Books by Centre Alumni

2012

Sheri Hillman Scott ’83 has written Money: Get Clear and Get Free, a book focused on transforming your finances with long-term tips and solutions. She provides a clear plan for getting out of debt and breaking from financial obstacles. This book will first be available in spring 2013 in electronic format.







Susan Franks Sieweke ’81 has written Things Church Girls Don’t Talk About (PublishAmerica 2009), a novel about a young girl and her mother searching for true faith amidst a sea of toxic religion and quirky, eccentric Southern characters.





Brooke Folley Counts ’03 has written her fifth book,Rising Storm (Amazon Digital Services Inc. 2012), under the pseudonym Kathleen Brooks. The romantic suspense novel follows Katelyn Jacks, a newly retired runway model who settles down to open an animal clinic. However, Katelyn’s life only picks up pace as she discovers a dog-fighting ring and meets the man of her dreams. Rising Stormmade the USA Today Bestseller List for all books on Aug. 30, 2012.





James Higdon ’98 has written The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History (Lyons Press), a true story about backwoods outlaws in Kentucky.







Kim Turkington ’81 has written Hope That Lives (Lulu.com), a Bible study written specifically for cancer patients. After her own experience with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2005, she hopes to help others going through similar experiences.






Tiffany Reisz ’00 has sold four full-length novels and 10 short stories to Mira Books. Her series The Original Sinners is on the bestseller list in the United Kingdom. Her first and second books, The Siren and The Angel (Harlequin MIRA 2012), were chosen by DivaMoms Book Club as their second and third book-club picks. And she was featured in a USA Today article about the resurgent interest in erotica.






Amy Spears Metz ’83 has published Murder and Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction (Iconic Publishing 2012), the first in a series of humorous murder mysteries. After Tess Tremaine moves into a new, quiet town, she becomes interested in a 75-year-old murder involving a bank robbery and family tragedy. As she struggles to find out the truth, she encounters danger, temptation, and a whole lot of southern charm.






Caryn Dudrow Cole ’77 has published Fingerprints of Grace (Tate Publishing 2012), a novel about a son’s quest to find his father, a man he never knew. As he gains his family’s support in his search, Marcus begins to understand the importance of honor, respect, and companionship. Fingerprints of Grace is a sequel to Haleub Place (Tate Publishing 2010).







Donald A. Clark ’63 has written The Notorious "Bull" Nelson: Murdered Civil War General (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011) about a dynamic major general who played a formative role in the Union’s success in Kentucky and the Western theater of the Civil War. More popularly known for his temper than his intrepid endeavors on behalf of the North, Nelson nevertheless dedicated much of his life to his nation and the preservation of the Union.





Sam Denny ’73 has published . . . And Bring Me Back the Change (Evanston Press, 2012), a collection of 30 short stories that he says “connect everyday life to our financial decision-making” and “emphasize the importance of being in a healthy relationship with your financial resources.” He has worked in financial services for more than 30 years. For more information about the book, contact him at smdennylou@aol.com.


Brooke Folley Counts ’03 has published Bluegrass Undercover, the fourth in a series of e-reader books, under the pseudonym Kathleen Brooks, and has hit the top of the sales charts for Romantic Suspense and Contemporary Romance on Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble. The other three books are Bluegrass State of Mind, Risky Shot, and Dead Heat. Her books are available as e-books and in paperback.





Sean Chandler ’08 published The Notice (Kindle, 2012), a fictional account of a young girl set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War in 1992. Sean is working on his second book, a memoir about the year he spent teaching near the North Korean border in 2010-11.







Anne Dietrich Elkins ’62 has written Pioneers of Freedom (Tate Publishing, 2012), a historical novel based on the life of John Payne, a general in the war of 1812.








Chuck Beard ’02 has written Adventures Inside A Bright-Eyed Sky. All proceeds benefit Adventures Inside a Campus for a Cure, a charity organization he started that uses visual artists and musical acts to raise money for cancer research and hospitals.







Stuart W. Sanders ’95 is the author of Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky’s Largest Civil War Battle (2012, The History Press), which examines what happened to Perryville and surrounding communities once the firing stopped. Centre’s role during the aftermath is noted.

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2011

Lynnell Major Edwards ’86 published her third book of poetry, Covet (Red Hen Press, 2011). She is an associate professor of English at Spalding University.








Jane Sevier ’78 had her first novel, Fortune’s Fool, published first as an e-book for Kindle and Nook (September 2011) and subsequently in paperback. Set in 1930s Memphis, it hit Amazon’s historical mystery bestseller list three days after its e-book release. It won the Chicago-North Fire and Ice, Cleveland Rocks, and Golden Gateway competitions and was a 2010 Romance Writers of America Golden heart finalist. And it also won Reader’s Choice for Single Title/Mainstream Cover in the Houston Bay Area’s Judge a Book by Its Cover contest.




Retired after more than 25 years in the Army, Dwight Gray ’89 has published his first book of poems, Overwatch (Grey Sparrow Press, 2011), which looks at war from a soldier’s perspective.







Debbie Adams Cooper ’74 has written Letcher County (Arcadia Publishing, 2011), in the Images of America series. A native of Whitesburg, Ky., in Letcher County, she writes, “When I realized a few years ago that I had unwittingly spent my childhood among the beautiful stone architecture built by Italian immigrants, I wanted to know more.” For more information, please contact her at debcoo@setel.com.





Walter Lawrence ’72 has written Take Me To Texas: Lone Star Stories of Love and Other
Adventures (Luckenback Press, 2011). The collection of 12 short stories set in Texas
remembers favorite family times,the struggle to come of age, and the recollection of first
infatuations. Click here for Amazon.com review. A native Texan, Lawrence has written more than 40 articles and the novel Texas Cool Million.






Isaac “Mark” McDaniel ’71 has written two books recently. He spent two decades living as a monk at Saint Meinrad Archabbey, in Southern Indiana. His book Days of Grace and Wonder: Journals 1976-2008 (Lulu.com, 2011) is a daily chronicle of life inside the cloister of a Benedictine monastery during the exciting years of reform that followed the Second Vatican Council. The book surveys a tapestry of people encountered and places visited, the joys and tensions of life at close quarters with more than 100 other cenobites, as well as the wider backdrop of nine presidential elections, three papal conclaves, a half-dozen social revolutions, and the horrors of September 11, 2001.


A Feisty Friend At My Feet is about his little Yorkie, Pondo (Blurb Books, 2011).







Will Lavender ’99 has written his second novel, Dominance (Simon &
Schuster, 2011), which a review in the New York Times (July 6, 2011) called “quick and complicated.” A mystery, set like his first novel, on a college campus, received advance praise from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Review. Lavender was featured in a Centre web story for his work. Story here.




Andrew McNeill’s ’95 first novel, Breckenridge County (Headline Books, 2011), will be out in September. He describes the book as “rural noir,” containing elements of Southern culture, criminal fiction, and political thriller.

Kate Stout ’71 is the editor of From Hearth to Horizons: 125 Years of the Social Science Club of Newton (River View Press, 2011). The book charts the 1886 founding and subsequent growth of one of America's oldest, continuously meeting women's study groups. It provided an outlet for women of the greater Boston area to present research papers. Study and social action defined these women, and, in turn, they helped define their respective eras and the women's club movement in America.




Phillip Sterling ’72 has written a collection of 15 short stories, In Which Brief Stories Are Told (Wayne State University Press, 2011). The stories present a “collage of intriguing moments” in the lives of average people—car salesmen, motel maids, parents, neighbors, and professional colleagues, according to the publisher. “While varied in length from short glimpses to longer narratives, each of the stories is defined by a unique perspective, as characters present their version of a story—sometimes other peoples’ stories—clouded by the same emotion, judgment, and passing of time that inhabit all of our memories.” Says one review: “In plainspoken language, the stories leave a lasting impression. Some of them end with a twist, many of them are full of Michigan imagery. Take the time to track down this slim volume. You will be glad you did.”

Alan Schweitzer ’59 has written Zone 2 (iUniverse, 2011), his fourth fantasy novel. It follows the character Brad Cole as he attempts to regain his memory after being beaten and left for dead in the year 2059. In his search, Brad learns of a parallel world his company has discovered—Zone 2—a world in which the Nazis rose victorious out of WWII. With the help of a beautiful and mysterious woman, Brad explores this strange new realm, desperately hoping to find the answers he needs.




Colleen S. Harris ’01 has published her third book, The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), a collection of poems and essays. Centre appears prominently in one of the essays. According to the publisher, “The poems and essays in The Kentucky Vein deal with our connection to nature, exploring lessons learned from tobacco fields under harsh sun, the lifecycle of quarried stone, childless tricycles, and the grass of a new subdivision asking where the foals have gone. This collection is a rich symphony of images drawn from the Kentucky landscape, people and history.”



Kent Masterson Brown ’71 has a fifth book, One of Morgan’s Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry (University Press of Kentucky, 2011). Lieutenant Porter wrote his memoirs in 1872, and Brown spent five years editing and annotating them. Porter’s memoirs cover his years as a Confederate soldier under John Hunt Morgan from the outbreak of the Civil War until Porter was captured in June 1863, his imprisonment at Johnson’s Island, and his release and his journey back home to Butler County, Kentucky. It is the first memoir by one of Morgan’s men to be published since 1917.



Frances Lambert Johnson '59 is co-coordinator of a cookbook, My Favorite Things (SPS Publications, 2011), featuring recipes from celebrities (including Laura Bush, Arnold Palmer. Paula Deen, Delta Burke), popular restaurants (including The Greenbrier, W. Va.; Queen Mary 2, Cunard Lines; Sardi’s and Tavern on the Green, N.Y.C.) and more. This three-year “labor of love,” as she calls it, supports Wheels For The World, a charity that provides wheelchairs to those in need worldwide. Click here for more information.






To have your book included on the alumni books page, please contact:
Diane Johnson, Editor
Centrepiece
Centre College
600 West Walnut Street
Danville, KY 40422
(859) 238-5717
johnsond@centre.edu