Mary Gilliland ’73, MAT ’80 Mary Gilliland’s newest poetry collection, The Devil’s Fools, won the Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Award and was released on November 1, 2022. Infused with eco-logic, informed by feminism, and taking cues from Eve, Cain, Proserpine, Ulysses, Parsifal, and selves present and past, the 50 poems of The Devil’s Fools question and illustrate myths of nature and the nature of inherited myth. Gilliland’s other recent book, The Ruined Walled Castle Garden, won the Bright Hill Press Poetry Prize and was published in 2020. Her poems are widely published in print and online literary journals and most recently anthologized in Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion, and Choice; Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose; and Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms In Our Hands. The poet is a past recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and a Council for the Arts Faculty Grant from Cornell University.
Johnamarie Macias ’08 Working as a student library assistant at the Sidney Cox Library of Music and Dance and spending long (yet productive) hours at Olin and Uris inspired me to pursue a Master of Library Science and a Certificate in Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials. After working different library roles for the past decade, I’m happy to share I’m back in the archival field as the new Archives Assistant at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. In other news, I also picked up a new hobby over the past year: collecting vintage postcards. Part of my growing collection includes Cornell University postcards. I chose Cornell as my main focus because I love and miss my alma mater! jm436@cornell.edu
Barbara Rainard ’64 As a child I visited the Egyptian exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum and was entranced, especially with the tiny figurines of people going about daily tasks. I became fascinated with archeology. Finally I decided I wanted to actually see Egypt’s ancient sites and my husband and I went on a Cornell alumni trip to Egypt in 2019. We started in Cairo, touring the ancient ruins, the museum, the lovely Coptic churches, a mosque, and a synagogue, as well as a visit to the souk. Then it was off to Luxor to more ancient sites, including the Valley of the Kings. Next were 4 days of sailing down the Nile in a dahabiya with stops in villages, temples, tombs, and quarries. We ended in Aswan with another temple, the dam, and an interesting Nubian museum. Our accommodations were luxurious, the food was great, and we got to see some of daily Egyptian life as well as the expected pyramids, etc. Our guides were highly informative and great company. And then came COVID! Our timing was just right. bjchemist@comcast.net
Marc Grappel ’71 God bless all of you, especially all the friends and classmates that I have never heard from in fifty years. Hope you are all well. It’s been a very interesting and sinuous road to the present, and the story is still unfolding. My best memory, aside from those wonderful Big Red sunsets, was my discovery of the sculpture garden concrete creations from those early ’60s architecture students, and I visit them every year I return to Ithaca, mainly to take in the car races at Watkins Glen, as well as the state park there. Peace and love to you all. marcvette1949@yahoo.com
John Sandford Rueppel ’93 I am happily ensconced in San Francisco with my wife, Aparna Venkatesan ’93, and two teenage sons. I am a partner at the law firm of Johnston, Kinney & Zulaica, LLP, trust and estates firm, where I handle trust and estates litigation. Happy to connect with all Bay Area alums interested in the law or trust and estates. jrueppel@gmail.com
Jennifer Barber Joyce ’93 I met up with Tri-Delta sisters from the 1990s in Alexandria, VA, in October 2021. It was so great to see Cristina Moeder Shaul ’91, Ariane Schreiber Horn ’91, JD ’96, Christine Bleyle Frank ’93, Melissa Turner Booth ’93, Lara Thornton Tabola ’93, Kimberly Martin-Epstein ’91, Corinne McKamey ’92, Jocelyn Spielman Turkel ’93, Mary Shelley ’96, Kristi Covert Tsiopanas ’94, ME ’95, Amy Lawrence Flueck ’91, Liz Baum Schnelzer ’91, Eileen McPeake ’90, Katherine Stifel ’87, Jill Fields ’88, and Lisa Stuart ’89.
Henry Siegel ’68 Henry writes that the passing of his classmate Neal Sher ’68, an acclaimed Nazi hunter, was marked with a news obituary in the New York Times.
Jay Drezner ’93 We’re moving the family back to Australia after a great four years in Colorado. Our children, Nathan (14) and Alexandra (12), will be going to high school in Sydney. My last job was as a fractional CFO for small, growing companies which I loved and now it’s time to take a breather and spend more time with the family.
David Steward ’79 After many years in Manhattan and East Hampton I am finally getting used to farm life in the Hudson Valley. With my husband, Pierre, we are raising beef cattle, alpaca, ducks, guinea fowl and chickens for both meat and eggs. And this year we are raising turkeys for the first time as well. Gobble, gobble! My good friend, Eric Maffei ’80 (Engineering) is one of our first customers! I was so delighted to be back at Tanglewood this summer to enjoy lots of wonderful classical music with the Boston Symphony and this fall have been traveling to Bard College for The Orchestra Now and this week heading back to NYC for Opening Night at Carnegie Hall with Yuja Wang. A robust season of music at Carnegie Hall, NY Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and the Albany Symphony awaits! davidhsteward@gmail.com