Students Turn To Childhood Favorites To Find Comfort in 2020

Pictured above: the cookbooks of Chloe MC ‘24

By Cat Barbour ’24
Staff Writer

Rereading a childhood favorite or otherwise beloved book creates a sense of comfort and enjoyment that only nostalgia can provide. Friends and familiar places wait within the pages, along with the memories of your life when you first read each page. As Cornelia Funke’s “Inkheart,” a young adult fantasy novel, puts it, “If you take a book with you on a journey, … an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories … Yes, books are like flypaper — memories cling to the printed page better than anything else.” 

With the arrival of the holiday season during a global pandemic, a tense political climate and finals around the corner, it’s no surprise students are reaching for their comfort books. The Mount Holyoke News spoke with current students to see which books they revisit during tough times

Overwhelmingly, students mentioned the “Harry Potter” series by J. K. Rowling, which chronicles boy wizard Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Darcy Coleman ’24 read the series in elementary and middle school. 

“I was obsessed with ‘Harry Potter,’” Coleman said. “[The books] help bring me back to happy times during my childhood. I struggle a lot with anxiety and books give me an escape, as well as a way for me to relate to the characters and feel motivated and hopeful about my own challenges.”

While Coleman reaches for “Harry Potter” for general comfort, Grace Lara ’24 seeks out “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell for a “reliable sick day read.” “Fangirl” follows the story of Cath, who, in a meta twist, is a huge fan of Rowell’s own “Simon Snow” series. Cath and her twin bonded over “Simon Snow,” but upon entering college, the books became more symbolic of their separation than their closeness. Now, out of her comfort zone and without her sister, Cath must navigate school by herself. 

This past spring, Phoebe Murtagh ’21 sought out a book to help deal with her sadness following the closing of Mount Holyoke’s campus, finding solace in “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt. The story follows June as she comes to terms with the death of her uncle, the only person who understood her and makes an unexpected new acquaintance at the funeral who might just be everything she needs to heal. Murtagh calls the book “well written and rich, centered around love and grief and heartbreak and life.”

When Chloe MC ’24 wants the satisfaction of finishing a novel in one sitting, she returns to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The book tells the story of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect after Ford saves Arthur from being destroyed along with the Earth. The pair proceed to hitchhike the galaxy together, which happens to be Ford’s area of expertise. It is the first novel in the series. MC enjoys the “goofy little sci-fi series,” explaining, “The humor is what draws me in. [The characters] make everything [that sounds] so absurd [sound] perfectly normal.” 

MC also shared the story of her family’s cookbook. “Food is very important; basically every event or holiday is centered around food and the kitchen,” MC explained. “For my parents’ first Christmas [as a married couple], my grandma on my dad’s side typed up and photocopied a cookbook’s worth of recipes and put them in a binder. Most of them belonged to my great-grandmother Kitty Cat.” 

“We treat it as the holy grail,” she continued. “It’s where we go to first if we want a recipe for something. … It’s been around longer than I have. It’s comforting because it’s the go-to comfort food book. Some of the recipes are clearly dated (like soda salad) but some of it is gold.” 

While not everyone has access to something from their family’s history to find comfort in, bakers may have a part of MC’s family cookbook hiding in their kitchen. “Fun fact,” MC said, “it’s my great grandma’s recipe for pound cake on the back of the Swan’s Down flour box, the whipping cream pound cake.”

There’s a reason that many books bring nostalgia and contentment to those who read them. Research by a professor at the University of California found that people enjoy stories more when they know the ending. An example provided in the study reads, “If you’re driving up Highway 1 through Big Sur, and you know the road really well, you can now peek around and admire the view.” Rereading leads to a greater appreciation of the writing and gives readers a sense of comfort because they already know the plot. 

Mount Holyoke Students Weigh in on National Novel Writing Month

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21

By Cat Barbour ’24

Staff Writer

Both hated and revered by participants, National Novel Writing Month, known colloquially as NaNoWriMo, has drawn the attention of writers since 1999, including hundreds of thousands since 2007. In 2006, NaNoWriMo became a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring people to tell their stories. According to their mission statement, NaNoWriMo “believes in the transformational power of creativity.” The statement continues, “We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds — on and off the page.”

The challenge: Write 50,000 words in 30 days. Or, in the words of NaNoWriMo headquarters: “Your job now is not to create a manuscript that a publisher will want to sell at lemonade stands all over the country. That comes later, once you've done a ton of revision and rethinking. For now, your task is to create a first draft. Or in other words, to make a glorious, beautiful, breathtaking mess.”

Emily Carle ’21, Mia Kerchen ’24 and Fiona Milton ’22 each discussed their participation in NaNoWriMo with the Mount Holyoke News. 

Carle, while not currently participating, did so as a first-year in 2017 and was a part of the Western Massachusetts and Five College NaNoWriMo groups. She appreciated being a part of the groups and said that the motivation helped her complete 30,000 words. “With the Five College group, everyone else was a college student and so they were also dealing with … trying to take classes and write [for NaNoWriMo] and actually write for grades,” Carle said, adding, “They were truly a good support system for when I wanted to give up.”

For the past three years, Kerchen has also been writing. While she has never completed the challenge, she’s been having a lot of fun writing stories. She commented that NaNoWriMo is “really intense” and compared it to “writing a small paper every day.” 

Milton did finish the 50,000-word goal on her first attempt. She has participated in NaNoWriMo four times: in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2017. She believes that “it is not about winning or writing 50K words, it is about starting to tell a story you’ve been wanting to tell.” She added, “NaNoWriMo is about writing for yourself and no one else, so don’t let anyone tell you how many words you have to write to do it right.” 

Fans of NaNoWriMo are loud and proud, but so are its critics. Notably, blogs on both sides of the argument are a few years old. The dust seems to have settled, but for a while, peace was not an option. 

Chris Becheen, an active comical blogger, reluctantly shared his opinion on NaNoWriMo in 2016 in his post, “Nanowrimo: The Good, The Bad, And the Very Very Ugly.” In the post, he detailed his issues with the program, arguing that 50,000 words would be generously considered a novella, that participating in the competition does not make one a novelist and that the program’s idea that word count above all else matters is problematic. Additionally, he warned, “Dec 1st, the predators come out to play. They promise the moon, … preying on people’s desire to BE writers and sucking off their hard-earned money by pretending that these manuscripts don’t need anything more than a copy edit to knock the socks off a publisher.” 

NaNoWriMo also warns participants about “literary scammers.” The Terms and Conditions page reads, “If you are approached by someone wielding a too-good-to-be-true deal, please let us know, and we'll investigate.”

In line with some of Becheen’s views, even the NaNoWriMo website reminds participants that their books will be works in progress at the end of the month, stating that “The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days: not 50,000 perfect words, not even 50,000 readable words. Fifty thousand words of practicing your voice.”

In 2010, Laura Miller, journalist and author of “The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventure in Narnia,” had similar issues with the competition. She believes that the competition leaves out an important part of the writing process: reading. A common piece of advice for aspiring writers is to read and learn from those who are more experienced. With the grueling pace of the competition, combined with the hectic month it takes place in, there isn’t any time to read, Miller said. 

NaNoWriMo does provide some tools and support, such as writing seminars and NaNo Prep 101 to help flesh out pieces, and most participants realize that they can’t write a single draft and publish it immediately — as Carle said, “I know that publishing does not work that way.”

Whether you love NaNoWriMo or despise it, the program will not stop anytime soon. The number of writers it annually attracts only grows. Starting with just 21 participants in 1999, the challenge saw 455,080 people write over 2 million words in 2019. While not every submission will turn out like “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, many participate to do exactly what Milton recommends: write to tell the story they’ve always wanted to tell.

Anna Maria Hong Talks Poetry and Prose at Odyssey Book Reading

Pictured above: the headshot of Anna Maria Hong.

By Amelia Scarponi ’23

Staff Writer

On the evening of Thursday, Oct. 29, the Odyssey Bookshop welcomed Anna Maria Hong, assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke, to read from and speak about her second poetry collection “Fablesque.” The collection was awarded the Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry in 2020.

Published in September, “‘Fablesque’ harnesses the power of old tales to dispel the disenchantments of women and animals in the #MeToo era,” according to its blurb. “The poems and prose pieces allude to animals real or imaginary, sometimes fantastical and often mythical,” Hong explained at the reading. Hong was joined by Andrea Lawlor, assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke and author of “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl.”

Though the pandemic led to the closure of campus and mandated social distancing, Zoom provided a relaxed and personal conversation between author and audience. Hong recognized the stress of the presidential election with a bit of humor, encouraging “everyone to make this a relaxing experience, lie on the floor, have a second glass of rosé or do yoga. Remember, we can’t see you,” she laughed. “It’s been another terrible week, almost crushing, but I would like to dedicate my first poem tonight to those who are voting for the first time in force, including my students,” Hong said.

“Siren,” the first poem read, is an ode to her love of sonnets and the comfort she feels working with a confined form. It conveys the double standards and obstacles women face. “Rip out the knees of the patriarchy,” Hong read. “No one cares if you're half-beast if you’ve got a great rack.” She confessed she is always aiming for wit, though rage is certainly on the surface of every word. 

Erica Hawes ’22 tuned in from Bristol, England. “I’m a bibliophile, and the Odyssey felt like my second home,” she said. “I never left [campus] without purchasing a new book. Attending author readings and events with my friends was a weekly occurrence! Even though it’s 12 a.m. and my friends and I are all on different continents, we feel like we are back on campus together. Professor Hong is an incredible professor and her humor was not lost through Zoom.”

Lawlor influenced the dialogue during the Q&A session, laughing, “I don’t want to hog all the question time.” But members of the audience weren’t shy to ask questions as the event progressed. Lawlor kicked off the Q&A with praise and curiosity about Hong’s relationship to lyrical writing and sound, asking if it has been a driving agent in her work. 

“I’ve been drafting these sonnets for several years. At some point I figured out that sound was smarter than I am,” Hong responded. “Sometimes I know what sound is but I don’t know what the word is. At the end of the day, I love working with the music of language.” Her inspirations range from Sylvia Plath to Gwendolyn Brooks.

One audience member asked how teaching influenced Hong’s writing. She admitted that she resisted teaching before discovering it was her second calling, which gave her the energy and passion to write. “If you have the privilege to teach about writing, you always think about writing,” she said. 

Another individual expressed curiosity about finding the motivation to write. “Truthfully,” Hong replied, “I’m not as disciplined as I’d like to be. I write when I can and I try to make it a priority. I’ve found you really have to work with yourself if it’s something you love.”

Currently, Hong is working on a new collection of poetry “for her own sanity,” as well as a collection of daily meditations combining collage and prose in collaboration with visual artist Jill Moser. Moser is an abstract painter based in New York whose work is displayed in galleries and museums throughout the United States, most notably in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Hong ended with some words of wisdom that double as a glimpse of reality for aspiring writers: “The majority of my work is discarded, but there are poems that really fight for their lives, that still want to be written.”

Four Latinx Authors You Should Know for Hispanic Heritage Month

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21

By Cat Barbour ’24

Staff Writer

The need for diverse authorship is great. According to a 2019 survey by Publisher’s Weekly, only 3 percent of authors identified as Hispanic. To honor their literary contributions for National Hispanic Heritage Month, which lasts from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, here are four books by Latinx authors published this year.

• “Cockfight” by María Fernanda Ampuero

Translated version published May 1, 2020 

Originally published in Spanish in 2018, “Cockfight” was named one of the 10 best fiction books of that year by The New York Times en Espanol. In 13 short stories, the debuting writer reflects in prose on women’s experiences of abuse, sexual assault and survival in an unnamed South American country. Not exactly a light read, “Cockfight” is a gripping feminist narrative that depicts dark realities within the home and family. 

The idea of a family is something Ampuero discussed in an interview in 2019 with the BBC. Ampuero said, “It seems to me that the relationship between parents and children contains something monstrous.” While not from the book, it certainly gives a good idea of the tone of her piece. 

Ampuero was born in Ecuador and currently resides in Spain, where she teaches journalism at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and contributes to the Spanish newspaper ABC in their short story section. “Cockfight” is the first of her books to be translated into English.

• “On Lighthouses” by Jazmina Barrera

Translated version published May 12, 2020

“After spending sufficient time inside a lighthouse, who wouldn’t begin to hear a song in the sound of the machinery, a voice in the wind or the waves?” Barrera asks in her book “On Lighthouses.”

In her combination of personal memoir and literary history, Barrera attempts to “collect” lighthouses from literary works and coastlines from Spain to Oregon. In her obsession, she describes them, never weighing down the reader with too much detail, writing lighthouses into symbols and turning inward for a meta examination of writing itself.

Born in Mexico City, Barrera was a Fulbright Scholar at NYU and won the Latin American Voices prize from Literal Publishing in 2013. She has published several essays both in print and online. Currently, she is the editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antilope, a Mexican publishing house. 

• “The Book of Rosy” by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schwietert Collazo

Published June 2, 2020

Rosayra Pablo Cruz opens her novel with the line, “When said with love, my first name rolls off the tongue, the trilled r’s cascading over so many soft vowels, like Guatemala’s crystal clear Río Azul rippling over smooth stones.”  

The story follows Cruz’s experience fleeing Guatemala and reaching the Arizona border, where her two sons were ripped from her arms. Aided by Collazo, the founder of the Immigrant Families Together Foundation, Cruz tells her story, and the story of many others, of [inhumane treatment at the border.

• “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 

Published June 30, 2020

Moreno-Garcia’s newest novel springs into action when the protagonist receives a letter that “was therefore uncharacteristic in every way she could think of. It was handwritten, though Catalina preferred the typewriter; it was rambling when Catalina was succinct on paper.”

“Mexican Gothic” follows Noemí Taboada as she travels to High Place, a house deep in the countryside of Mexico, to her newlywed cousin’s aid after receiving a disconcerting letter. The debutante does not know what to expect from the new area and her cousin’s English husband but must call on her smarts and toughness to figure out what is going on. Her only ally is the Englishman’s young nephew, who may be hiding some of the family’s secrets.   

In what NPR called “an inspired mash-up of [Charlotte Bronte’s] ‘Jane Eyre,’ Ann Radcliffe’s ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ [Bram Stoker’s] ‘Dracula,’ [Daphne du Maurier’s] ‘Rebecca’ and that 1958 classic sci-fi movie, ‘The Blob,’” Moreno-Garcia ties in subtle social commentary with criticism against racist politics and eugenics.  

Describing herself as “Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination,” Moreno-Garcia has had a successful literary career. Her debut “Signal to Noise” won a Copper Cylinder Award, and her novel “Certain Dark Things” was one of NPR’s best books of 2016. Another acclaimed novel, Moreno-Garcia’s “Gods of Jade and Shadow,” won the 2020 Sunburst Award for Adult Fiction, as well as the 2020 RUSA Books and Media award for fantasy.

Class of 2024 Book Club Connects Students Through Literature

Image above: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning Nigerian author.

By Elizabeth Jacob ’24

Staff Writer

In the midst of COVID-19 and its accompanying social distancing guidelines, I and other college students are dealing with the loss of a traditional college experience. Not only has this loss manifested in a suspension of in-person classes and physical socialization, but it has led to a decrease in our ability to interact with people in general, whether that be through clubs or on-campus activities. 

When envisioning what Mount Holyoke would be like in the fall, I never imagined it full of online assignments and meeting friends and professors through Zoom. Actually, I pictured waking up in my dorm for Mountain Day, excitedly anticipating elfing, walking around campus with new friends and feeling a growing sense of belonging. In light of all we’re missing, students have been working to create and join their own clubs and activities in the hope of simulating this on-campus experience.

As a first-year and self-proclaimed bookworm, trying to socialize with other students and create a normal college experience has been a difficulty, one that has resided in me since the beginning of the pandemic. For casual readers and bibliophiles alike, finding a place to interact with other literature enthusiasts has proven to be particularly hard. Without the opportunity to congregate in the campus library or to meet others in English classes, I felt like there was a significant loss to my freshman experience. In order to fill that gap, I decided to start an informal book club through the class of 2024 Facebook group, very appropriately titled The Mount Holyoke Book Club.

What originally started out as a desire to meet a handful of students with a similar interest soon grew to be a club of around 30 members, all looking for a way to meaningfully connect with one another in the midst of the pandemic. Since we wanted to establish a routine of meeting at the end of every month, we only had about two weeks to pick and read a book. We all expressed interest in reading something that was short and discussed issues that we were interested in, such as women’s rights. Through different polls and opinions, we decided on the book “We Should All Be Feminists” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an award-winning Nigerian author, to begin with. This book is a compressed essay adaptation of Adichie’s TEDx talk on what it means to be a feminist and how societal standards and masculine identity have influenced how women are treated. 

While our Zoom book club discussion took place, we noticed a lot of parallels between Adichie’s experience as a woman and our collective experience. Both experiences are characterized by flagrant sexism and societal expectations that serve to pigeonhole women. In conversation, we expanded upon the rights — and the lack thereof — that women have in comparison to men, and how this has worked to actively prevent women from reaching for and achieving goals that men have historically had easier access to. As the meeting concluded, we touched upon our collective fear as women not only in the U.S. but internationally. In the midst of the current political climate, we noted that we fear that any rights we currently have could be taken away, especially as the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election may determine the fate of gender equality and women’s rights.

As everyone left the Zoom call, I walked away feeling happy and inspired. Not only did the connection with other people who were passionate about reading help me feel more involved in the Mount Holyoke community, but I felt I had learned something new about how feminism on a global scale is approached, thanks to our discussions that began with Adichie’s book. 

Through our different backgrounds, experiences and characteristics, everyone in the club had their own unique definition of feminism and what it means to be a feminist — definitions that transcend dictionary verbatim and societal standards, that they all brought individually to our meeting. I noticed that, while we may have had different experiences with feminism, or a lack thereof, we all agreed on one thing: Being a feminist is important and advocacy for women’s rights needs to be centered on both domestic and global scales.

Through the creation of this informal book club, the novel-sized space in my mind that had been created by the pandemic began to heal itself. Meeting monthly, I finally feel like I am starting to become a part of MoHome while at home.