Mason Book Shelf

Nadine Sabra Meyer, MFA Creative Writing ’02, The Anatomy Theater: Poems, Harper Perennial, August 2006

This first collection of poetry from Meyer won the 2005 National Poetry Series Open Competition. The poems were inspired by anatomical illustrations from the Renaissance and raise questions about how the female body is studied and objectified in art.

Meyer is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Pleiades, the Southern Poetry Review, and the Mississippi Review.

Sharee Moore, BA Communication ’02, Stolen Angels: 25 Stories of Hope after Pregnancy or Infant Loss (editor), Dynasty Books LLC, December 2006

Stolen Angels presents the stories of parents who have lost a child through miscarriage, murder, stillbirth, defects, sudden infant death syndrome, and other tragedies. The book also provides resources and strategies for overcoming this painful time.

After experiencing the heartbreak of losing three babies herself, Moore, a freelance writer, counsels other bereaved parents and visits others who are struggling with their loss.

Zainab Salbi, BIS ’96, The Other Side of War: Women’s Stories of Survival and Hope, National Geographic, September 2006

The Other Side of War is a collection of letters and first-person narratives by women who have survived war’s devastation in six of the world’s most tumultuous areas and now must find the strength to rebuild families and communities.

Salbi, whose father was Saddam Hussein’s pilot, was sent to the United States by her family in 1990 to escape the regime’s brutal tyranny. While still a student at Mason, she founded Women for Women International, a nonprofit organization that helps women in warring nations learn to support themselves and reinvigorate their economies by providing the tools and resources needed to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency.

Marie Jenkins Schwartz, BA History ’84, MA History ’87, Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South, Harvard University Press, May 2006

Birthing a Slave exposes how medicine furthered slavery in the United States and how, at the same time, slavery helped further medicine. Centered around the reproductive cycle, the book covers critical themes, including fertility, pregnancy, complications, disorders, and cancer.

Schwarz is an associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island and the author of Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South, which was published by Harvard University Press in 2000.

Jeb Livingood, BA English ’97, Best New Poets 2006 (series editor), Samovar Press, 2006

Published in cooperation with Meridian magazine, the University of Virginia’s semiannual literary journal, Best New Poets features the work of 50 emerging poets selected from nominations by writing programs, literary magazines, and an open Internet competition. Mason English professor Eric Pankey edited this collection.

Livingood is a lecturer in the University of Virginia’s English Department.