New Books Fall 2011 / Winter 2012 Wesleyan University Press

Making the News, Night’s Dancer Taking the News The Life of Janet Collins From NBC to the Ford White House yaël tamar lewin ron nessen Biography of the Veteran reporter first black prima and Washington ballerina insider reflects on personal experiences and public events in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s

Dancer Janet Collins (1917–2003) soared high Ron Nessen enjoyed an extraordinary career over the color line as the first African-American covering the major national events of the 1960s prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. Night’s and 1970s for NBC News, and later serving as Dancer chronicles the life of this extraordinary White House press secretary to President Gerald and elusive woman who endured racial bias, but R. Ford. Here he remembers the events and transformed the way black dancers were viewed personalities that dominated national politics in ballet and solo performance. The book begins during those years, providing a vivid illustration with an unfinished memoir written by Collins, of the life of an on-the-road reporter and a and dance scholar Yaël Lewin continues the story, valuable eyewitness account of events that shaped drawing on extensive research and interviews and altered America during two critical decades. with Collins and her family, friends, and colleagues. What results is a profoundly moving “Ron Nessen’s story is a riveting and candid portrait of an artist with indomitable spirit. firsthand account of the personal and political dynamics inside the Ford White House and “Blessed with the extraordinary gifts for painting the personal challenges of covering the war in and dance, Janet Collins’ journey is inspirational. Vietnam.” History should recognize her as one of its lester crystal, former executive pioneers. She was truly one of earth’s angels.” producer of the PBS NewsHour arthur Mitchell, cofounder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem ron nessen is the journalist-in-residence at the Brookings Institution. He lives in Bethesda, yaël tamar lewin is a writer and dancer living Maryland. in New York City.

September September 272 pp., 37 illus., 6 x 9" 336 pp., 63 illus. (16 color), 7 x 10" Cloth, $27.95 • 978-0-8195-7156-4 Cloth, $37.00 • 978-0-8195-7114-4 ebook, $14.99 • 978-0-8195-7157-1 ebook, $19.99 • 978-0-8195-7115-1 memoir / politics biography / dance / african-american studies

www.wesleyan.edu/wespress WesleyanNew Titles University · University Press Press of New England

Paul on Mazursky The Actor Within sam wasson Intimate Conversations with Great Actors foreword by mel brooks photographs and text by rose eichenbaum Conversations with one of Revealing portraits America’s of some of the funniest most beloved filmmakers actors in America

Paul Mazursky’s films represent Hollywood’s most sustained comic expression of the 1970s and 1980s. They includeBob & Carol & Ted The Actor Within delves into the lives of & Alice, An Unmarried Woman, and Enemies, A thirty-five celebrated actors through intimate Love Story. In the first book-length examination conversations and photographic portraits. The of one of America’s most important and least work provides extraordinary insights from appreciated filmmakers, Sam Wasson sits down seasoned veterans on the craft of acting with with Mazursky himself to eat, laugh, and talk discussions of process, techniques, tools of the movies. One film at a time, interviewer and trade, and how to advice for aspiring actors. For interviewee delve into how the director works the artists featured in this work, acting is more with actors, his writing process, his admiration than a profession; it is how they make their of Fellini, and the state of Hollywood today, way in the world and artfully merge their inner among other things. Includes a filmography sense of humanness with universal truths. and never-before-seen photos. Includes interviews with Ellen Burstyn, Stockard Channing, Charles Durning, Elliott “Paul Mazursky is one of the great writer- Gould, Marcia Gay Harden, Ed Harris, Piper directors of cinema. His work is closer to that of Laurie, William H. Macy, Karl Malden, Marlee a novelist than a movie director. His complicated, Matlin, Joe Mantegna, Amanda Plummer, Bill conflicted, and comedic characters are some of Pullman, Julia Stiles, Debra Winger, Elijah that decade’s finest.” Wood, and many others. quentin tarantino rose eichenbaum is an award-winning sam wasson is the author of A Splurch in the photographer and the author of The Dancer Kisser and the New York Times-bestseller Fifth Within. She lives in Encino, California. Avenue, 5AM. mel brooks is a writer, director, actor, and composer.

August October 344 pp., 35 illus., 6 x 9" 256 pp., 35 illus., 7 x 10" Cloth, $35.00 • 978-0-8195-7143-4 Cloth, $30.00 • 978-0-8195-6952-3 ebook, $16.99 • 978-0-8195-7144-1 ebook, $14.99 • 978-0-8195-7165-6 film / directors / interviews acting / performing arts / interviews Wesleyan Film

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Silence Songs and Stories Lectures and Writings of the Ghouls john cage alice notley new foreword by kyle gann An epic poem 50th of genocide, anniversary designed to edition create power for the dead Special edition of the book that revolutionized our understanding of how we make and experience art

Songs and Stories of the Ghouls purports to Silence, John Cage’s first book and epic give voices to the victims of genocide—both masterpiece, was published in October 1961. In ancient and contemporary—and presence to these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries women. “Alice Notley reminds us that wars to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, do not only kill people and bring down their is not about them, but that produces them. houses, but destroy also their writings, cultures, Fifty years later comes a beautiful new edition and civilization. She creates an intricate form of with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle writing, balancing song against story, to assert Gann. A landmark book in American arts and her belief in the powers of poetry to seed a culture, Silence has been translated into more new culture,” writes Etel Adnan. Notley asserts than forty languages and has sold over half a that though her art comes from a tradition as million copies worldwide. broken as Afghanistan’s statuary, there is always john cage (1912–1992) was a pioneer of a culture to pass on to one’s children. percussion, chance, and electronic music, alice notley is the author of many collections and one of the most influential American of poems including Pulitzer Prize-finalist composers of the twentieth century. He is Mysteries of Small Houses, and Grave of Light: perhaps best known for his 1952 composition New and Selected Poems. She has won the 4'33", the three movements of which are Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Shelley performed without a single note being played. Memorial Award, and the Griffin Poetry Prize. is the author of American Music in kyle gann Notley lives in Paris. the 20th Century and No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4'33". This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Not for sale in the UK and British Commonwealth

October November 280 pp., 7 x 8W" 160 pp., 6 x 9" Cloth, $30.00 • 978-0-8195-7176-2 Cloth, $24.95 • 978-0-8195-6956-1 ebook, $14.99 • 978-0-8195-7177-9 ebook, $11.99 • 978-0-8195-7153-3 music / literary criticism / art poetry Wesleyan Poetry

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Threshold Songs Soul Talk, Song Language peter gizzi Conversations with Joy Harjo

A series of joy harjo and tanaya winder private and Intimate and ecstatic illuminating meditations conversations on living with one of and dying America’s foremost Native artists

Peter Gizzi’s new book, Threshold Songs, is his most personal and haunted collection to date. The voices in these poems reside at the Joy Harjo, “poet-healer-philosopher- thresholds encountered each day, where we saxophonist,” gathers her recent personal negotiate the unfathomable proximities of essays, interviews, and newspaper columns in knowing and not knowing, the gulf of seeing one complete collection. She reflects upon the and feeling, and the uncanny relation of grief nuances of her art, the importance of her origins, and joy. Both conceptual and vulnerable, these the arduous reconstructions of the tribal past, poems explore the asymmetry of the body’s and the dramatic confrontation between Native chemistry and its effects on expression and American and Anglo civilizations. form. These poems tune us to the microtonal “Joy Harjo provides a rare and treasurable music of speaking and being spoken. acoustic: the sound of an artist and woman “Gizzi’s poems reach persistently for what thinking for herself, and for us. Never afraid comes to seem like the ghost of the beauty of of large questions of purpose and identity. But the world.” never remiss either in providing beautiful, small details of craft and commitment.” rae armantrout, Poetry Foundation, Best Books of 2007 eavan boland joy harjo is a poet, performer, writer, and is the author of The Outernationale peter gizzi musician of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation; she and Some Values of Landscape and Weather. lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. tanaya He teaches at the University of Massachusetts, winder is a poet from the Duckwater Amherst. Shoshone/Southern Ute Nation, and is This project is supported in part by an award from the pursuing an MFA from the University National Endowment for the Arts. of New Mexico.

September October 88 pp., 6 x 8" 160 pp., 12 illus., 6 x 9" Cloth, $22.95 • 978-0-8195-7174-8 Cloth, $26.95 • 978-0-8195-7150-2 ebook, $11.99 • 978-0-8195-7175-5 ebook, $12.99 • 978-0-8195-7151-9 poetry essays / poetry / native american studies Wesleyan Poetry

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Three Science Fiction Novellas Listening and Longing From Prehistory to the End of Mankind Music Lovers in the j.-h. rosny aîné Age of Barnum translated and introduced by daniel cavicchi danièle chatelain and george slusser An intriguing look Three ground- at music listening breaking works in nineteenth- from a master century America of modern science fiction

Listening and Longing explores the emergence Along with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, J.-H. of music listening in the United States from Rosny aîné was a founding father of science the antebellum era to the Gilded Age, when fiction. He was the first writer to conceive, and genteel critics redefined the cultural value of attempt to narrate, the workings of aliens and listening to music. Using interconnected stories, alternate life forms. His work has been virtually American studies scholar Daniel Cavicchi unknown in the English-speaking world, but focuses on the impact of industrialization, is crucial for our understanding of the genre. urbanization, and commercialization in shaping These novellas are wonderfully imaginative. practices of music audiences, grounding our “This edition will take a permanent place on contemporary culture of listening in its seminal the small shelf of books indispensable in historical moment. understanding the history of science fiction.” “Impeccably researched, Listening and Longing paul alkon, author of shows us how Jenny Lind was the Lady Gaga Science Fiction Before 1900 of her day.” j.-h. rosny aîné (1856–1940) was born in holly george-warren, Brussels and wrote prolifically in a variety of coauthor of The Road to Woodstock genres. danièle chatelain is a professor of daniel cavicchi is an associate professor at French at the University of Redlands. george the Rhode Island School of Design and the slusser is a professor of comparative literature author of Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning at the University of California, Riverside. among Springsteen Fans. Chatelain and Slusser live in Highland, California.

January December 216 pp., 6 x 9" 312 pp., 11 illus., 6 x 9" Cloth, $35.00 s • 978-0-8195-6945-5 Unjacketed cloth, $75.00 x • 978-0-8195-7161-8 ebook, $16.99 • 978-0-8195-7230-1 Paper, $24.95 • 978-0-8195-7162-5 science fiction / literary criticism - french ebook, $19.99 • 978-0-8195-7163-2 Early Classics of Science Fiction music / american history - 19th century Music / Culture

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Food for the Dead Post Roads & Iron Horses On the Trail of Transportation in Connecticut from New England’s Vampires Colonial Times to the Age of Steam michael e. bell richard deluca

back in print The fascinating history of Startling true stories turnpikes, behind New England’s steamboats, vampire legends— canals, railroads, with a new preface and trolleys in by the author Connecticut

For nineteenth century New Englanders, Advances in transportation technology during “vampires” came in the form of tuberculosis. To the nineteenth century transformed Connecticut rid their communities of the wasting disease, from a rough network of colonial towns to families sometimes relied on folk practices, an industrial powerhouse of the Gilded Age. including exhuming and consuming the Historian and transportation engineer Richard bodies of the deceased. Author Michael E. Bell DeLuca traces the significant themes and stories shows that these practices were surprisingly that emerge as American innovators struggled to widespread and lasted into the twentieth control the movement of passengers and goods century. This Wesleyan paperback includes in southern New England. Generously illustrated, an extensive preface with new cases Bell has it is an indispensable book for history and discovered since Food for the Dead was first transportation buffs of all kinds. published in 2001. richard deluca lives in Cheshire, Connecticut. “The ‘vampire’ threat here has little in common He has written on regional transportation for with your garden-variety Dracula . . . these quiet Connecticut History and the Encyclopedia of apparitions are in some ways more macabre.” Connecticut History Online. Publishers Weekly The Driftless Connecticut Series is funded by the michael e. bell was the consulting folklorist Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Rhode Island Historical Preservation at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, & Heritage Commission. He splits his time www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/driftless. between McKinney, Texas, and Pawtuxet Village, Rhode Island.

October December 352 pp., 15 illus., 6 x 9" 288 pp., 44 illus., 8 maps, 6 x 9" Paper, $16.95 • 978-0-8195-7170-0 Cloth, $35.00 • 978-0-8195-6856-4 ebook, $9.99 • 978-0-8195-7171-7 ebook, $16.99 • 978-0-8195-7173-1 new england history / folklore connecticut / history / transportation Garnet Books The Driftless Connecticut Series Garnet Books

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On the Outskirts of Form Apples from Shinar Practicing Cultural Poetics hyam plutzik michael davidson afterword by david scott kastan Essays on modern back in print and contemporary A special poetry from a centenary edition cultural studies of this American perspective poet’s critically acclaimed collection

This volume gathers essays by Michael Apples from Shinar was Hyam Plutzik’s second Davidson concerning formally innovative complete collection. Originally published in poetry from modernists such as Mina Loy, 1959 as a part of Wesleyan University Press’s George Oppen, and Wallace Stevens to new poetry series, the collection includes “The current practitioners such as Cristina Rivera- Shepherd”—a section of the book length poem Garza, Heriberto Yépez, Lisa Robertson, and “Horatio,” which earned Plutzik a finalist position Mark Nowak. A comprehensive and versatile for the Pulitzer Prize. “The love and the words collection, it places modern and contemporary and the simplicity” that mark Plutzik’s poetry, poetics in a cultural context to reconsider writes Philip Booth, “are all here [in Apples the role of cultural studies and globalization from Shinar], and the poems come peacefully, in poetry. As Alan Golding puts it, “Michael and wonderfully, alive.” With a previously Davidson’s superbly written book compellingly unpublished foreword by Hyam Plutzik and new expands the category ‘American poetry’ into afterword by David Scott Kastan, this edition a global(ized) context, a ‘cosmopoetics.’ On will introduce a new generation of readers to the the Outskirts of Form represents one direction work of one of the best mid-century American in which scholarship on American poetry poets. must move if it is to remain intellectually and hyam plutzik (1911–1962) was a professor culturally relevant—Davidson is on the cutting of English at the University of Rochester and edge of that future.” author of six volumes of poetry. david scott teaches at Yale University and is one Poet and scholar michael davidson is kastan Distinguished Professor of Literature at the of the most widely read of American literary University of California, San Diego. He is the scholars. author of numerous books, most recently Concerto for the Left Hand.

November August 320 pp., 19 illus., 6 x 9" 80 pp., 7 x 8" Unjacketed cloth, $80.00 x • 978-0-8195-6957-8 Paper, $27.95 • 978-0-8195-6958-5 Cloth, $22.95 • 978-0-8195-7167-0 ebook, $21.99 • 978-0-8195-7137-3 ebook, $11.99 • 978-0-8195-7168-7 poetry poetry criticism / cultural studies Wesleyan Poetry

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Practical Water Zong! brenda hillman m. nourbese philip as told to the author by now in setaey adamu boateng paperback now in Winner of the Los paperback Angeles Times Book Prize A haunting lifeline between archive and memory, law and poetry

A masterful work by one of our finest poets, Practical Water is both an elemental meditation and an ecopoetics. This time her subject is In November, 1781, the captain of the slave water—Taoist water, baptismal water, water ship Zong ordered that some 150 Africans from the muses’ fountains, the practical waters be murdered by drowning so that the ship’s of hydrology from which we draw our being— owners could collect insurance monies. and the stilled water in a glass in a Senate Zong! relies entirely on the words of the legal chamber. decision Gregson v. Gilbert—the only extant public document related to the massacre of “In these aesthetically challenging, yet often these African slaves. surprisingly clear poems, which span the personal, political and environmental, water is “The story of theZong is ultimately a story that simultaneously a transparent vessel, a mirror can only be told by not telling. So even in the and an endangered resource . . . This is one of sea of words that fill up the final pages ofZong! , the most unusual and compelling books so far the registers of silence that mark the text are this year.” resounding.” Publishers Weekly kate eichorn, Xcp

brenda hillman is the author of seven m. nourbese philip is a poet, writer, and collections of poetry and the Olivia Filippi lawyer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. setaey Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary’s College. adamu boateng is the voice of the ancestors revealing the submerged stories of all who were This project is supported in part by an award from the on board the Zong. National Endowment for the Arts. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

August August 120 pp., 42 illus., 6 x 9" 224 pp., 7 x 9W" Paper, $14.95 • 978-0-8195-7166-3 Paper, $14.95 • 978-0-8195-7169-4 ebook, $9.99 • 978-0-8195-7111-3 ebook, $9.99 • 978-0-8195-7245-5 poetry poetry / african studies Wesleyan Poetry Wesleyan Poetry

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With Needle and Brush Gervase Wheeler Schoolgirl Embroidery from the A British Architect in America, Connecticut River Valley, 1740–1840 1847–1860 carol and stephen huber, renée tribert and susan p. schoelwer, and james f. o’gorman amy kurtz lansing The American First book to career of an explore schoolgirl influential needlework of English architect the Connecticut River Valley

This book identifies the distinctive styles Gervase Wheeler was an English-born architect developed by teachers throughout the entire who designed such important American works Connecticut River Valley, and provides insight as the Henry Boody house (Brunswick, Maine), into women’s schooling at this time. the Patrick Barry house (Rochester, New York), and the chapels at Bowdoin and Williams “With Needle and Brush presents a stunning colleges. He was best known as the author of group of schoolgirl artwork. The sheer beauty two influential books,Rural Homes (1851) and of the needlework is underpinned by new Homes for the People (1855). This study sheds and important research. This book is a very new light on Wheeler’s career in the states, the important contribution to the field.” development of the American architectural linda eaton, director of collections profession, and social history as expressed in the and senior curator of textiles, changing nature of the American house. Lavishly Winterthur Museum illustrated with over sixty images. carol and stephen huber are needlework renée tribert is an independent historian and experts in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. susan p. writer living in Simsbury, Connecticut. james f. schoelwer is curator at George Washington’s o’gorman is the McNeil Professor Emeritus at Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, Mount Wellesley College, and author of Henry Austin. Vernon, Virginia. amy kurtz lansing is the curator at the Florence Griswold Museum in The Driftless Series is funded by the Old Lyme, Connecticut. Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/driftless.

October January 112 pp., 89 illus. (80 color), 9 x 11" 136 pp., 62 illus., 7 x 10" Cloth, $60.00 s • 978-0-9830532-0-0 Cloth, $35.00 s • 978-0-8195-7145-8 Paper, $30.00 • 978-0-9830532-1-7 ebook, $16.99 • 978-0-8195-7146-5 ebook, $23.99 • 978-0-8195-7229-5 architecture / american history - 19th century american art / connecticut / women’s studies The Driftless Connecticut Series Florence Griswold Museum Garnet Books

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____ Making the News, Taking the News, by Ron Nessen ____ Night’s Dancer, by Yaël Tamar Lewin

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Front cover photograph: “Heron Dream,” by Joy Harjo.