Villanova University is pleased to welcome back alumni this weekend for the 2015 reunion! The reunion, which is celebrated on campus from Thursday, June 4th, through Sunday, June 7th, will feature a wide array of lively events, activities and workshops in honor of the return of our former wildcats to campus. Falvey Memorial Library will be the site of many of these events, including a panel discussion featuring three alumni authors who will discuss their personal experiences in the creation of one of their published and/or performed intellectual pieces of work. The panel discussion, which is free and open to the public, will take place Friday, June 5, at 10:00 a.m. in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner.

Harvey, Hollinger and Burke

Alumni panelists will include Sean P. Harvey ’00 CLAS on his book The Native Tongues: Colonialism and Race from Encounter to the Reservation; Judy Lee Burke ’75 CLAS on her book Blackrock; and playwright Michael Hollinger ’89 CLAS on Under the Skin. Each panelist will have the opportunity to talk about their individual creative process and the critical reception of their work. The panel will be moderated by Darren G. Poley, Scholarly Outreach team leader and theology librarian. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions at the event as well.

Sean P. Harvey will talk about his book, The Native Tongues: Colonialism and Race from Encounter to the Reservation, which discusses the complex history of the communication (or miscommunication) between white Europeans and Native American people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Judy Lee Burke will discuss the creation of her book, Blackrock, which is a suspense thriller that follows a female protagonist as she re-embarks on her former career as an architectural designer and gets much more than she bargained for. Playwright Michael Hollinger will discuss Under the Skin, which takes us into the life of a dying man and details the difficult relationship that he with his daughter. Both Harvey and Burke’s books have been published; however, a printed version of Hollinger’s play is still in the process of being created. The play premiered at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia in January, 2015. Join us as we delve deeper into learning about the writing and publishing process with our authors!

In addition to the panel, Falvey has also mounted a window display on the first floor to further highlight the accomplishments of our alumni authors. In the display, all three of the panelists have been featured along with approximately thirty other alumni authors whom Falvey would like to recognize for their literary achievements. It is our hope to include these and all of Villanova’s alumni authors into our Community Bibliography, which is an open citation repository that houses a list of the published works of the members of the Villanova University community. Any individual associated with Villanova who would like to be featured in our Community Bibliography project should contact communitybibliography@villanova.edu for more details.

Article by Regina Duffy, writer for the Communication & Service Promotion team and Library Events and Program manager.