There Will Be A Quiz

By Kate Woodworth

“Remember mud football on the quad?” our Trinity College (Hartford) reunion chair, Henry Bruce wrote last fall when trying to drum up enthusiasm for our 50th. “The Sha-Na-Na concert?” 

Nope. In my four years of college, I attended zero sporting events. I don’t know what mud football is and have no desire to find out. I completely missed the fact that Sha-Na-Na played on campus.

What I remember is sitting on the grass having what I was certain was a deep conversation about poetry. I remember reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English and thinking I was pretty cool, and I remember discovering the pleasures of escaping Real Life in a library carrel. Also: first serious boyfriend.

I wasn’t a geek or a particularly good student. I was an English major in the early 1970s, when surplus Army wear was the height of fashion, no one could remember when they got their last haircut, the sexual revolution was in full swing, and the draft cast a pall over everything. A different time but, like most college freshmen today, I was groping my way into adulthood one mistake at a time. 

 “What does our reunion hold for English major types?” I asked Henry. Or, more precisely, I said, “Hey! I have a novel coming out right around the time we’ll be convening, so how about you get classmates who have published a book together for a panel?” 

“Interesting idea,” he said, and then I more-or-less forgot about the reunion until mid-March, when I began receiving emails about the reunion author panel, which included me and two classmates whose names were only vaguely familiar to me: children’s book author Consie Berghausen and Rick Tucci, author of the business book Ideas to Action. I had never attended a college reunion and probably wouldn’t have attended my 50th…except now I was stuck. 

Used to self promotion by that point in Little Great Island’s publication cycle, I called the college bookstore to tell them about the panel and to suggest that they stock our books. Then I notified the classmate buttonholed to moderate the panel, Gary Morgans, and my fellow panelists. Each of us had different publication and distribution channels, and I’m not sure that anything was resolved regarding sales before we realized we had a more pressing problem: what we were going to talk about during our discussion. We were, after all, a disparate group in a gathering best described as a “granfalloon” (English major word; check your Vonnegut). Little was resolved. The day arrived. Clearly, we were going to have to wing it.

Arriving on the Trinity campus caused the 50 years since graduation to collapse on itself. The moment I turned onto the famed Quad, I searched for my teenage self immersed in the poems of Denise Levertov. I looked for my old boyfriend’s dog, which had always roamed free on campus. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to be there, surrounded by strangers and memories, but fleeing wasn’t an option. I was stuck, just as I had been in my homesick-laced first week of college. 

Still wired to seek refuge in books, I headed to the bookstore. Front and center was a table displaying alumni titles including a pile of my books! When I tracked down the store manager, Doug, to thank him for the prominent display, he told me it was all my idea. Or maybe he said “fault” because we still needed to sort out how to sell the books. The panel was in a different building. The bookstore couldn’t sell books offsite. The weather was hot and humid. We were not a young crowd. Would people really attend the panel and then climb back up the hill to purchase books and get them signed? Could I pre-purchase books, resell them at the panel, and have Doug reimburse me? 

“My brain broke,” Doug admitted. Mine too. Too many variables in the equation for this English major. Once again, we were going to have to wing it.  

Two minutes before the panel began, Consie, Rick, Gary and I were in place. Four attendees joined us, heroically taking seats in the front row as start time came and went. As more people began to filter in (late to class, even at our age!), I had an attack of imposter syndrome: What was I doing in the front of the room?  Then I reminded myself that the front of the room was the professor’s position. The power position. 

“There will be a quiz,” I announced. Then I explained Be the Butterfly, the climate change initiative launched in conjunction with Little Great Island, that invites everyone to fill out a card committing to one small act to help mitigate environmental instability. Nervous laughter ensued.

Happily, the panel went well. Gary proved to be a master moderator, posing questions that allowed us to introduce ourselves and our books while also spotlighting topics, like the road to publication, that united us and informed our aspirational classmates. People asked insightful questions, the hour passed, quizzes were turned in (and a free book awarded) …and then it was time to see if anyone showed at the bookstore. 

The answer was yes! 

When the crowd had dissipated, I tracked down Doug a second time.

“Sold out,” I reported. Consie had likewise sold out of several of her titles. I lost track of Rick, but his books were gone from the table.  

“WOW,” Doug responded, and then added, “I’m going to make permanent space for alumni books.” 

He got an A on his quiz.

—

Kate Woodworth is the award-winning author of the novel Racing into the Dark, which Publishers Weekly said, “hits the mark repeatedly with emotional truths and fluid prose” and which Kirkus Reviews called, “vivid and honest, dramatic and without pat resolutions: an impressive debut”.

A passionate lover of the natural world, Kate is the author of essays on the impact of climate change on fishing and farming that have been published by the Climate Fiction Writers League and on her Substack, “Food in the Time of Climate Change.” Her novel about love, community, and climate change, Little Great Island, has been called “an extraordinary achievement and a pure pleasure to read” by National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award winner Ha Jin. Kate is the founder and creative force behind “Be the Butterfly”, a grassroots climate action initiative that invites everyone to do one small thing to help mitigate climate change. Kate received her MFA from Boston University.

Kate’s nonfiction writing on climate change can be found here:
Kate’s Substack
Climate Fiction Writers League

LITTLE GREAT ISLAND

On Little Great Island, climate change is disrupting both life and love

After offending the powerful pastor of a cult, Mari McGavin has to flee with her six-year-old son. With no money and no place else to go, she returns to the tiny Maine island where she grew up—a place she swore she’d never see again. There Mari runs into her lifelong friend Harry Richardson, one of the island’s summer residents, now back himself to sell his family’s summer home. Mari and Harry’s lives intertwine once again, setting off a chain of events as unexpected and life altering as the shifts in climate affecting the whole ecosystem of the island…from generations of fishing families to the lobsters and the butterflies.

Little Great Island Illustrates in microcosm the greatest changes of our time and the unyielding power of love.

BUY HERE

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing