The novel, from Mariner Books, is an emotional rollercoaster that spans more than 90 years, from a heartbreaking opening scene at an orphanage in Chicago in 1924 to the unveiling in 2015 of jarring secrets held for a lifetime in a small northern Minnesota town. The story of Cecily is one of pain, cruelty, loveā€”forbidden and otherwiseā€”and hope.

While Bakerā€™s first two novels, Keeping the House (2007) and I Gave My Heart to Know This (2011), both from Random House, put her on the literary map, they did not generate quite this level of enthusiasm.

ā€œTo know that book editors were noticing it, readers were noticing it, people were anticipating it, that was really exciting,ā€ Baker said from her home on the coast of Maine.

The new novel falls into the genre of historical fictionā€”as did her first two novelsā€”and the roots of Bakerā€™s history-focused storytelling can be found in her experiences as an undergraduate at Lawrence three decades ago, when the psychology major with a secret desire to write novels fell in love with American history.

ā€œAt Lawrence, I got so fascinated by my American history classes, my American literature classes,ā€ she said.

While finishing her psychology major, she worked an internship with the Outagamie County Historical Society in Appleton, and she took an independent study course in fiction writing during her senior yearā€”all while filling spiral notebooks with ideas for a novel.

ā€œI was always drawn toward writing novels, but at the time I was looking for a more practical career path,ā€ Baker said. ā€œI think I was looking for something that wasnā€™t so close to my heart, because I was also so shy that I didnā€™t tell anybody I wrote novels in notebooks. A few close friends knew but it was otherwise a secret.ā€

After graduating from Lawrence, Baker took an internship in Tennessee working as a living history interpreterā€”dressing in costume, quilting by hand, cooking on a wood stove, and finding other ways to bring American history to life. She completed a masterā€™s degree in American studies at the University of Minnesota, then worked at a World War II museum in Superior, Wisconsin.

All of it built to her next chapter. She eventually went to work for an independent bookstore while beginning to scratch that itch as a novelist. Four years later, Keeping the House, set in the 1950s, was released.

ā€œAll the pieces of my Lawrence experience and my masterā€™s degree all dovetail into becoming a historical novelist,ā€ Baker said. ā€œThe focus on psychology gave me a different inroad. A lot of people as fiction writers go get an MFA, which is a fabulous path to take if thatā€™s your right path. For me, I wasnā€™t ready at the time to claim that part of myself, so I think I actually have a really different perspective in terms of how I look at characters or how I look at historyā€”because of training in things other than how to write fiction. I have the training in how to look at the world from those different lenses. I think itā€™s been a very valuable thing to have.ā€

The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson comes 13 years after Bakerā€™s previous novelā€”she launched an online teaching course for would-be novelists and did freelance writing and editing in the meantime. It was in early 2021 that she redirected her attention to a next novel, wanting to write a story about the keeping of a decades-long secret in a small town, all of it eventually unraveling through modern DNA testing.

ā€œI am fascinated by all the stories Iā€™ve read of people who have had DNA surprises in their lives and how that upends their sense of themselves, their identities, and what happens as a consequence of those surprises,ā€ Baker said.

She wanted to weave a story that would interplay multiple storylines over long passages of time.

ā€œI started there and wrote the story going back and forth in time because I was interested in playing with the relationship between past and present,ā€ Baker said. ā€œObviously, in this book, the past has a direct effect on the present.ā€

She wrote the initial draft in eight months, far faster than sheā€™d usually get through a first draft.

ā€œI usually take a number of years to write a draft,ā€ Baker said. ā€œI canā€™t explain why it happened. It just felt like it was a story that already happened, and I was just writing it down. I didnā€™t struggle with how to make it make sense. It just felt like it was all there.ā€

Her new literary agent sold the book to Mariner Books, which kicked off an intense editing process. By last summer, Baker was already receiving glowing feedback from authors she admires. And by fall the book was starting to show up on best-of lists in advance of its February release.

Baker likes where sheā€™s at as she gains notice as a novelist and builds momentum as a teacher and entrepreneur. Sheā€™s growing her online teachingā€”providing start-up guidance to novelists-to-beā€”while considering options for a next novel. Sheā€™s also working on a screenplay, and her agent is having conversations with studios about taking The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson to the big screen.

ā€œIā€™ve been figuring out how to support myself with writing and independent projects,ā€ Baker said. ā€œIā€™ve learned a lot about myself along the way. Being my own boss and having the real estate of my brain completely available to think the thoughts I want to think, that to me is a very valuable thing. I think that is something I learned at Lawrence, or that I came to value at Lawrence. The privilege of intellectual freedom, the privilege to think about the things you want to think about, the privilege to pursue the lines of inquiry you want to pursue. For me, that line of inquiry is simply how to understand the human experience, how to convey human experience, how to bring the past to life in ways that possibly can help us to not repeat the same mistakes.ā€

Hughes said she knew she wanted to pursue creative writing and play sports in college. She was drawn to Lawrenceā€™s English major, with a creative writing track, and fell in love with the campus and the Athletics Department on her first visit.

ā€œThe only thing I could think was, ā€˜I have to go hereā€™,ā€ Hughes aid. ā€œThe classes, the coaching philosophy, the feeling of home away from home, everything felt right. There were other schools and other tours and other coaches, but I knew I was being called to Lawrence.ā€

Scholarships and grants helped Hughes make Lawrence a reality.

ā€œI knew I wanted to go to school, and eventually I knew that school was Lawrence, but affording school was a whole different battle,ā€ she said. ā€œI worked three jobs in high school, often going straight from work to practice, cramming in my schooling at odd hours of the night. I applied to every scholarship I could. I wrote essays and filled out applications. I didn’t want to let finances keep me from turning dreams into reality. The optimist in me likes to think I could have somehow worked my way through education, but the fact is, I wouldn’t be here without the Wisconsin Grant and all the generosity of Lawrence alumni. I am making this climb now, but they opened the door.ā€

Hughes is looking to use her experiences at Lawrence as a springboard to a writing career after she graduates.

ā€œI want to be a novelist, writing alongside the next generation of storytellers and dreamers,ā€ she said. ā€œI want to create stories like the ones that helped me see the world under a brightened light. I will always be a student of the craft, and I want to take everything I will learn and spread that passion and technique to others.ā€

True North, set in 1993, is a family drama that finds Chicago transplants Sam and Swami Brechtā€”parents of three young childrenā€”purchasing and running a troubled white-water rafting company in the town of Thunderwater. There is, to say the least, much turbulence.

Graff knows the terrain well. He has worked as a white-water guide on and off for nearly 20 years, beginning during summers while a student at Lawrence.

The Washington Post calls True North a ā€œwarmhearted storyā€ that ā€œlets grace finally wash over its characters.ā€ Publishers Weekly says: ā€œGraff expertly balances his character-driven domestic fiction with an exciting adventure story.ā€

It is praise that echoes what Graff heard in 2021 when Raft of Stars was highlighted as a must-read byĀ Parade MagazineĢż²¹²Ō»åĢżUSA TODAY, was chosen by HarperCollins as its lead spring title, and was named an ā€œIndie Nextā€ pick by the American Booksellers Association.

ā€œIt still feels really dreamy,ā€ Graff said of the attention that followed his publishing debut.

In the three years since, heā€™s earned tenure at Wittenberg University, where he teaches English, and has been invited to speak as a visiting author at venues across the country. In March, he will be speaking to students in a graduate program at Seattle Pacific University. Lawrence English professor David McGlynn, himself an accomplished author and an important mentor to Graff, is also on the docket.

It was a 2021 invitation from McGlynn to return to Lawrence for a book reading in Main Hall that was the highlight of the entire Raft of Stars experience, Graff said. That is how important his time at Lawrenceā€”in the English Department in particularā€”was in his development as a writer.

ā€œThat was the dreamiest peak of Raft of Stars for me,ā€ he said. ā€œWalking into Main Hall, with a published book, where I studied creative writing, where I took my first creative writing class. And I got to read. That was super sweet.ā€

Now Graff is hitting the road for book festivals and other appearances following the release of True North. At present, the closest heā€™s coming to Appleton is a stop at the Wisconsin Book Festival on Feb. 28, a 7 p.m. appearance at Madison Central Library.

Door to Remain arrived in March, winner of the 2021 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.

The poems are not only about losing his mother, but about his childhood in Alabama and his journey in relating to her as a person and as an adult as he himself grew into adulthood after her death.

Door to Remain has been in the making for 12 years, Segrest said, but the journey has not always been a smooth one.

—

My Motherā€™s Morning Walks

She took her turn around the houseā€”

unreachable circumference.

She dropped below a hundred pounds,

a snail shell with the back blown out.

The shellā€™s eye whorled around the house.

A roundhouse horse that walked her course

that circumscribed my universe,

she took a turn for the worse.

The axelā€™s force that turned the stars

unharnessed from the horse.

—

Segrest began his career as a fiction writer but felt he was hitting a wall. After he picked up a copy of Mary Oliverā€™s Twelve Moons, he started to fully embrace poetry. Before that, contemporary poetry seemed elusive and unapproachable, he said, but Oliverā€™s direct approach seemed to give him permission to write poems about his life.

Amidst his grief and learning to cope with the loss of his mother, Segrest poured his emotions into his work.

He experienced ups and downs while writing and pushing for publication. But stepping away from his work at times enabled Segrest to gain fresher perspectives and refocus his energy. The passing of time enabled the poetry to come together and become more honed, he said.

Another challenge was the overall organization of the book. Door to Remain ended up relating solely to his mother, but initially he intended to include poems about other subject matter. However, during the final stages of its publication, everything clicked, he said. He stuck with the theme surrounding his mother and organized everything chronologically.

ā€œIt was a healing process for me to write the book,ā€ Segrest said. ā€œBut I think it helps others who have lost people, or with other traumas that are brought up in the book, and it speaks to them and it connects with them.”

Segrest also knew that he wanted to work with a designer for his first book. He found Sarah Schulteā€™s website, admiring her minimalist style. She came up with the purple suit design after being inspired by one of the bookā€™s poems, ā€œItalian Suit.ā€ The suit in question was a spur-of-the-moment purchase by his mother while in Rome.

ā€œIt was so great that she wanted it, and Mom had that flair in her, but we were in the conservative, deep South,ā€ Segrest said. ā€œSo, I was trying to remember in the poem, did she ever wear it after she brought it back?ā€

Sadly, the last time Segrest remembers her wearing the suit was just before she passed away. He felt it was a beautiful, fitting design cover for Door to Remain because of all the mixed emotions that he associates with the suit.

—

Italian Suit

And surely she wore it

a few times before it would hang

bodiless, unoccasioned in her closet ā€”

the sharp lines the flair

loud for Birmingham or Atlanta.Ā 

ā€”No, she wore it, I remember,

her last Easter at my cousinā€™s,

blazing betrayed because sheā€™d only come

out of propriety, because I said I would,ā€”

but when I finally turned up,

booze-puffy and twenty, she was through.

So I made my Bloody and said fine,

you want to be like that.

—

Segrest teaches classes in poetry writing and literature, as well as First-Year Studies, at Lawrence.

He earned a bachelorā€™s degree from Emory University, an MFA in poetry at Georgia State University, and a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing (poetry) at the University of Missouri.

He came to Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of English in 2014 and was hired as a tenure-track faculty member in 2019.

Door to Remain is Segrestā€™s first published book of poetry. In addition, his poetry can be found inĀ POETRY,ĢżPloughshares,ĢżThe Threepenny Review,ĢżThe Yale Review,ĢżEcotone,Ā The Common,ĢżNew England Review, and other journals.

Segrest has shared his poetry in several book readings in and around Wisconsin this spring. Next up is a reading from Door to Remain at 7 p.m. May 7 at Cristian Anderssonā€™s Liminal Art Gallery in Neenah.

He also has been selected to deliver the spring Honors Convocation address at Lawrence, ā€œDoor to Remain: Community in Poetryā€™s Threshold,ā€ at 12:30 p.m. May 27 in Memorial Chapel.

Madison Clark, a double major in creative writing and psychology with a focus on teaching, was drawn to Lawrence for its small campus and its reputation as having reputable academic programs. Due to a visual impairment, though, Clark was nervous that navigating campus and finding friends would prove challenging, but she happily discovered that the Lawrence community was supportive and welcoming.

ā€œThe biggest compliment I heard is that Lawrence has a friendly community,ā€ said Clark, now a sophomore. ā€œAfter attending my first year, I discovered that this was true.ā€

Clark found the faculty and staff supportive. In particular, Joanna Morey, an accessibility services and academic skills specialist, has been instrumental to her journey at Lawrence, and Clark said she canā€™t thank her enough for helping her grow in confidence.

ā€œMy Lawrence experience has also allowed me to develop as a person,ā€ Clark said. ā€œSince I arrived at Lawrence, I have learned how to be more independent and less shy around new people.ā€

With her passion for writing and her growing interest in the field of psychology, Clark plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in English and/or psychology and become a professor. But, like many students, she appreciates the wide array of interdisciplinary courses offered at Lawrence and said her goals are subject to change as she explores more interests.