Alumni Bookshelf

Alumni Bookshelf – Winter 2024

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Dr. Craig W. Fisher ’65
By the Scruff of My Neck
Covenant Publishers, 2022.

Written by Beta brother and 2019 Oswego Alumni Lifetime Award of Merit winner during the last year of his life (he
passed in August 2023), this memoir covers the author’s early life as one of five children who became wards of the state, seeing their mother twice over six years and their father once every two weeks for an hour. The book highlights the fun activities while barely skimming the top of the potential dangers. Fisher would survive his rough childhood to become an accomplished computer programmer at IBM and information systems educator at Marist College.

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Sandra Justice Hall ’70
As Long As I’m Down Here, I Might As Well Put on My Shoes
Sandra Hall, 2022.

This memoir focuses on Hall’s life nearly 17 years after her second brain surgery in 2005. Her friends believe her to be courageous though she feels it was a matter of assessing what her quality of life would be without surgery. She writes about her long, daunting experience finding a brain surgeon, working with doctors who didn’t listen and realizing that this was going to be a frustrating process. She was determined to get well and hopes that her journey will help people find hope, and maybe even some laughter, while they are on theirs.

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Thomasina Lewis Larson ’71
Island Connections: Aeolians in Amsterdam and Cortland New York
Tomi, 2022.

Aeolians settled in a number of smaller New York cities. This book follows the first, From the Islands: From the Aeolian Islands to Oswego, NY 1880-1920, and depicts the islands and its people who emigrated at the turn of the 20th century. It highlights Cortland and Amsterdam, representative of the places they lived in and the lives they led in America.

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Lawrence A. Wilson ’75 and Carolyn M. Merkel
Analytical Method Validation
Wessex Press Inc., 2022

This textbook contains essays on data integrity. Originally intended to focus on global standards and analytical methods for regulatory applications within the pharmaceutical industry, the book was expanded to explore the applications of Quality by Design theory to real-world problems that are bound not only by regulations, but by business constraints, professional ethics, time, resources and technology. They may serve as case studies for classes of advanced students.

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Barbara Wold Varrato ’77
A Firefly’s Dream
Mirror Publishing, 2022.

This children’s book is the story of Fred the firefly who decides he needs to become a “better” bug after witnessing his best friend turn into a butterfly. Follow Fred on his journey as he tries to become something other than what he actually is, until a chance encounter with a strange bug who makes him wonder whether being a firefly is really all that bad. Varrato is currently working on her second and third children’s books.

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John Gray ’85
Chasing Rome
Paraclete Press, 2022.

Always blazing their own path, newly engaged couple Chase and Gavin decide to spend the month ahead of their wedding in Rome with a local Italian family, learning the customs and filling their days with adventure. On a trip to the famed Colosseum, Chase and Gavin meet an elderly artist who offers them four riddles that he promises will unlock the most romantic places in all of Italy. They encounter heart-pounding intrigue and old-world charm on the ancient streets of Rome, and discover that almost nothing is as it seems. Will Chase and Gavin make it to their wedding on Christmas Eve or will they forever find themselves Chasing Rome?

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Jennifer Rozines Roy ’89 and Julia Rozines DeVillers ’89
Meet Isabel and Nicki
Mattel/American Girl, 2023.

Written by real-life twins, this full-length American Girl novel features twin sisters, Isabel and Nicki Hoffman. Isabel loves dancing with her friends, while Nicki prefers skateboarding alone. In December 1999, the girls create a list of challenges to complete before midnight on New Year’s Eve. But just before the new millennium arrives, disaster strikes. Will the most momentous night of their lives be a twin win or a sister setback?

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Ezeleni Herrera ’14
I am a NaturaliSTAR!
Ezeleni Herrera, 2020.

The author’s first published children’s book aims to inspire young queens to embrace their natural hair. The book promotes self-love, self-acceptance and high self-esteem. Full of vibrant images illustrated by Renee Hunt, this book aims to teach these young girls how to give their beautiful hair the proper maintenance with love and care. Every NaturaliSTAR will learn to let their hair fall curly, coily or as a beautiful puff because no matter the hair type they are enough.

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We celebrate and share the success of Oswego alumni authors, illustrators and recording artists, who may ask their publisher/distributor to send a copy of the work to SUNY Oswego University Advancement office to be considered for this column.

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