Books by Mount Holyoke
Alumnae and Professors: A

Dominirican Love Poetry By Angelica Acevedo '01 Author House. 2004. Dominirican Love Poetry is a collection of poems about author Acevedo's coming out as a Latina lesbian. Her poems explore coming to grips with identity issues and falling in love. The words expressed in each poem show all the emotions possible in living life. Acevedo stresses the importance of staying true to yourself and not hiding who you really are. Angelica Acevedo is a half Puerto Rican, half Dominican Latina woman born and raised in Massachusetts. She has completed her studies as a licensed certified social worker, practicing in an outpatient community mental health center for the past year.

You Bake 'EM Dog Biscuits Cookbook: More than 50 Recipes that Your Dog Will Beg For By Janine Adams '84 Running Press. 2005. While a host of alternatives to big-brand dog foods is now available, there's nothing like home-baked goodies for that special pooch in your life. Combining mouth-watering recipes for superior snacks like "cheesy salmon training treats" and "pupsicles" with tips on which work best for training purposes, extra energy on hikes, and special diets, Adams's book will be useful for all but the professional handler. Janine Adams is the author of numerous books on the health, care, and training of dogs and cats. She is a book reviewer for Dog World magazine and lives in St. Louis with two standard poodles.

You Can Talk to Your Animals By Janine Adams '84 IDG Books. 2000. If you think you know your animal companion, just wait! This book explores the possibility and power of tapping into the animal psyche in ways never before considered. Janine Adams reveals how reciprocal communication can strengthen the relationship between any human and any animal. She also gives animal lovers step-by-step techniques on how to talk to their own furry, hoofed, feathered friends. This book aims to change the way people think about pets and to enhance the human-animal bond. Janine Adams is an award-winning journalist accomplished in the ways of animals. She shares her home with one human (her husband) and two opinionated standard poodles.

Postcard History Series: Mount Holyoke College By Donna Albino '83 Arcadia Publishing. 2001. By the start of the twentieth century, Mount Holyoke College was emerging as a top women's college. Around the same time, postcards were emerging as a popular form of communication. Mount Holyoke College features early postcard images of the school as well as the messages written on them by MHC students. Donna Albino, a software engineer, has spent the last fifteen years collecting more than 1,100 postcards of Mount Holyoke College.

A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation By Catherine Allgor FP'92 Henry Holt & Co. 2006. Long before Hillary Clinton and Eleanor Roosevelt influenced their husbands' presidencies, there was Dolley Payne Todd Madison, wife of James Madison. A Perfect Union is the first major biography of a First Lady who is known for rescuing a portrait of George Washington from the White House and popularizing a line of pastries. Allgor's book reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, the constraints of womanhood were what allowed her to grant political favors, to construct an American democratic ruling style, and to achieve her husband's political goals. Catherine Allgor is a professor of history at the University of California-Riverside and received a Bunting Fellowship for her work on Dolley Madison. Her previous book, Parlor Politics, won a number of awards.

Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government By Catherine Allgor FP'92 University Press of Virginia. 2000. A coveted red-star review in Publishers Weekly calls this a "scholarly yet animated and thought-provoking analysis" of Allgor's "groundbreaking research on the critical role that women played in the early days of Washington politics." Thomas Jefferson felt that any female connection between women and government reeked of "decadent European court life." But Dolley Madison increased women's influence in the capital city by hosting social events that "redefined the social dimension of politics [and] gave women more freedom to participate in public life." The review notes that Allgor "draws on primary archival material, with a flair for expressive writing." Catherine Allgor is an assistant professor of history at Simmons College.

Dreams of a Landlocked Boatman: Adventures on the Connecticut River By Oliver Allyn JN Townsend Publishing. 1998. While growing up in the midst of Illinois cornfields and backyard hollyhocks, the author dreamed of building and sailing his own boat. He fulfilled that dream many times over; but his most rewarding sailing adventure took three years and two boats to sail fifty-two miles down the Connecticut River. Oliver Allyn is professor emeritus of theatre arts at Mount Holyoke.

Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen's Guide to Voting Systems By Douglas J. Amy Praeger. 2000. America's "winner-take-all" voting system for presidential elections is only one of several systems used in Western democracies. Behind the Ballot Box spells out the political advantages and disadvantages associated with each and provides the analytical tools needed to compare and contrast the various systems. Harvard law professor Lani Guinier called it "a well-written and comprehensive guide to how voting systems work and why they are so important to the democratic process." Douglas Amy is MHC professor of politics.

Digital Scholarship in the Tenure, Promotion, and Review Process Edited by Deborah Lines Andersen '70 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 2003. This collection of cutting-edge articles marks the first effort to evaluate the place of digital scholarship - such as Web sites, PowerPoint presentations, and CD-ROMS - in the academic promotion and review process. Digital Scholarship suggests guidelines for scholarly evaluation of such materials, analyzes the various formats, and examines the impact of technology on the classroom and academia. College and university professors can finally work toward tenure by doing more than just writing articles, and Digital Scholarship promises to be a valuable reference for scholars and administrators working on tenure review. Deborah Lines Andersen is an assistant professor of information science and policy at SUNY-Albany, and in her spare time, spins wool from the Romney sheep she and her husband raise.

Resolving Conflict in NonProfit Organizations: The Leader's Guide to Finding Constructive Solutions By Marion Peters Angelica '69 Identify and address conflict before it turns destructive; resolve conflicts using an eight-step process; create better working environments; and empower employees to handle conflicts constructively. There is also information on the nature of conflict; handling disagreements with board members, funders and volunteers; dealing with harassment and discrimination; and using outside help effectively. Marion Angelica is experienced in nonprofit management and conflict mediation. The Midwest Alliance of Independent Publishers awarded this book first prize for business and professional books.

Women. Period. Edited by Julia Watts, Parneshia Jones, Jo Ruby and Elizabeth Slade Spinsters Ink. 2008. This collection of stories, poetry, and essays explores menstruation in all its various permutations including the embarrassment of it starting when you're wearing white pants, the relief of its arrival when you fear you might be pregnant, and the privilege of being able to make life - and even take it away, that Adrienne Anifant '00 talks about in her story, "Strange Woman Before Me." Adrienne Anifant has had her fiction, essays, and book reviews published at home and abroad. She lives in New York City.

Jetty and Other Poems By Talvikki E. Ansel '85 Zoo Press. 2003. Ansel's poems are spare but specific, driven by a consciousness that perceives the world's details through the prism of nature and femininity. Jetty and Other Poems builds on the strength of the author's previous collection, My Shining Archipelago (winner of the 1996 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, chosen by James Dickey). Library Journal notes Ansel's "great sense of physicality, exact, strenuous, and totally unsentimental." Talvikki Ansel's poetry appears regularly in The Atlantic Monthly, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry.

My Shining Archipelago By Talvikki Ansel '85 Yale University Press. 1997. This lyrical collection of poems, the 1996 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, is "refreshingly original." Talvikki Ansel's poems have appeared in the Missouri Review, the Iowa Review, Poetry East and Shenandoah.

Doc: Orra Phelps, M. D.: Adirondack Naturalist and Mountaineer By Mary Arakelian North Country Books. 2001. After graduating from MHC, Orra Almira Phelps '18 earned a medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1927. Along with practicing medicine for 50 years, Phelps wrote the Adirondack Mountain Club's first Trail Guide to the High Peaks Region. Among the primary sources for Doc were the nearly 3,000 letters written between 1916 and 1950 by Phelps and her mother, Orra Almira Parker, an 1888 Mount Holyoke graduate. Mary Arakelian, Phelps' niece, is a retired public school teacher. Doc is her first biography.

Odyssey of a Learning Teacher: (Greece and the Near East 1924-1925) Volume I By Charlotte Eleanor Ferguson Aronson '23 iUniverse. 2005. Odyssey of a Learning Teacher follows the travels of Charlotte Ferguson from the Near East to Norway. Along with her travel companion Helen Larrabee, Charlotte arrived in Greece in 1924, where she taught orphan refugees and then traveled to Egypt, Palestine, and Constantinople. The second volume covers their travels in Europe, including an extensive tour of Italy and a trip up the Danube River to Austria, Germany, and Scandinavia. Charlotte's son, David Aronson, compiled the handwritten letters that Charlotte sent to her parents while she was abroad into the Odyssey books. Charlotte Ferguson Aronson was born in central Pennsylvania into a family of farmers and teachers. After graduation from Mount Holyoke, she worked for a year at Connecticut College and then decided to explore the world. She died in 1982.

Sing Me to Heaven: The Story of a Marriage By Margaret Kim Peterson (Margaret R. Ault '82) Brazos Press. 2003. Sing Me to Heaven tells the story of the author's first marriage, which was cut short by her husband's death from AIDS. She married Hyung Goo Kim knowing that he was HIV-positive - and that there would be no "happily ever after." With power and eloquence, Peterson recounts the story of a marriage that was simultaneously envied and pitied. No one envied the certain briefness of the couple's marriage, but many did envy the depth, passion, and endurance of their love. A book about AIDS, about love and marriage, and about faith in hard places, Heaven is funny, lyrical, tragic, cynical, and hopeful - all without excess. Margaret Kim Peterson received the Alumnae Association's Frances Mary Hazen Fellowship for support through the preparation of this manuscript. She teaches theology at Eastern University.