Creative Juices

Peter Zeihan ’98 GS has published “The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.” In the book, geopolitical strategist Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging. The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world — from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all — is about to change. In customary Zeihan fashion, rather than yelling fire in the geoeconomic theatre, he narrates the accumulation of matchsticks, gasoline and dynamite in the hands of the oblivious audience, suggesting we might want to call the fire department. A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit and his trademark irreverence.

Kelly Motley ’90 AS has written “The Fight for My Life: Boxing Through Chemo” which chronicles how training and boxing helped her navigate a breast cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy. The book is about developing a stronger mind, body and soul for facing your worst enemy, whether it’s cancer, divorce, bankruptcy or something else. This book is for anyone who feels desperate, lonely or terrified by an unexpected circumstance. Motley writes with humility and fearlessness about her journey as a mom, business owner, wife, friend, daughter, granddaughter and ultimately a boxer. She has written the book she wished she had when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Motley is a former public relations and marketing professional. Jayne Moore Waldrop ’83 AS, ’86 LAW has written “Pandemic Lent: A Season in Poems.” With truly remarkable and arresting haiku, Waldrop leads us through the tumult of the early months of our global health crisis with sensitivity and insight. Her valuable and succinct introduction explains how the poems grew out of her Lenten discipline for the season. The work itself captures the foreboding of the siege of Covid-19, while effectively delineating the little details of a spring both natural and unnatural. A most unique daybook, it offers comfort and hope much as does the Christian ethos, never denying death but always averring new life and rebirth. This collection will stand the test of time as a well-turned reminder of human resilience.

M.Nolan Gray ’15 AS has published “Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It.” With lively explanations and stories, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary — if not sufficient — condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. The arbitrary lines of zoning maps across the country have come to dictate where Americans may live and work, forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Reform is in the air, with cities and states across the country critically reevaluating zoning. In “Arbitrary Lines,” Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common confusions and myths about how American cities regulate growth and examining the major contemporary critiques of zoning. Gray sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.

Stephen J. McGuire ’73 AS has written “Fractured Power,” a dark and haunting psychological thriller about Aiden Fletcher, a young man who came from humble origins and uses his extraordinary ambition and devious ingenuity to fulfill his inevitable destiny and reach the pinnacle of power in Washington, D.C. As a newly elected district attorney whose office investigates a rash of murders of young women in Knoxville, Tennessee, he uses his position to manipulate the evidence while pursuing a serial killer whose arrest and trial puts Fletcher in the public limelight and forever changes the trajectory of his extraordinarily treacherous life. His first book, “Prior Restraint,” also a political thriller, was published in 2021.

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