Leftover: March 2000

Early in 2000, someone ratted me out to Vanderbilt, my alma mater, which—despite me being in phone books, published in certain magazines and at certain web sites—had never had my correct current address before. At once VU started begging for money to add to its roughly $2.2 billion endowment (a billion dollars ain’t what it used to be). Sorry, no. If I ever have any extra money to donate to higher education, it’ll go to Fisk.

Vanderbilt has tracked me down, which means that from time to time items arrive by mail, some asking for money, others — such as the publication A&S Cornerstone — trying to interest me in goings-on down at VU. Anyway, such a Cornerstone arrived recently, with an article about a “Southern writers conference” to be held on campus. I read in it that “writers with Vanderbilt ties will be well represented at the conference, [including] novelist Elizabeth Dewberry (BS ’83)...”

By golly, Betsy. I knew her (but not very well) in Walter Sullivan's creative writing class in the fall of ’82, and I recall that she wrote a reasonably good story for that class. (Mine was good too, but my hold on literary talent I have is like a leaky balloon’s hold on air.) This morning I looked for her on Amazon.com and sure enough, Betsy is the published author of two novels, Many Things Have Happened Since He Died: And Here Are the Highlights (I like that title) and Break the Heart of Me, under the name Elizabeth Dewberry Vaughn.

According to Amazon, both sound like they’re within the Southern-gothic-dysfunctional family with secrets tradition, and both are out of print, despite good reviews. Guess that’s the price of not being chosen by Oprah®. (That trademark is no joke: There it is at the Amazon site, a Hound o’ Hell guarding the commercial rights to O’s name.)