Memoirs

Winter 2016

Briefly noted

Light in the Trees

Gail Folkins ’85

Texas Tech University Press: 2016

Folkins draws on her experiences growing up in rural western Washington to weave a coming of age tale for both the narrator and the place. The memoir, touching on everything from serial killers and Northwest volcanoes to Sasquatch myths and runaway livestock, glides through past and present while exploring cultural and environmental topics illustrating the changing American West.

The Expanding Universe: A Primer on Relativistic Cosmology

William D. Heacox ’72 MA

Cambridge University Press: 2015

Cosmology, the science of the universe, has seen a renaissance in recent decades. This textbook by … » More …

Winter 2015

The Adderall Empire: A Life with ADHD and the Millennials’ Drug of Choice

Andrew K. Smith ’14

Booktrope: 2015

Smith’s memoir, The Adderall Empire, gives you a look into his life and struggle with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Diagnosed in late high school, Smith was prescribed Adderall and was catapulted into what he calls the “Adderall Empire.” This empire is a world in which Smith believes people lose their creative minds to the drug.

“Being inside the Adderall Empire is like being in a lighthouse across … » More …

Winter 2015

Briefly noted

A Formative Decade: Ireland in the 1920s

Edited by Jason Knirck ’96 MA, ’00 PhD, Mel Farrell, and Ciara Meehan

Irish Academic Press: 2015

Knirck, a history professor at Central Washington University, and his fellow editors and contributors chronicle the events in Irish history during the ’20s, when Ireland underwent transformations in national identity and allegiances. Knirck’s contribution examines the role of the loyal opposition, the Irish Farmers’ Party.

Zen and the Art of Dog Walking

By G. Ray Sullivan Jr. ’73

Deeds Publishing: 2015

Sullivan authored this collection of photographs and musings as a simple descriptive journey of how he discovered natural … » More …

Winter 2015

Through the years with three lifelong Okanogan Cougs

Tom Monroe ’63, Richard Wagner ’61, and I started the first grade together in a small town in north central Washington, ninety miles north of Wenatchee and thirty miles south of the border with British Columbia, Canada: Okanogan. Perhaps even more remarkable is that we were all born at Elsie McDonald’s Maternity Home, probably because there was no hospital in Okanogan. Tom and I were playmates for a few years before beginning school—not very many, to be sure! —but we three boys began our life-long friendship together at Grainger Elementary School in Okanogan while America was still battling WWII.

We were never called “The Three … » More …

Winter 2014

Red Light to Starboard: Recalling the Exxon Valdez Disaster

Angela Day

WSU Press, 2014

The Exxon Valdez and its 53 million gallons of crude oil made history on March 24, 1989. In the weeks and months that followed, more than 10 million gallons of oil bubbled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

Thousands of company menus, recorded meetings, news articles, and government documents provided Angela Day ample material for her book.

She corrals those notes and perspectives from whistleblowers, cannery … » More …

Fall 2014

New & noteworthy

Said & Done

Elder Crow, 2014

Tyler Morgan ’03 and his band crank up some old-school rock and roll in their debut album. The Vancouver, Washington, group blends lyrics of social justice and civil rights with roaring guitars and solid drumming straight out of the ’60s and ’70s. Morgan, a high school history teacher in Camas, sings lead and plays rhythm guitar alongside drummer Eddie Esparza, bassist Eric Fernandez, and … » More …

Winter 2013

Glenn Terrell, WSU President 1967–1985: Recollections

Glenn Terrell served as Washington State University’s seventh president, from 1967 to 1985. He passed away in August at his home in Sequim. He was 93.

Terrell earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College in North Carolina, his master’s degree in psychology from Florida State University, and his doctoral degree from the University of Iowa. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was one of the American soldiers who marched down the Champs-Elysee with Charles de Gaulle.

He began his academic career as an instructor in psychology at Florida State, later moving to the University of Colorado … » More …

Summer 2013

An Excerpt from Micronesian Blues

An excerpt of Micronesian Blues: The Adventures of an American Cop in Paradise by Bryan Vila, a criminal justice professor at WSU Spokane.

» More ...

Winter 2012

Boocoo Dinky Dow: My Short, Crazy Vietnam War

Grady C. Myers and Julie Titone

2012

When the United States was in the thick of the Vietnam War, a legally blind, out of shape young man from Boise volunteered. Grady Myers had been rejected previously because of his physical problems, but the Army of 1968, desperate to fill its ranks, snapped him up and shipped him off to Fort Lewis for basic training. This memoir of Myers’s time in training and then … » More …

Fall 2012

New & noteworthy

Images That Injure

edited by Susan Dente Ross and Paul Martin Lester

Praeger, 2011

WSU English professor Ross and her colleagues examine pictorial stereotypes in the media.

Seaside Stories

by S.R. Martin, Jr. ’74

Blue Nile Press, 2009

Short stories of life in Seaside, on California’s Monterey Peninsula.

Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies

by David G. James and David Nunnallee

Oregon State University Press, 2011

A unique chronicle of the life cycles of the butterfly species native to Cascadia. Read the feature article.