* Director's Notes
* Message from Mia
* Pencil Me In:
LONDON EVENTS
- Harvardwood & the Harvard Club of London present: House of Switzerland Olympic Event, Sat., Aug. 4
BOSTON EVENTS
- Harvardwood Heads To...Screening of HITTING THE CYCLE in the Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod, Fri., Aug. 3
NY EVENTS
- Harvardwood SUMMER ARTISANAL WINE & CHEESE TASTING, Thurs., Aug. 9
- Harvardwood Heads To..."Steve Seabrook: Better Than You," Sat., Aug. 18
- Harvardwood Presents ELIZABETH PITCAIRN & the Real "Red Violin": Summer Classics, Sat., Aug. 25
LA EVENTS
- Harvardwood Presents: TV Taping of GUYS WITH KIDS, Tues., Aug. 21
- CLA invites Harvardwood to...Intellectual Property and the Internet, Wed., Aug. 22
* Tip to ensure receipt of all Harvardwood email
* Special discount for dues-current Full Members and Friends of Harvardwood!
* Join us on Facebook and Twitter
* Industry Successes
* Harvardwood Artist Showcase
* Featured Member Posting: 30% off Storytelling Class in NYC
* Member Profile: Lauren Kunze '08
Director's Notes
We've got some great events to help you top off the summer this month! The Olympic fun continues this Saturday with a tour of the House of Switzerland. Be sure to sign-up TODAY as slots for that event are filling up fast. For those NY bound, make sure to set aside some time to taste the mouthwatering selections at the SUMMER ARTISANAL WINE & CHEESE TASTING in NY on Aug. 9th. And later this month, join us in LA for a live studio TV taping of GUYS WITH KIDS, co-created by Charlie Grandy '97. On a sadder note, last month brought news of the death of Hollywood legend, Frank Pierson '46, an Academy and Emmy award-winning writer and director with such credits as DOG DAY AFTERNOON, CAT BALLOU, and COOL HAND LUKE. A model to all of us in the notion of "if you do what you love, you never have to retire," Frank was most recently working as a writer and consulting producer on MAD MEN and THE GOOD WIFE. He will be greatly missed.
-- Kelley
Message from Mia
If you haven't yet had a chance, be sure to check out the excellent documentary THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES by last month's Highlights profilee Lauren Greenfield '87. It's now playing in theaters around the country -- and keep an eye on the Harvardwood website, as we'll be announcing a special event with Lauren in LA soon!
- Mia
Pencil Me In...
LONDON - Harvardwood & the Harvard Club of London present: House of Switzerland Olympic Event, Sat., Aug. 4
House of Switzerland, the official Swiss hospitality venue at the Olympic Games, has invited Harvardwood and the Harvard Club of London to a banquet and tour of its attractions. It will enhance the Olympic spirit with a daily "Top Chef” competition. You and your guests can be a judge! We will savor a sumptuous banquet of Swiss cuisine. Then we will tour the House of Switzerland, where we can mingle with Swiss athletes and their own families. We will also have an opportunity to watch a live broadcast of interviews for Swiss viewers and performers from Switzerland…To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=242117
BOSTON - Harvardwood Heads To...Screening of HITTING THE CYCLE in the Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod, Fri., Aug. 3
HITTING THE CYCLE is an independent feature film about a former major league baseball player nearing the end of his career in the minor leagues, recovering from a knee injury. "Rip" returns to his long-forgotten hometown to face his fractured past and discover a life beyond the diamond. You can learn more about the film at www.htcmovie.com. HTC was written by and stars J. Richey Nash (Princeton '90). The cast also includes Courtney Henggeler, Travis Schuldt, and Bruce Dern, as Rip's estranged father. Unlike Nash and the fictional character he portrays, HTC Co-Producer Jennifer Miller (Harvard '91) did not play professional baseball. She is proud, however, to have been a member of Kirkland House's championship intramural softball team. In June, many fellow Harvard alumni joined Miller in New York City at a screening in the Manhattan Film Festival, where HITTING THE CYCLE was named "Best Dramatic Feature Film." Miller looks forward to seeing Boston-area Harvard alumni August 3rd in Woods Hole! To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=247416
NY - Harvardwood SUMMER ARTISANAL WINE & CHEESE TASTING, Thurs., Aug. 9
Start with half a dozen fabulous wines from small artisanal producers using traditional winemaking methods. Add in a selection of extraordinary cheeses from around the world. Then include a happy crowd of some of the smartest, sexiest, and friendliest people in New York - that's YOU, our amazing Harvardwood members and friends! Sounds like a spectacular summer evening in New York! The wines will be chosen and discussed by Greg Moore. Greg spent almost two decades as the sommelier at Philadelphia's renowned Le Bec-Fin before founding Moore Brothers, where he directly imports wines from small growers with whom he has longtime personal relationships…Greg taught wine tasting for 23 years at the University of Pennsylvania. The cheeses will be selected by Merrie Webel, who founded, organized, and led for many years, the Cheese Tasting series at the Harvard Club of NYC. To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=244998
NY - Harvardwood Heads To..."Steve Seabrook: Better Than You," Sat., Aug. 18
Kurt Bodden '85 plays master motivator Steve Seabrook, who takes the audience to a safe, nurturing place of empowerment to examine why they're vaguely disappointing. Think of it as three days of self-help in under an hour. This is the East Coast premiere, presented at the New York International Fringe Festival. Bodden is an actor, comedian, and writer based in San Francisco. He has performed improvisation at the Edinburgh Fringe, trained in sketch comedy at The Groundlings in Los Angeles, toured as a standup comic, and hosted his own live talk show at the legendary Purple Onion nightclub. For "Steve Seabrook,” Bodden draws on his own experience as a corporate trainer ... and as an erstwhile consumer of personal coaching and transformation seminars. Survivors of actual personal-growth seminars call the show "hilarious” and say it "nails the tone perfectly” including "that little creepy edge.” To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=249075
NY - Harvardwood Presents ELIZABETH PITCAIRN & the Real "Red Violin": Summer Classics, Sat., Aug. 25
We're thrilled that the renowned violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn has agreed to perform this special concert for Harvardwood! Elizabeth Pitcairn plays the Stradivarius "Red Violin," the instrument that inspired the movie of the same name. She has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. Pitcairn is the Artistic Director of the Luzerne Chamber Music Festival. She was the cover artist of the November 2007 issue of Strings Magazine. In this intimate concert, Elizabeth Pitcairn will play beloved classics for violin and piano by Brahms, Kreisler, and others. The concert will be followed by a reception with wine…To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=248899
LA - Harvardwood Presents: TV Taping of GUYS WITH KIDS, Tues., Aug. 21
Join fellow Harvardwood members for a live studio taping of GUYS WITH KIDS, a new comedy starring Anthony Anderson, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and Tempestt Bledsoe! From Emmy winner and executive producer Jimmy Fallon and Harvard alum Charlie Grandy '97 (Co-Executive Producer/Co-Creator) comes an absurdly funny new comedy about three thirty-something dads trying to hold on to their youth, while holding onto their new babies' hands. Balancing work or staying at home, painfully married or happily divorced, they know that taking care of the little ones while maintaining a social life is a daily challenge…To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=244589
LA - CLA invites Harvardwood to...Intellectual Property and the Internet, Wed., Aug. 22
Join us for a discussion of Intellectual Property and the Internet. Topics will include everything from the basics of Copyright and Trademark law to Intellectual Property Licensing agreements. The discussion will be led by Kevin Doran, a solo practitioner in West Hollywood, who focuses on the legal issues facing start-ups and entrepreneurs from organization and financing to the protection of intellectual property and other business assets. Kevin received his BA from the University of Southern California and graduated in the top 20% of his class from Southwestern Law School’s SCALE accelerated JD program. To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/events/event_details.asp?id=243293
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Special discount for dues-current Full Members and Friends of Harvardwood!
Our dear friends at the Hotel Shangri-la have offered a special "thank you" to the Harvardwood community. All dues-current Full Members and Friends of Harvardwood will be offered 10% off the full bill of their next event at the Hotel! (Offer expires Sept. 1, 2012.) To view full posting, please visit: http://www.harvardwood.org/news/85175/Special-discount-for-dues-current-Full-Members-and-Friends-of-Harvardwood.htm
Join us on Facebook and Twitter
Integrate Harvardwood into your social media atmosphere! Be sure to follow Harvardwood on Twitter (@harvardwood) and join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/harvardwood
Industry Successes...
Charles Degelman's GATES OF EDEN, a novel set in the antiwar movement of the 1960s, recently garnered a Silver Medal for Historical Fiction from the prestigious Independent Publishers Book Awards. Published by Harvard Square Editions (HSE), Degelman's GATES OF EDEN will be released in trade paperback and eBook on August 1. Degelman paired up with Harvard alumni Jocelyn Morin to read from GATES OF EDEN and Morin's TRADING DREAMS, set on the battleground between Wall Street's crumbling empire and OWS' heady uprising. The reading took place Sunday afternoon, July 29 at TOWNE HALL, a radical new downtown Los Angeles performance space. For more info, visit http://www.charlesdegelman.org/Gates_PR.html
Harvardwood Artist Showcase
Each month the Highlights is proud to feature one or two artists from some of our various programs in the Harvardwood Artist Showcase. Click below to learn more about what they do!
Sara Lynne Wright (HAP, HWP) is a writer-actor whose short film, TRIXIE’S SCORE, recently become an official selection of the eighth annual HollyShorts film festival at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and will show there on August 11, 2012 at 1:30pm.
The film is about a high-school valedictorian so inspired by D.H. Lawrence that she applies his writings in her quest to lose her virginity before graduation - and succeeds in unexpected ways.
The creative team includes co-star Jonah Priour '09, director Valerie Landsburg and cinematographer Peyton Skelton. Sara previously teamed with Priour as undergraduates at Harvard College - first acting as pupil and tutor in Tom Stoppard’s ARCADIA, then with Sara directing Jonah in the lead role of Prior Walter in an acclaimed production of ANGELS IN AMERICA.
Currently, Sara works as the writers’ assistant for the staff of USA Network TV series WHITE COLLAR.
Tickets for the 4 pm slot to see TRIXIE’S SCORE can be nabbed at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3875283076/es2?rank=8
Festival website: http://www.hollyshorts.com/
Featured Member Posting: 30% off Storytelling Class in NYC
Kevin Allison (MTV's THE STATE, RENO 911, etc.) will be teaching another installment of his amazing 9-week storytelling class starting in one week on Tuesday 8/7. People have called this class "magical" and "the best class I've ever taken." It comes highly recommended if you've been wanting to improve your performance or public speaking skills, or just have some fun and make some new pals. Click here for more info and for a registration discount code… http://www.harvardwood.org/blogpost/2221/147097/30-off-Storytelling-Class-in-NYC
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We're sad to report the passing of Hollywood legend, Frank Pierson '46. Our prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time. Read more about Frank's life and accomplishments, here.
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Member Profile: Lauren Kunze '08
by Cristina Slattery
The ten-year-old Lauren Kunze ‘08 was already devouring books and "pretending” to work, brush her teeth, eat vegetables and to sleep in order to make her parents happy. She remembers attempting to read PARADISE LOST, rehearsing for her acting debut as Puck in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, and attending soccer practice. Kunze grew up in the Bay Area and a she conveys a certain Californian breezy optimism over the telephone that seems the antithesis of the brooding "serious writer” persona that one sometimes encounters. But, Kunze is, in fact, a serious writer. At age twenty-four, she is about to publish her fourth and final novel in THE IVY young adult series – a series that she began writing her senior year in college.
Among the writers Kunze admires are Shakespeare, Milton, T.S. Eliot, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Woolf, Fitzgerald, Coetzee, Ishiguro, and McEwan. She explains that she had always dreamt of becoming an English professor and that she had even applied to graduate programs in literature and philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge – and was accepted – her senior year in college. However, after she began writing – and found early success – these plans were put on hold indefinitely. She admits that she still expects that she will end up teaching "in some capacity” in the future, but that right now, she is waking up each day to pursue writing instead of just thinking about it while following a different professional trajectory. Lauren says that she admires J.K. Rowling, who spoke at her college graduation and that she is "still waiting for the day that [she’ll] stop using adrenaline (and all-nighters) to fuel productivity.”
What does it mean to be an eighteen-year-old at an elite institution? How can a young person remain true to himself or herself while also becoming open to new experiences and new perspectives? Lauren’s novels appear to be attempts to answer these questions. Readers who have yet to attend college or who attended a long time ago will relive those initial awkward moments that may have served as the beginning of lifelong friendships or brief romantic relationships in her series. It may seem clichéd to call the series a SEX & THE CITY for Harvard College, but, in many ways, the female friendships that characterized the popular TV series are also central to Kunze’s fictional world. (By the way, the world of Harvard in the books, although fictional, should seem authentic to any alums who have attended the college within the last fifteen-to-twenty year period.)
Kunze’s characters, Callie Andrews, the protagonist – a soccer player from Southern California – and her roommates, Vanessa von Vorhees of Manhattan’s Upper East Side society, Dana Gray of South Carolina’s Bible belt and Marine Aurelie Clement, the daughter of a French diplomat, encounter heartbreak and failure – and experience many adventures as well – as they navigate university life and try to find their place in its social hierarchy.
Like her main character, Kunze lived in Wigglesworth her freshman year. Afterwards, she lived in Winthrop House. Kunze says that she tried – and failed – to start a creative writing club in college, tutored for the Bureau of Study Council and that she also spent a lot of time in physical therapy for a back injury that was connected with rowing. (Kunze was a nationally-ranked lightweight rower in high school.) She explains that there were unforeseen benefits that came along with such a physical trauma. "I would say that my back injury might have indirectly helped my writing, because if I had been medically cleared to row in college, then rowing would have been my life,” she says, continuing, "In fact it's possible that the-former-athlete-sidelined-by-injury and therefore in search of a new ‘college identity’ is the most autobiographical aspect of The Ivy." She adds, that "the rest is purely fictional though -- I swear!”
Kunze’s father always told her to "embrace confusion and the possibility of failure” and she has heeded his advice by risking failure in the ever-fickle publishing industry. Now, the former Harvard student who wrote her senior thesis on trauma in literature -- where she tried to understand how various people (or characters) made sense of traumatic events -- has chosen to leave her success in the young adult genre behind her and move into the arena of science fiction. Kunze says that she is "thinking a lot about technology – what it’s going to look like down the road,” and that she is also re-reading science fiction classics as well as teaching herself how to build android applications. While the main characters of her next novel may not live in Cambridge, or have any Harvard connection whatsoever, hopefully Harvard alums – and readers in general – will want to get to know them as well. Lauren studied neurobiology at Harvard in addition to her English concentration and she is apparently listening to another piece of advice that her father gave her, to "find what you’re passionate about and pursue the hell out of it.” This advice, although given to her, she would also likely pass on to Callie Andrews, Vanessa van Vorhees, Dana Gray and Marine Aurelie Clement as she finishes their stories in the fourth and final novel in the series.
Lauren states that "It's kind of difficult to digest that, after publishing four novels, you still have to start from square one with regard to new material.” But, the unknown can also be exhilarating, right? Yes, Lauren seems to agree. Although ”there's a sense of panic--you still have to sing for your supper,” she acknowledges, "that panic is ultimately what drives you forward.” Here’s to facing the panic and pushing through the fear. Fans of Callie, Vanessa, Dana and Marine are sure that the experience will be worth it!
Cristina Slattery is currently living in Barcelona, Spain where she continues to teach English to private students and writes freelance articles on a regular basis for a variety of publications.
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