If you were to write a book about the Vineyard, what would the title be? I asked that question to the speakers at this summer’s Islanders Write. “Nancy Drew and the Curse of the Edgartown Triangle” was Sarah Kernochan’s reply, and probably the one that made me laugh the hardest. Kernochan, who has been working on a musical about Nancy Drew, will be moderating a panel discussion with two other funny women, best-selling authors Cazzie David and Annabelle Gurwitch, about comic approaches to serious subjects (3 pm).
Brooke Allen, whose reply also made me laugh, wrote back: “I’ve been considering a title for a Vineyard book, but I’m afraid my thoughts are rather flippant — ‘Be My Alpha Gal,’ perhaps, or ‘Crazy Rich Islanders’ … Will continue to think.” Allen, whose new book “Good Bones” is a must-read for anyone interested in the lives of writers, will be part of a panel discussion with best-selling author and prolific reviewer Joshua Hammer. This conversation will be moderated by Bob Drogin, who has also written his fair share of reviews during his career as a reporter and editor, and whose darkly humorous titles for a book about the Vineyard included “Apocalypse Island: The Terrifying True Story of How Tiny Ticks Turned a Bucolic Island into a Hellscape of Vegans, Vegetarians, and Hamburger Haters” and “At Least It’s Not Ebola” (9:30 am).
Kevin Sullivan’s title for his hypothetical Vineyard book was “Exhale.” Sullivan, a Pulitzer prizewinning journalist for the Washington Post, will be part of a discussion with Mary Jordan (his writing partner, wife, and fellow Pulitzer winner), Martha’s Vineyard’s oral historian Linsey Lee, and Bob Drogin, who is currently a freelance obituary writer doing advance obits for New York Times. We’re calling this “Writing about People: Obits, Interviews, and Biographies” (1 pm).
Best-selling novelist Martha Hall Kelly didn’t answer the question, probably because she already came up with a title and wrote the book. “The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club” was published last year. Kelly is currently at work on a novel about the 1970s music scene on the Vineyard and in Laurel Canyon, and will be part of a panel discussion about creating credible and complex characters with novelists — all of whom have created characters on the two-dimensional page that feel like three-dimensional living, breathing, flawed, and fantastic people — Carole Hopson, Eliza M. Speranza, and Nicole Galland (2 pm).
To be clear, at the time of this writing I hadn’t received all responses from everyone, and there will be additional answers to this question, as well as to two other questions, in the Islanders Write newsletter this coming Saturday.
This is the first Islanders Write to be held in mid-July. Generally, when we get this close to the date, I begin to worry about the various things that might go wrong. What if nobody shows up? What if too many people show up, and we have to turn people away? I do spend time wondering if there’s a better way to manage this day than our first-come, first-seated policy. Maybe there is, but we haven’t yet figured it out. (Please note: There is no seat-saving for the day.)
I no longer worry about the content of the conversations. I’ve been doing this for long enough now that proof of concept, as they say, has been well-proven. We’ve learned that when you bring together smart, genial, and fascinating wordsmiths who are also engaged in a love affair with the Vineyard, conversations will pop and amuse, surprise and inspire. Ideas will be hatched and friendships will form.
Islanders Write kicks off on Wednesday evening, July 15, at 7:30 pm. The New Yorkers’ Jane Mayer and Nathaniel Horwitz, CEO and co-founder of Hunterbrook, will be in conversation about new models for reporting and the current state of journalism. This discussion will be moderated by MV Times Publisher Charles Sennott. Sennott, whose first job as a professional reporter was in 1984, knows the importance of this conversation, stating, “The crisis in American journalism has gotten much attention, but we have to also focus on the future and on those willing to push back and fight for journalism and for truth itself. Jane Mayer and Nathaniel Horwitz will deliver keen insights on why investigative reporting and the fight for truth matters now more than ever. In very different ways, they are both offering a call to arms for journalism.”
Mayer has extraordinary investigative skills matched with an incredible storytelling ability; in my opinion, her 2016 bestseller “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” should be required reading in 2026. Horwitz notably began his journalism career in high school, as an intern at The MV Times. A decade later he co-founded Hunterbrook with Sam Koppelman, in an effort to pioneer a new approach to fund investigative journalism.
In addition to the panels already mentioned on Thursday, there will be two panel discussions focused on publishing. The first is the return of the pitch panel, with literary agent Rosemary Stimola, best-selling author Nancy Star, publishing executive Torrey Oberfest, and publisher and editor Gretchen Young, who wrote in that her Vineyard book would be titled “Alpha Gal Meets Beta Boy: A Dystopian Romance” (10:30 am). Following that, editor and publishers Dawn Davis and Gretchen Young, and literary agents Vicky Bijur and Adriana Stimola, will talk and take questions about publishing and the current state of the book business (11:30 am).
Belle Burden, whose memoir is a publishing phenom, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, whom I keep seeing on CNN — not because of her recent memoir, but because in June she became the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia — will be closing out the day with a discussion on writing memoir. Memorist Sherry Sidoti will be moderating that conversation (4 pm).
And now I’ll ask you: If you were to write a book about the Vineyard, what would the title be? (You can let us know in the comments section!)
Kate Feiffer is the director of Islanders Write, which will take place at Featherstone Center for the Arts on Wednesday, July 15 (7:30 pm) and all day on Thursday, July 16.
