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For
New Students at Barnard, Fall Orientation Means a Seminar
on Their Summer Reading — With the Author, Novelist Galaxy
Craze
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Galaxy
Craze
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Alumna
and novelist Galaxy Craze ’93 returned to campus on Friday,
August 29 to lead a discussion of her novel By The Shore
as a part of Barnard’s first-year orientation program.
She spoke to this year’s incoming class, who read the
coming-of-age novel over the summer, about the book’s
themes and about her writing process, and also offered encouragement
for those students who may be unsure about their own futures.
"Barnard was really good for me because I wasn’t
on any kind of serious career track. But I didn’t feel
pressured to do something I didn’t want to do and took
my time to decide what I wanted. I interned at literary agencies
and magazines and eventually realized that I wanted to write,"
Craze said. "If I hadn’t come to Barnard, I probably
wouldn’t have become a writer. A lot of writers have
done really well here."
By the Shore, published in 2000, is narrated by 12-year-old
May, a precocious girl who lives with her single mother Lucy
and six-year-old brother Eden on the English coast. The story
focuses on May's emotional and social experiences as she and
her family go about life in their financially struggling bed-and-breakfast.
"We hope the book will help students reflect on their
own unique journey and the experiences that led them to this
point in their lives," said Jessica Lian, a Barnard junior
and member of the new student program committee.
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This is
the fourth year that new Barnard students have read a novel
by an alumna author who comes to campus to talk about the
book during first-year orientation. The program strives to
give students a common text to bind them together as a class,
and also to draw attention to Barnard's alumnae network as
a source of professional and intellectual support from the
start of their college years.
"I wanted students to have the excitement of hearing
from the author of the text and the pride in knowing that
the writer is a Barnard alumna," said Dorothy Denburg,
Dean of the College, who introduced the shared reading program.
Barnard has many famous alumnae authors, including Pulitzer
Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri (Class of 1989) and Anna Quindlen
(Class of 1974) and acclaimed novelists Mary Gordon (Class
of 1971), Edwidge Danticat (Class of 1990), Hortense Calisher
(class of 1932) and Lionel Shriver (Class of 1978). Barnard
is honoring its faculty, alumnae and visiting writers this
fall with the launch of a public readings series, Books Etc.,
featuring many of today's most admired writers, including
Lahiri (Oct. 16), Quindlen (Nov. 5) and Alice Walker (Oct.
3). Please visit: www.barnard.edu/writers
for times and locations.
Last year, new students read Mary Gordon's three novellas
collected as The Rest of Life. In 2001, Dreaming
in Cuban by Christian Garcia, Class of 1979, was chosen,
and in 2000, Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak ! was selected
Contact:
Suzanne Trimel, Barnard Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037,
strimel@barnard.edu
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