It’s that time of the year again! The Second Laird Miscellany is delighted to usher in another batch of English majors. In order to try and get to know some of these new members of our community, we sent out a couple of basic questions for them to answer. Let’s welcome the class of 2019!
Questions:
Hometown:
Favorite book from childhood:
Pick an author to get coffee with:
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you:
What are you most looking forward to about the English major?
Sarah Bobbe
Hometown: Burnsville, North Carolina
Favorite book from childhood: Harry Potter
Pick an author to get coffee with: Stephen King
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Grapes of Wrath
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Being assigned to read fiction!
Suzanne Burns
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite book from childhood: All of A Kind Family
Pick an author to get coffee with: Sylvia Plath
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? reading hella books & writing some reasonably good poetry
Nathaniel Chew
Hometown: Singapore
Favorite book from childhood: Tex the Cowboy
Pick an author to get coffee with: Douglas Adams, but it would have to be tea, and he would have to not be dead
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Great Gatsby
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Embracing self-deconstruction, reading
Brynne Diggins
ks!
Ellie Grabowski
Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland
Favorite book from childhood: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
Pick an author to get coffee with: Virginia Woolf
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Jane Eyre
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Getting to read more books!
Anne Hackman
Hometown: State College, PA
Favorite book from childhood: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Pick an author to get coffee with: Kate Chopin
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Of Mice and Men
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Having many opportunities to continue my search for the comfiest reading spot on campus
Julian Hast
Hometown: Evanston, IL
Favorite book from childhood: Go, Dog. Go! / The BFG
Pick an author to get coffee with: Ocean Vuong
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Huck Finn
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Discovering authors I might not discover otherwise / Having an academically respectable reason to do what I’d likely be doing anyway / Sitting in a couch on 1st libe doing readingz
Cristian Hernandez
Hometown: Houston (H-town)
Favorite book from childhood: The Phantom Tollbooth
Pick an author to get coffee with: I’m going to go ahead and assume that the author does not need to be alive; if that is the case, then I would definitely have to say James Joyce.
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Divine Comedy
What are you most looking forward to about the English major: Finding a job. With regards to what I’m looking forward to in the short term, I am very excited to see what I decide to have my comps on (as well as what English courses I’ll take).
Kate Johnson
Hometown: Meridian, MS
Favorite book from childhood: The Hobbit
Pick an author with whom to get coffee: Neil Gaiman
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Scarlet Letter
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Losing all shelf space in my dorm room to an overflowing tide of books, while frantically crafting essays full of superfluous language to reach a minimum page count, in the desperate hope that I can someday graduate with a major well-suited to my promising future career as a socially-backwards cat lady . . . Oops, I meant to say that I’m looking forward to deliberately exposing myself to a variety of books over the next two years, and learning a little more about life, the universe, and everything while I’m at it.
Dylan Larson-Harsch
Hometown: Milwaukee, WI
Favorite Book from Childhood: Goodnight, Moon
Pick an author to get coffee with: Han Kang
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: Infinite Jest
What are you most looking forwards to about the English major: Reading some great literature with some great people
Lizzy Lynn
Hometown: Edwardsville, IL
Favorite book from childhood: Harry Potter series
Pick an author to get coffee with: living? Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen ; resurrected? David Foster Wallace or Walt Whitman (I’m sorry, I couldn’t choose just one)
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Great Gatsby
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? I’m looking forward to taking the class on Nabokov in the fall.
Marly Schrom
Hometown: Grand Rapids, MN
Favorite book from childhood: The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
Pick an author to get coffee with: Tim O’Brien
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Seeing life from new perspectives in literature. (Is that too cheesy? It’s true so I’m leaving it.)
Mary Sears
Hometown: Davenport, Iowa
Favorite book from Childhood: The Warriors series by Erin Hunter
Pick an author to get coffee with: Fyodor Dostoevsky or Emily Dickinson
That one famous book that everyone has read but you: Beloved by Toni Morrison
What are you most looking forward to about the English major: I’m looking forward to reading and discussing interesting literature, as well as improving my ability to write clearly and insightfully.
James Smith
Hometown: LaGrange, NC
Favorite book from childhood: More Parts by Tedd Arnold
Pick an author to get coffee with: Brandon Sanderson. I just don’t understand why his books have to be so long, and I really want to question him about some of his decisions.
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: To Kill a Mockingbird. (I’ve also never seen the movie.)
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? The homework! The professors assign such interesting texts, and it’s wonderful.
Juila Truten
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA and thereabouts
Favorite book from childhood: “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas.
Pick an author to get coffee with: Clara Finkelstein.
That one famous book that everyone has read except for you: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.
What are you most looking forward to about the English major? Struggling with/ reconciling my admiration for English writers and writings with my Scottish-oppression-scented anglophobia.
Chris Wortman
Hometown: Greenwich, CT
Favorite book from childhood: Danny the Champion of the World
Pick an author to get coffee with: Saul Bellow
That one famous book everyone’s read except you: Moby Dick
What are you looking forward to about the English major: reducing my list of famous books that everyone’s read except for me.