11/22
Post Author Event Sesh | Missed our author event? No prob.
Bear Facts: Bear Statues on Campus | By Stacy Bereck Chernosky ’90
Spotlight | Tanuja Desai Hidier ’90
LA Film Festival with Michael Costigan ‘90 | December 10
1990 Feedback | Turn your speakers our way
Class of 1990 Author Event
Post Event Sesh
The inaugural Class of 1990 Author Talk was fantastic! Thank you to our incredible authors, Jon Birger, Gil Griffin, Tanuja Desai Hidier, and Zachary Lazar, and to our moderator, Ashley Johnson Mason. If you missed it, don’t worry—we actually figured out the record button and there’s video.
We strongly encourage you all to check out our authors’ books. The holidays are coming and books make the best gifts. Click here to see where our authors recommend you buy their books.
ALSO DON’T FORGET THE CLASS OF 1990 BROWN BOOKSHELF.
We have dozens of other amazing authors in our class whom we hope to feature in future events. You can see all the titles we have collected in this doc. If you have written a book, play, movie, or major article, please upload it here.
Win a free copy of our authors’ books! Answer the four questions below and the bonus question. Each of the regular answers will be one of our authors - Zachary Lazar, Tanjuja Desai, Jon Birger or Gil Griffin. Send answers here along with your mailing address. Questions are based on the authors’ bios found on our website and in the discussion during the event. We will send the first person to answer these questions correctly a copy of all of the books.
Bear Facts: Bear Statues on Campus
By Stacy Bereck Chernosky '90
Brown has built a number of Bear Statues on campus over the years. For each of the above, do you know if it is: 1) Still on campus in the same location 2) Still on campus but in a different location 3) No longer on campus?
Answers
Answer 1. Bronze Bruno. Created by Eli Harvey in the early 20s and placed on campus in 1927. Originally outside of the Marvel Gym (demolished in 2002) which was located across from Brown Stadium. Moved to the main green in 1992. Bruno was not the only item moved from Marvel Gym. The former Cuppola from the building was stored after the building's demolition until 2011 when it was put on top of the new Fitness and Aquatics center.
Answer 2. Untitled (Lamp/Bear) by Urs Fischer was on loan to Brown from 2016 through 2020. Originally disliked by some vocal critics who felt it didn’t fit in with Brown’s architecture, the bear, nicknamed Blueno by students, became a beloved icon. When he was removed prematurely due to weather damage while many students were not on campus during the pandemic, many students were dismayed. President Paxson granted him an honorary degree during a video tribute created after his departure.
Answer 3. Indomitable by Nick Bibby. Installed on the Ittleson Quad in front of the Nelson Fitness center in 2013. It is true to size for a male Kodiak bear at 10 feet. It remains at Ittleson.
Answer 4.Untitled Bear by Nicholas Swearer, created in honor of his father Howard Swearer, in 1988. The bear was installed at the Maddock Alumni Center and commissioned by the class of 1949. It is still at the same location.
Answer 5. Bear Fountain by Ernest Geyger donated by TF Green in 1932, was created as a replica of a 1904 bear drinking fountain from Germany. It was originally installed in the courtyard at Faunce house. It currently is located outside the Brown faculty club.
For more information visit Brown Bear History Archive at the Brown Library
Spotlight |
Tanuja Desai Hidier ’90
Ratty or VW?
**ECDC! For us far-flung Perkinsites living out there in a whole other zip code—that first no-heat winter, huddled shivering upon the hallway radiators trying to absorb any vestigial warmth—those midnight snacks just a few frozen steps away were indispensable. (Right, fellow author/Perkins survivor, Gil Griffin?)
Favorite Class at Brown?
The amazing Arnold Weinstein’s class The Nordic Legacy (on Ibsen, Strindberg, Munch, Bergman) blew my mind and remelded it in new ways; I later TA’d for his Scandinavian lit class. He was my thesis advisor along with the force of nature that is Martha Nussbaum (my books’ character Zara Thrustra is a nod to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which I read in her Nietzsche class). Also shoutout to visionary George Landow; I took his Victorian lit classes and also worked for him (with Laurelyn!) on Intermedia and the Victorian Web. Meera Viswanathan’s Japanese lit/theater classes were wonderful, too.
And of course: the marvelous Meredith Steinbach’s creative writing workshops (aka EL20, which is to this day what I name my fiction Word docs and folders). And ’twas here, dear reader—in a cozy room I believe in the Women’s Center?—where I met the sprung-fully-formed-from-the-brain-of-the-universe author Zachary Lazar (who kindly blurbed my sequel/second book and accompanying album).
What Did You Enjoy Doing Outside of Class?
**DANCING. In the dorm, at parties, in African Drumming & Dance class—and every Funk Night (hellooo DJ Askari/ MixMasterMo). My roommate Pamela and I would study at the Sci-Li on Funk Night Thursdays, then head on over to the balcony section, stuff our massive backpacks in the corner, and get down for the duration—dancing with the upper-level crew, and also call-and-response-ing over the railing with everyone on the outdoor floor below. (You can also catch danceyish cameos from her and Julia—also Perkins peeps—in the Deep Blue She #Mutiny2Unity music video/PSA I produced for my Bombay Spleen album.)
When Did You Decide to Write YA books?
**It’s a serendipitous story, with a few Brown connections, too:
I was in a punk-pop band in the late 90/00s. The violinist, whom I’d met working at teen mag YM, organized a group of her friends to see Fiona Apple perform at Roseland Ballroom.
Night of the show, David Byrne (former RISD student) walked past us. Fiona was AMAZING. But she had a crisis of faith and ran offstage. David Byrne passed us again…on his way out.
In the epic silence that ensued, I meet David Levithan (a Brown alum too! Class of ‘94?)—who would become my editor on both books at Scholastic. We didn’t talk about books then (nor did we realize the Brown connection for a couple years)—just…where’s Fiona? Is she okay? (She didn’t return that evening.)
A couple months later, just before moving to London for a couple years (which became 17), I called to set up a meeting with David. I thought I could maybe rustle up some copy editing work for Scholastic (I’d been copyediting a few years by then for magazines).
David—about to launch the Push imprint—assumed I was there to pitch a book.
Somehow I knew in that moment not to say please let me just insert someone else’s serial comma into my life. Stab my aspiring-writer heart with the M, the N, dashes, of others…
Hyphens, though? I was in! Hyphenated identity: Something I had been writing about in my short stories, short films, scripts.
I’ve always wanted to tell an Indian-American coming of age story, I told David.
His reply: Well, that’s one I haven’t seen on the bookshelf. I’d like to help you get it there. Move to London. Unpack. And send me more details.
So I moved. Unpacked. And unpacked the story: I sent a paragraph, then a couple pages, and, eventually, an outline of the whole book, a couple sample chapters, and a few of my short stories (they didn’t ask for this much detail; I think I wanted to be sure I knew it was a book too! Come to think of it, you probably didn’t ask for this much detail either…so thank you for sticking with me!). And Scholastic bought it before I wrote it. Immediately, I had a (pretty quick-turnaround) deadline—and someone (besides my wonderful parents) at last waiting for my words.
I wrote this book in my 30s, drawing from my 20s, but shifted protagonist Dimple Lala and many of the characters to their teens—as Scholastic is a YA/children’s publisher. It was surprisingly easy, likely because: a) We never stop coming of age. And b) My inner teen has never fully left me?
So…that’s how I started writing YA, and Born Confused and Dimple (now 20) were born.
And another shoutout to Brown: The title refers in part to the term ABCD—or, American Born Confused Desi (someone with roots in South Asia). I only learned of this alphabet’s existence—with some exhilaration (there was a name for this neither-here-nor-there diaspora space?) and indignation (shouldn’t we be doing the naming)—when I was a senior at Brown, at a Valentine’s Day rager at 66 John Street, and the Karachi, Lahore, Bombay, Delhi student hosts—many of whom became friends later (and some, even sooner)—filled me in on this assimilation (or not) alphabet.
Anything Else?
May I add my favorite YA author? **This one’s easy (and will be succinct)! My 17-year-old daughter Leela Marie Hidier, whose first YA novel, Changes in the Weather (told from the perspectives of four teens displaced by climate change) launched in August. She wrote it in the year-long Young Emerging Author program at The Telling Room, a phenomenal nationally recognized nonprofit youth literary arts organization in Portland, Maine. Do check it/them out!
LA Film Festival with Producer Michael Costigan ‘90
December 10
The Brown Club of Los Angeles and Brown Media Group are proud to present the first West Coast iteration of BMG's annual film festival. Featuring a selection of short films produced by Brown alums, this will be a celebration of storytelling, cinema and the creativity that Brunonians bring to this artistic medium.
We are honored to have producer Michael Costigan '90 of Aggregate Films (Ozark, Under the Banner of Heaven, The Outsider) as our inaugural guest speaker.
There will be a separately-ticketed afterparty following the screening. Watch this space for details!
WHEN: Saturday, December 10 @7:30pm
WHERE: Fine Arts Theater (8556 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills)
Michael Costigan ‘90 iis a film and television producer based in Los Angeles. He is a partner at Aggregate Films, with a first look deal at Netflix. Aggregate is a production company founded by Jason Bateman and partner Michael Costigan which creates film, television, documentary and unscripted programming across all platforms. Aggregate most recently released Under The Banner Of Heaven starring Andrew Garfield; A Teacher, starring Kate Mara & Nick Robinson; the final season of acclaimed Netflix series Ozark, for which Bateman won the Emmy® for “Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series,” as well as The Outsider on HBO starring Ben Mendelson and Cynthia Errivo, based on the Stephen King novel.
Aggregate Films also has the upcoming Peacock series Based On a True Story starring Kaley Cuoco; the Netflix romantic comedy Your Place Or Mine, from writer-director Aline Brosh McKenna, which stars Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher and will debut February 10, 2023; and Apple TV+’s limited series Lessons In Chemistry starring Brie Larson and based on the best selling novel by Bonnie Garmus.
Through his previous company COTA Films, Costigan produced Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron as the notorious Ted Bundy for Netflix, Dumplin’ (2018), the hit musical starring Jennifer Aniston and Danielle MacDonald for Netflix, A Bigger Splash, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson for Fox Searchlight and Studio Canal, and Ghost in the Shell at DreamWorks, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano and Juliette Binoche.
1990 Feedback: We want to hear from you!
Here are some of the articles we are working on for 2023…
1990 Couples: Did you meet at Brown and make an everlasting connection? Let us know!
1990 Nonprofit Magic: Do you work in the non-profit sphere? We are dedicating an issue to 1990 service…let us know about your organization!
– Your Class of 1990 Leadership Team
– Lisa Ryers ‘90, Editor
Wishing You Comfort & Joy for the Holidays and New Year
