Thanks for the good info, Katie. As you used to tell me, the Midwest feeds the coasts!
So good to know the McHenry legacy continues, too. I’m looking forward to reading this new book.

Stan Wellborn

Thanks, Stan Wellborn, for calling our class' attention to THS alum Ben Lerner's new novel, The Topeka School. It was the lead review in last Sunday's NY Times Book Review, where it was called "a high-water mark in recent American fiction."

When he spoke to a group in Lawrence (KS) this past weekend, Ben made sure to point out that Topeka had produced an unusually high number of poets and writers in recent years. Ben considers himself primarily a poet, and he credited Eric McHenry (son of our classmate Jim, and a 4th-generation THS alum) for inspiring him. Eric is an English professor at Washburn and past Kansas Poet Laureate. Topeka West alum Kevin Young is poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine and director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, affiliated with the New York Public Library.

At Topeka High with Eric is Ed Skoog, another nationally-known poet. If you!ve read Maria Semple's Today Will Be Different, the poet with whom the protagonist studies poetry is based on Ed.

And there are more! We should be proud of the fact that THS and TWHS are still producing such an illustrious group of alums!

Katherine E. Shelton Krider

Ha. I see Dave Nelson already posted the book on his page!

Stan Wellborn

Some of you may be interested in a book out today called The Topeka School, written by Ben Lerner, a Topeka High graduate. He writes a lot about Topeka in his novels and poetry, an this new book involves his experiences as a high school debater. Sounds like he uses THS as a model.

Stan Wellborn