Prelude: The Chipmunk Connection - Moravian College

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Of People& Places Joyce Hinnefeld speaks the language of landscape through her stories, poems, and essays. PHOTOs BY john kish iv
oyce Hinnefeld, associate professor of English, Cohen Chair in English and Literature, and director of the Moravian College Writing Center, began writing as an undergraduate student at Hanover College in Indiana: “I took a creative writing class taught by Margie Stewart and got hooked.” She went on to receive graduate degrees in English from Northwestern University and the State University of New York at Albany, and began teaching at Moravian College in 1997. She is the author of Tell Me Everything and Other Stories, a collection of short stories that won the 1997 Breadloaf Writer’s Conference Bakeless Prize, as well as the novel In Hovering Flight (Unbridled Books), which received wide critical acclaim. Her second novel, Stranger Here Below, will be published by Unbridled Books in October. Her short story “Benedicta, or a Guide to the Artist’s Resume” was recently accepted for publication by the literary journal The Literary Review. Dr. Hinnefeld’s ongoing interest in the relationship between people and their landscapes is the basis for her current project, an essay on land ownership issues in Pennsylvania and their impact on the Delaware River. She is collaborating with student Michael Watson ’11 on the summer SOAR project “Knowing Our Place: Writing to Uncover, and Reconnect with, Community and Landscape.” Tell us about your new novel, Stranger Here Below. It’s basically the stories of three generations of women connected through two very interesting communities in Kentucky. One is a Shaker site, Pleasant Hill. The other is Berea College. The core of the story is the friendship between two girls—one white, one black—who are roommates at Berea College in 1961, a time of upheaval. Where did you get the idea for this story? My husband was interested in photographing Shaker sites and artifacts when we lived in upstate New York, near the Hancock Shaker village. So the summer we were married,1994, we traveled to Kentucky to check out the Shaker site, Pleasant Hill, and Berea College, which is famous for its crafts. I became intrigued with the idea of bringing together the two places in a novel. I was interested in what they would have been like in the ’50s and ’60s. In fiction, you can make connections that might not be there otherwise. Places inspire much of Hinnefeld’s writing. Above: walking on Bethlehem’s Sand Island with Lily, an American Eskimo Dog, sparks ideas for an essay about the Delaware River. How did you link them in your novel? I created a character, Georgia, who was born in late 19th-century Ohio and was the daughter of an abolitionist. As a student at Oberlin College, she falls in love with a black man, but her father forbids her to marry him. He sends her to teach at Berea, a new school founded on principles of racial equality. Georgia is an ardent believer in equality, so when the school backtracks on integration [due to a Kentucky law that SUMMER 2010 MORAVIAN COLLEGE MAGAZINE 11
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Page 5 and 6: The Chipmunk Connection By Lois Bru
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Page 23 and 24: Alumni Weekend Where were you Alumn
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Prelude: The Chipmunk Connection - Moravian College

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