Madison Watkins, Staff Writer
On March 9, six of Armstrong’s professors and former mayor Dr. Otis Johnson presented works of their recently-published personal writing.
Johnson penned an autobiography titled “From ‘N-Word’ to Mr. Mayor: Experiencing the American Dream” about his experiences growing up in Savannah. He attended a segregated school with Jim Crow laws still in effect, was in the military and became the mayor of Savannah.
The autobiography spans from his birth in 1942 until the end of his second term as mayor in 2011. He is also the first African American to be admitted and graduated from Armstrong.
Senior lecturer and director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project, Lesley Roessing, authored “Bridging the Gap: Reading Critically and Writing Meaningfully to Get to the Core.” Focused on how to teach memoir reading and writing, Roessing believes it is important because “memoir writing bridges the gap between fiction and nonfiction writing.”
“When I would ask students to do an assignment that involved writing about their past experiences, none of them would shy away from it,” she said.
Dr. Jack Simmons, director of Liberal Studies and associate professor of Philosophy, wrote his first novel titled “Three Dashes Bitters.” The novel concerns a graduate student who goes home to New Orleans for his sister’s debutante ball when things get messy after a night of drinks at The Columns Hotel.
Simmons said he has “always enjoyed novels of the British leisure class and wanted to write something about that, but since I’m not British, I chose to write about the American leisure class. I figured the best people to write about would be graduate students.”
Dr. Nalanda Roy, assistant professor of Political Science and International Relations, wrote the nonfiction book “The South China Sea Disputes: Past, Present and Future.” It is about a vital point in international relations and that has previously been and could be the source of future serious international conflicts.
The South China Sea is a crucial point of economic interest because it holds as many oil and natural gas deposits as Mexico.
Associate professor of English, Nancy Remler, wrote a novel called “Show Me a Kindness,” about a young girl who suddenly finds herself in Depression-era Vidalia, Georgia with no idea how she got there. She later learns she has dissociative identity disorder. Remler said she got the idea from Herschel Walker’s autobiography where she learned he also has dissociative identity disorder and he grew up in a small town not far from hers.
Professor of History Dr. Michael Hall wrote the “Historical Dictionary of Haiti.” He said he took on the task because “I’ve lived in the Dominican Republic and Haiti for a long time. I also admire the Haitians because they are descendants of slaves who launched the only successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere.”
Thomas Meagher, professor of History at the Liberty Center, wrote a textbook called “Financing Armed Conflict.” It is the first of a two-part volume about military strategy and operations and war finance and economic mobilization. This book focuses particularly on the Revolutionary War to the Civil War.
All above books are available on Amazon and Goodreads.
