Kick off the fall season with a new book! Sign-ups are open now for the Office of Alumni Engagement’s virtual book clubs.

Like our spring 2021 series, our eight fall book clubs will focus on Birmingham-Southern authors, including alumni and faculty. Almost all authors will make an appearance in the book club discussions, along with facilitators from the BSC community.

The program is free and open to alumni as well as faculty and staff, students, parents, and friends of the College. All you need to do is choose a book (purchase, download, or check out from your local library) and commit to finishing the book before the virtual meeting.

Here’s how you can participate:

• Sign up online starting Sept. 20 through the Eventbrite links below.
• Reading period ends Nov. 6.
• Book Clubs will meet from Nov. 7-14.

Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s

Author: Dr. Renée Brown Harmon ’83
Facilitator: Mike Chappell ’82
Tags: medicine, memoir, caregiving, family
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When her husband, a physician, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 50, Harmon’s life threatened to capsize in the waves. She stayed afloat by learning to lean on friends and family and by relying on her devotion to her husband and her two young daughters. Drawing on principles she garnered along the way, she uses the structure of memoir to chronicle the eight years of her husband’s illness. Each chapter ends with a discussion of one of the principles Harmon learned, and offers practices which readers may use to develop their own plan to bring greater balance to their roles as caregivers.

Dr. Renée Brown Harmon ’83 received her medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and completed a residency in Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. Together with her husband, Dr. Harvey Harmon ’82, she maintained a thriving medical practice in the Birmingham area until Harvey retired due to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2010. She then practiced solo until retiring in December 2019. Following her teaching memoir, “Surfing the Waves of Alzheimer’s,” Harmon continues to write about her and Harvey’s life at reneeharmon.com.

Mike Chappell ’82 taught high school English and theatre for 31 years. Over his time in education, Chappell has developed theatre programs, taught public speaking, interview skills, and acting lessons, and has directed, written, and starred in plays and musicals, many of which went on to win state and national awards. He is also the author of several adaptations for the stage and several original one-act plays. He retired from teaching in 2015 and began a career in real estate working with his son, John Michael Chappell ’12, as a team for Weichert Realtors – The Space Place. Chappell has been married for 38 years to his college girlfriend, Sarah Spencer Chappell ’83, and they have two sons, two daughters-in-law, and one 18-month-old granddaughter. He is thrilled to be facilitating this book club with his former BSC cheerleading partner, Dr. Harmon.

Bay Boy

Author: Watt Key ’92
Facilitator: Evan Garner ’02
Tags: memoir, humorous, coming-of-age, Southern lit
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During Key’s childhood, Point Clear, Alabama was not the tony enclave of today with its spas, art galleries, and multimillion dollar waterfront properties. Rather, it was a sleepy resort community, practically deserted in the winter, with a considerable population of working-class residents. Key and his brother (Murray Key, who illustrated “Bay Boy”) filled their days collecting driftwood to make forts, scooting around the bay in a sturdy Stauter boat, and making art and writing stories when it rained. In a tone that is simple and direct, punctuated by truly hilarious moments, Key writes about Gulf Coast traditions including Mardi Gras, shrimping, fishing, dove hunting, jubilees, camping out, and bracing for hurricanes. These stories are full of colorful characters – Nasty Bill Dickson, a curmudgeonly tow-truck driver; I’llNeeda, a middle-aged homeless woman encamped in a shack across the road; and the Ghost of Zundel’s Wharf, “the restless soul of a long-dead construction worker.”

Watt Key ’92 is an award-winning southern fiction author. Key spent much of his childhood hunting and fishing in southern Alabama forests, which inspired his 2006 debut novel, “Alabama Moon.” The book won the 2007 E.B. White Read-Aloud Award and has been translated in seven languages. Following “Alabama Moon,” Key has since published eight more novels that are often incorporated in school curriculum for young readers – though his work can be enjoyed by all ages. He currently lives in south Alabama with his wife and three children. See Key’s other work at wattkey.com.

Rev. Evan Garner ’02 has served as the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, since July 2018. Before that, Garner served in two parishes in the Diocese of Alabama, where he was ordained in 2006. He trained for ordained ministry at Ridley Hall in Cambridge, England, and at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. In addition to parish ministry, he has served the wider church as a deputy to General Convention, a member of two church-wide interim bodies, a stewardship consultant, and a member of several diocesan departments and committees. He has also worked with the Chicago Consultation and writes frequently on his blog. Garner’s wife, Elizabeth Graffeo Garner ’02, also graduated from BSC.

The Newspaper Boy

Author: Chervis Isom ’62
Facilitators: Lars Porter ’04 (MPPM ’11) and Kenneth Cox
Tags: memoir, Southern lit, childhood, Civil Rights Era
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Isom recounts a remarkable collection of memories and personal reflections of the deep emotional conflicts he encountered as a young newspaper delivery boy in Birmingham, Alabama, in a time of racial strife and discord in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many of Isom’s stories are tied to the “Southern Way of Life,” a culture in which he grew up that assumed an inflexible white superiority represented by Jim Crow laws, laws that his father, a Greyhound Bus driver, was obligated to enforce. Isom’s early adolescent views, shaped by his father’s frustrations, are thrown into stark contrast as he is drawn to the positive influence of Helen and Vern Miller, a young couple from the Far North who moved onto his paper route, bringing with them alien ideas completely out of step with his own culture and teachings. A quiet and shy boy, the young Isom was a reader, and it would be the written word he would turn to as he tried to make sense of his world.

Chervis Isom ’62 is a working writer and retired lawyer. Isom practiced law in Birmingham for 48 years with the same firm and has worked extensively throughout the South with developers and real estate professionals from all walks of life. In 2013, he published “The Newspaper Boy,” and he has seen these stories grew into a book that documents the evolution of his life as it intersected with those historical and social events that occurred during his youth. Isom has spent countless hours over the past five years visiting and recalling the Norwood community of his childhood and youth, serves on the Board of Directors of the Norwood Resource Center, and has rekindled old friendships as an active member of the community. His granddaughter, Frances Isom ’25, started courses at BSC this year.

Lars Porter ’04 (MPPM ’11) serves as the technology coordinator at Mountain Brook Junior High School. Porter – who was a student-athlete at BSC – spent six years coaching cross country and track at the Division I and Division III levels, including his years as the Panther’s head coach. These coaching experiences led Porter into youth ministry at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church and to part-time coaching at Mountain Brook Junior High, which helped him realize that his heart was in the schools. Porter taught math and coached cross country and track at Homewood High School before entering his current role at Mountain Brook. He and his wife, Dana McArthur Porter ’03 (MPPM ’11), have three energetic and enthusiastic boys, and he comes from a family full of BSC alumni, including his mother and fellow book club facilitator, Sue Dill Grogan ’73.

Kenneth Cox serves as the associate athletic director for student-athlete mentorship and the head cross country and track and field coach at BSC. A two-time Southern Athletic Association Coach of the Year, Cox has led the Panthers to six national titles, and this fall marks his 14th season as head coach. He coached under Lars Porter during his first season at BSC and has helped build the programs and encourage student-athletes’ commitment to athletic and academic excellence. Cox is on the Board of Directors and serves as vice president for track and field for the United States Track and Field/Cross Country Coaches of America. He and his wife, Leesha, have three children.

Family Law

Author: Gin Phillips ’97
Facilitator: Dr. Fred Ashe
Tags: women’s rights, Southern lit, atmospheric
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In Alabama in the early ’80s, a young lawyer, Lucia, is making a name for herself at a time when a woman in a courtroom is still a rarity. She’s been the recipient of threats and vandalism for her work extracting women from painful and sometimes dangerous marriages, but her own happy marriage has always felt sheltered from the work she does. When her mother’s pending divorce brings teenaged Rachel into Lucia’s orbit, Rachel finds herself smitten – not just with Lucia, but with the change Lucia represents. Rachel is outspoken and curious, and she chafes at the rules her mother lays down as the bounds of acceptable feminine behavior. In Lucia, Rachel sees the potential for a new path into womanhood. But their unconventional friendship takes them both to a crossroads. When a moment of violence – a threat made good – puts Rachel in danger, Lucia must decide how much her work means to her and what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep moving forward.

Gin Phillips ’97 is the award-winning author of six novels, ranging from historical fiction to literary thriller to middle grade. Phillips’ debut novel, “The Well and the Mine,” won the 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Award. “Fierce Kingdom” was named one of the best books of 2017 by Publishers Weekly, NPR, Amazon, and Kirkus Reviews, and her most recent novel, “Family Law,” was named on the Southern Review of Books list of Best Southern Books for May 2021. Born in Montgomery, Phillips studied political journalism at BSC and currently lives with her family in Birmingham. You can read more about her work at ginphillips.com.

Dr. Fred Ashe joined the Department of English at BSC in 1991 and taught until his retirement in 2020. Ashe’s teaching and research highlights include African American literature, contemporary American fiction, postmodern theory, American Inequality, and Hemingway. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics (of all things) at Michigan State University, and, after five weeks in law school, he switched gears and received his Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. In 2009, Ashe married one of the great American novelists working today – Gin Phillips.

A Family Place

Author: Charles Gaines ‘64
Facilitator: Sue Dill Grogan ’73
Tags: family, memoir, outdoors, adventure
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In the summer of 1990, Gaines and his artist wife bought 160 acres of wild land on the northeast coast of Nova Scotia. They believed they were simply buying a remote getaway spot, but within a few months a more complex dream for the property developed. By midwinter, they had begun to see the land as a place where family intimacy might be reclaimed, as a home that might heal their recently battered marriage, and as an opportunity to take on a big, risky, long-term project instead of settling into the caution and gradual losses of middle-class middle age. Enlisting their children and their daughter’s carpenter boyfriend, they decided to build a cabin on the land the following summer, to build it with their own hands, as a family venture.

Charles Gaines ’64 is the 2020 Truman Capote Award winner for non-fiction writing. Throughout his varied writing career, Gaines has published 25 books and often writes about fishing, mountaineering, and other outdoor sports. He is best known for his work about the sport of bodybuilding, including his 1972 novel focused on the bodybuilding subculture of the early 1970s, “Stay Hungry,” which was made into a movie in 1976 starring Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, and – in his big-screen debut – Arnold Schwarzenegger. The movie was filmed in Birmingham.

Sue Dill Grogan ’73 is a retired educator. Grogan began her career as an admission counselor at BSC before becoming a classroom teacher.  In 1988, she came to Homewood to be a guidance counselor at Shades Cahaba Elementary School, and later served as both assistant principal and, for 13 years, principal. Grogan’s parents, brothers, and children, including fellow book club facilitator Lars Porter ’04, are all BSC alumni.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Author: Miles A. Copeland III ’66
Facilitators: Andrea Paschal and Scott Register
Tags: music business, new wave, memoir
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“Two Steps Forward, One Step Back” tells the extraordinary story of Miles A. Copeland III, a maverick manager, promoter, label owner, and all-round legend of the music industry. It opens in the Middle East, where Copeland grew up with his father, a CIA agent who was stationed in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. It then shifts to London in the late ’60s and the beginnings of a career managing bands like Wishbone Ash and Curved Air – only for Copeland’s life and work to be turned upside down by a disastrous European tour. From the ashes of near bankruptcy, Copeland entered the world of punk, sharing a building with Malcolm McLaren and Sniffin’ Glue, before shifting gears again as manager of The Police, featuring his brother, Stewart, on drums. Then, after founding IRS Records, he launched the careers of some of the most potent musical acts of the new wave scene and beyond, from Squeeze and The Go-Go’s to The Bangles and R.E.M. The story comes full circle as Copeland finds himself advising the Pentagon on how to win over hearts and minds in the Middle East and introducing Arabic music to the United States. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” his father would tell him. In the end, though, the truth is what counts – and it’s all here.

Miles A. Copeland III ’66 is a music and entertainment executive and former manager of The Police. Copeland also managed Sting’s musical and acting career. In 1979, he founded the I.R.S. Records label, producing R.E.M., The Bangles, Berlin, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, The Alarm, The Go-Go’s, and others. Copeland grew up in the Middle East but was encouraged by his father, Miles A. Copeland, Jr. ’41, to attend BSC and get to know family in Birmingham, where he studied political science prior to his graduate work in economics and eventual career shift to the entertainment industry.

Andrea Paschal is the executive director of ThinkIndie Distribution and the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, a nationwide organization of independently owned record stores and one of the co-founders of Record Store Day. Paschal has worked at the organizations since 2005, furthering their mission to support some of the best independent record stores in the country. She took on her current director role in 2019 and has logged thousands of hours on both sides of the music counter.

Scott Register is an A&R representative at ThinkIndie Distribution and the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and host of Reg’s Coffeehouse on Birmingham Mountain Radio. Register’s weekly music show has aired every Sunday since 1997 with new music, live shows, and interviews with some of the most notable musicians and songwriters. Over more than two decades, he has integrated his journalism background in Reg’s Coffeehouse for a talk-show format with up-and-coming musicians. His son, Mitchell Register ’25, is a first-year student at BSC.

Shopping Bagged

Author: Maury Levine ’91
Facilitator: Kyle Bass ’86
Tags: humorous, fast paced, mystery
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While the print version of the novel is no longer available, Levine has made the online Amazon version free for readers.

There’s a lot more than a killer sale at the mall. Shopping center developer Beauregard Henry has a secret buried under the fountain at his South Square Mall. What seemed like a perfectly good hiding place is now drawing all kinds of unwanted attention. Threatening to uncover Beauregard’s secret are (among others) a disgruntled mall tenant, the inquisitive mall manager, revenge-seeking architects, a power-hungry secretary, and two pizza-cooking members of the Mafia.

Maury Levine ’91 is a call center manager by day and a drummer for musical theatre productions by night. Levine served as a beta tester for Lego World Builders and had a riff used in an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Some people have said that he is obsessed with malls, based on the time he snuck into a mall that was under construction and one that was being demolished. “Shopping Bagged” is Levine’s first novel, and he lives in Birmingham with his family.

Kyle Bass ’86 is the founder and full-time executive director of Homewood Theatre. After 30 years at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Bass took early retirement to pursue a second career running the non-profit community theatre that was established in 2016. He also played a huge role in converting old retail space into Homewood Theatre’s performance venue, which produces six comedies and musicals each season.

If I Were The Boss Of You

Author: Melinda Rainey Thompson
Facilitator: Alexis Barton
Tags: Southern lit, women’s lit, humorous, essays
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“Always bet on a smart, older woman. We rarely pick a fight we can’t win.” Thompson weaves together charming reflections, funny observations, and nagging worries we all share about our day-to-day existence. Who we are, what’s important to us, and the small choices we make every day determine the course of our lives. She utilizes her own brand of self-deprecating humor to ponder age-old, big-life questions. “A Chromosomal Point of View,” “The Fake Eulogy,” and “A Smack Down by Jesus” will make you laugh out loud. “Tiny Indignities” will make you cry. “Angels and Aliens” will keep you up in the wee hours wondering what will become of us. No Southern nostalgia, magnolias and moonlight, or voodoo queens here. This is a twenty-first-century, bossy Southern woman’s take on real life.

Melinda Rainey Thompson, associate lecturer of English at BSC, is the bestselling author of five books. Thompson’s work has been reviewed by the New York Journal of Books, and her 2012 release “I Love You – Now Hush” was honored as a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Humor. This Southern writer, humorist, and mother of three has been a staple on the ladies-who-lunch speaking circuit for the past decade. When she’s not teaching or working on a new book, Thompson a freelances for magazines and speaks to gala, conference, fundraiser, luncheon, and dinner attendees all around the country. Learn more about her at melindaraineythompson.com.

Alexis Barton is a Birmingham-based journalist and communications consultant at BBVA. Barton earned both her bachelor’s degree and Master of Arts from the University of Alabama, where she is now an adjunct instructor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media. Her work has appeared online at Shondaland.com and in The Daily Beast, on stage with The Moth, in print and on TV statewide, and on radio across the United States through NPR. When she isn’t writing or researching her next story, she enjoys reading, running, cooking, and sleeping.