2023’s “Killingly” by Katharine Beutner brought the dark academia vibes of “The Secret History” right to Mount Holyoke, as the book was inspired by the institution's own history. The following trio of books, centered around the Seven Sister colleges, includes recommendations for fans of the more cut and dry murder mystery, as well as those interested in the secrets hidden within the walls of higher education.
The 2024-25 academic year marks the tenth anniversary of transgender and gender-nonconforming inclusive admissions at Mount Holyoke College. In celebration, a number of events dedicated to the trans, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary community are happening around campus under the name TGNC10. Also held on campus this semester is a class on transgender literature taught by Visiting Assistant Lecturer in English Dr. Jude Hayward-Jansen. Although Hayward-Jansen’s class was not created with TGNC10 in mind, its course goals are in line with the project’s mission: uplifting trans voices and celebrating trans stories.
In June 2023, author Katharine Beutner published “Killingly,” a historical fiction novel set at Mount Holyoke College based on the real-life disappearance of Bertha Mellish in 1867. Mount Holyoke News has previously interviewed Beutner, and the author signed books at The Odyssey Bookshop during Reunion last year.
Author and activist Schuyler Bailar has answers to your questions about gender. With anti-trans bills proposed by legislators across the United States, discussions of gender identity are at the forefront of politics today. Bailar’s debut nonfiction, “He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters,” breaks down society’s views on the topic and its importance to the present and the future.
Every year, Mount Holyoke College hosts an event to celebrate student poetry. “It's so exciting to get to share my work, and to meet all these great people from different universities and hear everyone's work,” Mount Holyoke contestant Aderet Fishbane ’25, said, speaking about the College’s 101st Annual Glascock Poetry Competition.
Glascock is traditionally composed of three events. The first event, on the afternoon of Friday the 29th, was a conversation with the judges of the contest: Jennifer Tamayo, Samuel Ace and Margaret Rhee, all poets and authors themselves. Attendees gathered in the Stimson Room on the sixth floor of the Williston Memorial Library to listen to the poets discuss topics ranging from the role of transformation in the judges’ work, their work with other media in connection to their poetry and to understand how they seek out community.
For 15 days, the Mount Holyoke College community lost online access to Odyssey Bookshop, the bookstore closest to its campus and one of the few businesses located in the Village Commons. Mount Holyoke News’ staff has followed this situation closely, even as both the problem and its eventual resolution appeared to be hidden from view.
The problem was first addressed in early February attempts to reach the Odyssey Bookshop’s website online would result in an error message displaying that connecting to the site had taken too long and had now timed out. This could be caused by any number of issues, such as poor connection to the internet — the site crashing — or the Odyssey site being down for maintenance by the store. Eventually, Odyssey Bookshop addressed the connectivity issue.
The literary science fiction Hugo Awards stirred up major controversy this year with the disqualification of two of science fiction’s biggest hits of last year: R.F. Kuang’s speculative novel “Babel” and Xiran Jay Zhao’s “Iron Widow” were disqualified despite having the votes to qualify in the awards.
How does a small town end up with a body in a well? That is the question answered in the novel “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” published on Aug. 8, 2023. In the book, author James McBride examines how a working-class community of Jewish and African American people are affected by antisemitism and racism from the white, Christian community around them in similar and different ways. McBride also explores how these groups might be able to bridge the divides between them.
The spy thriller novel “Argylle,” written under the pseudonym Elly Conway and released last month by Penguin Random House, has been a large talking point across both Bookstagram and general fan internet spaces. While the real writers of “Argylle” might not be Taylor Swift, to the chagrin of many fans, their names do begin with T. Sorry Swifties!
