Saturday, Oct. 20, the Bowers Writers House welcomed four Elizabethtown College alumni who returned to campus for Homecoming Weekend to read original and favorite works that they had written or read during their time as graduates. Patricia Cangelosi ’11, Austin DeMarco ’11, Matthew Salyers ’10 and Rachel Jones Williams ’06 were the few and talented individuals invited to read work for students, faculty and staff at the reading.
Cangelosi graduated with an English degree with a concentration in professional writing and minors in creative writing and mathematics. She is currently employed as a copy editor for the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) in Trevose, Pa. and is also a writer for the various magazines that the company supports.
DeMarco graduated with an English degree with a concentration in professional writing. He is currently employed as an editorial assistant at IGI Global, an academic publisher in Hershey, Pa.
Salyers graduated with an English degree and is currently working to complete an M.F.A. program at George Mason University. In the meantime, he teaches English composition. His work has been published in numerous magazines and journals both in the U.S. and abroad.
Jones Williams graduated with a degree in history and women and gender studies. She earned her master’s degree in museum studies at the Cooperstown (NY) Graduate Program for History and Museum Studies. She interned with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and eventually became the director of development and special events at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Harrisburg, Pa.
While Cangelosi originally made poetry her focus, she has recently gravitated toward young adult fiction and is currently working on a novella geared toward adolescents and young adults. The novella, an excerpt of which she read at the alumni reading at Bowers on Saturday, is centered on a college student whose attempted suicide immerses her in a realm that is between life and death. The first two chapters, which Cangelosi read to a captive audience of attendees, were wrought with deep emotion that engaged listeners from the first page. The narrator, a girl who Cangelosi described as having no hope left after losing her only chance at true love, is debating whether and how she will take her own life. The first chapter is riddled with suspense as the narrator makes her attempts and then, at the last moments, rethinks her decision.
DeMarco next intrigued the audience with a short science fiction piece about a futuristic bike race whose outcome will literally mean life and death for its protagonist. The male narrator, a racer who has always taken his profession more seriously than is healthy, has been in love with a female friend since meeting her when they were younger. She tells him that he always loses races simply because he wants too much to win. She is now hospitalized, and the protagonist must race for her life; the winner’s purse could cover her medical costs and save her, but only if he can truly understand her advice and win the race for her despite his crippling ambition.
Salyer demonstrated a mastery of short fiction with two stunning pieces, both of which struck emotional chords with the listeners. The first featured a vagrant man living secretly in the utility closet of a church, stealing their supplies and appliances and making a makeshift home for himself among these few earthly possessions. The story is told, in its entirety, using only one long sentence. The story was previously published in a London magazine. The second piece was the story of conjoined twin sisters and their struggle with their plight, ultimately ending in a gruesome, tragic, disturbing scene in which their father must clean up the mess which their actions have left. Dark humor permeated the piece, making the audience laugh despite the fact that many of them would be cringing at the ending in a moment.
Jones Williams did not read original work, but instead read excerpts of an acceptance speech delivered by Toni Morrison for the Nobel Prize for Literature bestowed upon her in 1993. Powerful and evocative, it was the perfect ending to a night of creative expression.