By Greg Weiss
From Jeff Lewis: “My new book, Bealport: A Novel of a Town, is coming out soon, if it isn’t already out by the time this note is published.” In response to a question why the book was being published in the UK prior to the US Jeff responded: “My now long-term publishing relationship is with a London publisher whom I like very much. Equally important, they seem to like me. They’ve published my last three books and an omnibus edition of the first four. In this case, the publication might have been more or less simultaneous in the UK and US, but [due to a timing problem with the US distributor] publication here was slightly delayed.”
From Southern California Tim Tunney has a humorous take on aging: “You feel old when your children go to college. You feel REALLY old when your grandchildren go to college. So you know how I feel when my oldest grandson, William (age 17), enrolled as a freshman at nearby UC-San Diego. But it’s great to have him nearby”. Tim adds: “Still working and having fun. I am active in local politics (but NOT running for anything) by virtue of membership in Lincoln Club of Orange County.”
Peter Stambler has been spending time in Istanbul helping out at a small community center for Syrian refugee children, and, in a recent email, he explains the reasons why he does it: “Two years ago, I built the center a little library corner. Last year, I provided musical instruments to clang, bang, and blow on. This year, I tried to make the playroom floor more comfortable for both play and naptime…Why am I telling you this as an addendum to Yale’s annual alumni fund drive? It’s this: I hope that some day, a decade from now, some of these children, so recently subject to the most abject trauma, will find their way to New Haven…Of course, it is our pleasure to help create the financial conditions that will enable such students—and so many others—to attend. We do it every year. In fact, for the two decades from 1960 to 1980 only one class has contributed more to Yale’s fund raising drives. And for the 89 year period since 1931, the class of 1966 ranks sixth in annual giving. Pretty solid.”