Class Note 1983
Issue
September-October 2024
So, what did you do this summer? If you’re Jim Sterling, you hiked the Appalachian Trail. Jim retired from his day job as a communications and leadership coach and consultant for Exec-Comm, a global firm with its HQ in N.Y.C., although he’s still teaching and coaching for the firm occasionally. He had a “terrific 20-year career with that company, including being a partner for 11 years.” Now his renewed focus is the theater and travel with his wife, Ros. They plan to go to Barcelona in July. But first, the AT. The goal was to do the section between New York’s Bear Mountain and Hanover during the month of June, about 300 miles. Lisa Quirk Kaija planned to join Jim in Vermont for a “guest hike!”
Jean Hanff Korelitz has a new book coming out this fall. She says, “I never thought I would write a sequel to any of my books, but it occurred to me that I wasn’t quite finished with one of the major characters in my 2021 novel, The Plot. She’s an unusual woman from central Vermont and, you might say, a bit of a sociopath (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Unlike her late novelist husband, she’s never had any writing ambitions of her own, but really, how hard can it be to write a bestseller? When her own maiden effort, an ‘autobiographical’ novel called The Afterword is published, it meets with great success and things are going swimmingly until she begins receiving excerpts of a novel that should no longer exist. That it does, and that some person knows enough to send it to her, means that someone out there knows far too much about where she’s come from and what she’s done—and that’s not good. Don’t read the sequel, helpfully titled The Sequel, before reading The Plot. It won’t be nearly as fun! It’s out October first.”
Kevin Connolly’s film Confessions of a Name Dropper, a “film about a confused guy,” has been accepted by 12 international film festivals and was the winner of Best Comedy at the Istanbul Film Festival! Kevin’s second film, Boundaries, is now going through the film festival selection process. So far he’s been accepted by three festivals, most recently the Paris short film festival. The trailers are posted on our class website.
We’ve had interesting and spirited conversations in our newly formed “’83 Discussions.” Once a month we have a speaker from our class talk about something of interest (we hope) to you. So far we’ve had discussions about “The Next Chapter” from David Ellis, about Jonathan Howland’s book Native Air, about diversity with James McKim, and “How You Can Save the Planet From Home” with Lolly Jewett and Peggy Gilges. In July we will have heard from Peter Kilmarx on his DNA journey. Please visit our class website for more information about these past events and our future discussions.
—Shanta Sullivan, 1541 North Sierra Bonita Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; shantaesullivan@gmail.com
Jean Hanff Korelitz has a new book coming out this fall. She says, “I never thought I would write a sequel to any of my books, but it occurred to me that I wasn’t quite finished with one of the major characters in my 2021 novel, The Plot. She’s an unusual woman from central Vermont and, you might say, a bit of a sociopath (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Unlike her late novelist husband, she’s never had any writing ambitions of her own, but really, how hard can it be to write a bestseller? When her own maiden effort, an ‘autobiographical’ novel called The Afterword is published, it meets with great success and things are going swimmingly until she begins receiving excerpts of a novel that should no longer exist. That it does, and that some person knows enough to send it to her, means that someone out there knows far too much about where she’s come from and what she’s done—and that’s not good. Don’t read the sequel, helpfully titled The Sequel, before reading The Plot. It won’t be nearly as fun! It’s out October first.”
Kevin Connolly’s film Confessions of a Name Dropper, a “film about a confused guy,” has been accepted by 12 international film festivals and was the winner of Best Comedy at the Istanbul Film Festival! Kevin’s second film, Boundaries, is now going through the film festival selection process. So far he’s been accepted by three festivals, most recently the Paris short film festival. The trailers are posted on our class website.
We’ve had interesting and spirited conversations in our newly formed “’83 Discussions.” Once a month we have a speaker from our class talk about something of interest (we hope) to you. So far we’ve had discussions about “The Next Chapter” from David Ellis, about Jonathan Howland’s book Native Air, about diversity with James McKim, and “How You Can Save the Planet From Home” with Lolly Jewett and Peggy Gilges. In July we will have heard from Peter Kilmarx on his DNA journey. Please visit our class website for more information about these past events and our future discussions.
—Shanta Sullivan, 1541 North Sierra Bonita Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; shantaesullivan@gmail.com