While at St. Bernard Academy, Bernadette McCarver Snyder was in an oratorical contest and competed with an original speech. She won at the school and city levels, but then fell just short in the state finals. In her senior year, her reputation for being an excellent communicator landed her a co-editor position on the school newspaper. “We worked hard on that newspaper that year and we won this award from the State of Tennessee for being the best high school newspaper from a school our size,” … [Read more...]
Memorable Memoirs: Koren Zailckas’s “Fury”
August 11, 2012 By 3 Comments
In the case of Fury, Koren Zailckas’ exceptional follow up to her best selling book Smashed: Story of a Drunken Childhood, the term “memoir” may be a bit of a misnomer. Although it does indeed chronicle many of her personal experiences, it is also a scholarly book that quotes and references numerous sources – very effectively. The topic is anger. We are introduced to the author as she is flying back to the states after a failed relationship with a British musician – a devastating ending that … [Read more...]
Memorable Memoirs: Rick Bragg’s “The Prince of Frogtown” and “All Over but the Shoutin'”
July 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I read Rick Bragg’s wonderful All Over but the Shoutin’ years ago, before I even knew I preferred - well even liked - reading memoirs. The story of growing up in poverty in Alabama with a devoted, loving, hard-working mom, and a mostly absent alcoholic father, it managed to be, by turns, excruciatingly sad, laugh-out-loud funny, hopeless and life-affirming at the same time. If you love beautiful prose for prose’s sake, you will most likely enjoy this Pulitzer Prize winning author’s writing, with … [Read more...]
Memorable Memoirs: Barbara Robinette Moss’s “Change Me into Zeus’s Daughter”
June 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Change Me into Zeus's Daughter is an examination of the author’s youth; growing up verbally and physically abused by her alcoholic father, willing to risk eating poisoned corn to satiate her endless hunger, and sharing a ramshackle home with her mom and eight siblings in rural Alabama. Moss, with pitch perfect prose, describes a father who is gone more than around, which is mostly preferable given his propensity for inflicting pain: I had just turned seven years and didn’t think Dad’s … [Read more...]
Ned’s Reading: Bill Clegg’s “Ninety Days”
June 17, 2012 By 2 Comments
This book is why I love reading memoirs – well, great memoirs. If done well, I feel like I’ve just sat down with the author and had a conversation about his or her life. And not a whole life, but a portion of particular significance. Bill Clegg had a successful literary agency in New York City, which he owned with a friend. In too short a time, thanks to a near lethal addiction to drugs and alcohol (chronicled in his first memoir, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man), Clegg wrecks the … [Read more...]
Bullying prevention program begins at St. Bernard Academy
October 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Ned Andrew Solomon This article first appeared in the Tennessee Register. When you walk into Hannah Dwyer’s fourth level classroom at St. Bernard Academy, your eyes are immediately drawn to the bright red posters on the wall. In bold black letters they read, “Bullying is unBEARable,” punctuated underneath by a bear’s claw – these are the St. Bernard Academy Bears, after all. The claw is followed by a set of four rules, which are the cornerstones of the school’s brand new anti-bullying … [Read more...]
Accident survivor comforts others through their traumas
October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By Ned Andrew Solomon This article first appeared in The Tennessee Register. When Brittany Leedham visits with patients and families at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Trauma Center, she brings a unique perspective. Three years ago, Leedham was a patient there herself, having barely survived a car accident in Brentwood that killed her boyfriend, Zak Kerinuk. Leedham, who graduated from Father Ryan High School in May 2009, volunteers as a Peer Visitor with the Trauma Survivors … [Read more...]
A Really Big 108th Birthday Party
September 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By Ned Andrew Solomon This article originally appeared in The Tennessee Register. Ora Knies may be 108 years old, but it hasn’t slowed her down too much. “She goes 90 miles an hour on her walker,” said her 78-year-old son, Jack Knies, who attributes her longevity and verve to “good genes, number one, and number two, she stays pretty well occupied all the time." His mom lives in the Hickory Gardens Assisted Living community in Madison, which is where she recently hosted a celebration on … [Read more...]
Jackie Page: A Life Devoted to Access, and Improving Attitudes
September 3, 2011 By 2 Comments
by Ned Andrew Solomon Jackie Page’s mission throughout her professional and personal life has been about two things: access and attitude. Born with quadriplegia during the depression in Asheville, North Carolina, Page had to adapt to life with few resources besides her own self determination. She came a long way to a BA (’63) in Sociology, an MA (’64) in Counseling and an EdS in 1989, all from Peabody. Until her undergraduate education, Page was taught at home. In her earliest years, that … [Read more...]
Blind Golfer Sees Life through Rose-Colored Glasses
August 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By Ned Andrew Solomon This article first appeared in The Tennessee Register. Christ the King parishioner, and championship golfer, David Meador, got his first taste of the green at eight years old, in his hometown of Salem, Illinois. He picked up the game and his appreciation of the sport from his dad. “I loved the ball,” said Meador. “Just seeing it explode off the club in those early years was something deeper than just the beautiful golf course, and the camaraderie.” The young Meador’s … [Read more...]
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