,” wrote Drape. In addition to the success with the track, Charlie has been a successful horse owner, too. His colt, Northern Spur, won the 1995 Eclipse Award as champion turf horse after winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf.  Oaklawn, Charlie, and his family were recognized with the 2004 Eclipse Award of Merit, and Charlie was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Charley McDowell’s Month

A clip of McDowell's annual February column from January 1978.

In his 49 years writing for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington and Lee alumnus and Lexington native Charley McDowell Jr., Class of 1948, directed some of his harshest criticism at one subject — the month of February. And given the ways things have gone in these snow-covered parts the past two weeks, who could argue with Charley? Two recent columns in the T-D referred to Charley’s February columns. In her Feb. 7 piece, Marsha Mercer recalled that Charley started his anti-February rants in 1967 in his columns from the paper’s Washington bureau. Here’s one of the more memorable passages: “February depresses. It litters the landscape with dirty, clinging snow. It sabotages the automobile battery. It brings man into bitter conflict with his furnace.” And in Sunday’s Times-Dispatch, Tom Silvestri’s column was titled “Wisdom From One Newsman Who Figured Out February.” You need to read Silvestri’s piece here to get a sense of all the ways in which Charley chastised the month. But here are more examples cited in Silvestri’s column:

• “February has the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in it, but actually everyone in the world gets at least a year older in the course of February.”
• “There is nothing short about February but the temper of man. February is when the battery quits, the snow shovel breaks on the ice, the glove is lost, the galosh is ripped, the milk freezes, the dessert doesn’t jell, the cat and the paranoid furnace run amok.”

Amen, Charley.

Del Clark’s Renewed Cancer Battle

Del Clark

When Del Clark graduated from Washington and Lee in 1990, most of his classmates were well aware of the battle he had fought with cancer during his undergraduate career. As his classmate and roommate Todd Peppers recently recalled, during his sophomore year Del had a cancerous brain tumor and a prognosis of a year to live.  He left school that spring and returned home to Oregon, where he underwent seven hours of brain surgery and subsequent radiation. He returned to W&L for his junior year, however, and classmates cheered when Del received his diploma in June 1990. Everyone, including Del and his doctors, thought he had beaten the cancer. Del went onto law school, earning his J.D. from the Willamette University College of Law and an LL.M. in taxation from the University of Washington School of Law. He married and had two children, a son and a daughter, and built a legal career in Portland, Ore., where he now owns the Willamette Law Group, which specializes in tax.  As Todd wrote in a recent e-mail about his roommate, “After 20 years, we were all convinced that the odds of Del’s cancer returning were remote, but, sadly, it did in October.” An article in The Oregonian earlier this month reported on Del’s situation, noting that he has had three surgeries and now is beginning chemotherapy and radiation. The article quotes Del’s doctor: “He’s already shown that one time his body was able to outlive the tumor. It’s possible there’s some X-factor in Del.” Everyone who knows him hopes that is true. In addition to his law practice, Del is a city councilor in the Portland suburb of Sherwood. Next month in Sherwood, they’ll have an Easter egg hunt to benefit Del (if you click this link and scroll down, you’ll see photos of Del and his family).  In addition, a donation account at U.S. Bank in downtown Sherwood has been established under Del’s name.  All those who knew him at W&L are still cheering for him.

New York Intern’s Work on Display

Mike Morella at work in New York

If you tuned in to last night’s first installment of the four-part PBS series Faces of America, you saw, in part, the hard work of a Washington and Lee senior. As an intern with W&L’s New York Spring Term program, Michael Morella worked for Ark Media, the documentary film company that produced the show. As Michael explained in the Fall/Winter issue of the W&L Alumni Magazine, he spent much of his time conducting research on such varied topics as turn-of-the-century mining in Montana to the German revolutionary Gustav Landauer. Michael credited his work on the weekly Rockbridge Report with providing him background, and said the experience opened his eyes to what it takes to put together a program like Faces in America.