National Day on Writing
As a college that has valued good writing for more than two centuries — and whose namesake is recognized as one of the most prolific and influential writers among the founding fathers — we are proud to mark the National Day on Writing, Oct. 20.
Sarah J. Maas
Class of 2008
Maas began translating stories from her imagination onto paper at age 16 and published her first book a decade later. Today she is the author of 16 books in three internationally bestselling fantasy/romance series — Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Crescent City. The author has sold over 40 million copies of her books and her work has been translated into 38 languages. She was named the most popular author on BookTok in 2021.
Charles Warzel
Class of 2010
Warzel writes Galaxy Brain, a newsletter about technology, media, and politics, for The Atlantic, where he is a contributing writer. Before that he was a writer-at-large for The New York Times Opinion page and a senior technology writer with BuzzFeed News. As lead writer of the Times’ Privacy Project and co-author of “One Nation Tracked,” a seven-part investigative series on smartphone location tracking, he was named a finalist for the 2020 Livingston Award for National Reporting. In 2023, he coauthored his first book, Out of Office: Unlocking the Power and Potential of Hybrid Work.
Roz Chast
Kirkland Class of 1975
Staff cartoonist for The New Yorker, Chast is the author of more than a dozen books including Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? (2014), the first graphic novel to receive the National Book Critics. Chast’s cartoons showcase the humorous, often unconventional, moments of everyday life. More than 800 of her drawings have been featured in The New Yorker, and she has written and illustrated several books. A memoir chronicling her relationship with her parents as they transitioned to assisted living, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (2014), won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She also was recognized with a Heinz Award, presented to “exceptional Americans, for their creativity and determination in finding solutions to critical issues.”
Paul Lieberstein
Class of 1989
A screenwriter and producer, Lieberstein has written for numerous television series, including The Office. He’s earned an Emmy Award and Writers Guild of America Award for his work. A screenwriter, actor, director, and producer, Lieberstein has written for numerous television series, including King of the Hill, The Drew Carey Show, and The Office. His work on The Office, which also marked his acting debut as human resources director Toby Flenderson, earned him a 2006 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Comedy Series” and a Writers Guild of America Award.
Kathleen McGrory
Class of 2005
After working as a national reporter for ProPublica, McGrory is now an editor with the New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship program. In 2021, as deputy editor for investigations at the Tampa Bay Times, she won a Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for “resourceful, creative reporting that exposed how a powerful and politically connected sheriff built a secretive intelligence operation that harassed residents and used grades and child welfare records to profile schoolchildren.”
Mark Sullivan
Class of 1980
Sullivan is the author of 18 novels, including the USA Today and Washington Postbestselling Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and the New York Times bestselling “Private” series, which he writes with James Patterson.
Greg Thomas
Class of 1985
Thomas has written about culture, race, and democratic life in such publications as The Village Voice, New Republic, Salon, UPTOWN, The Guardian/Observer, and New York Daily News, where he was the jazz columnist. As an editor, he has worked with Forbes Media and was founding editor-in-chief of Harlem World. A producer and consultant with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and Jazz at Lincoln Center, he is founder and CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a program that cultivates workplace leadership and team development by using principles taken from jazz: excellence, shared leadership, antagonistic cooperation, and ensemble mindset.
Elaine Weiss
Kirkland Class of 1973
Weiss’ byline has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor, as well as in documentaries for NPR. She also writes narrative histories that read like nail-biting thrillers. Her book about the women’s suffrage movement, The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, received a Goodreads Choice Award and the American Bar Association’s highest honor, the Silver Gavel Award. Her previous book, Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army in the Great War, was excerpted in Smithsonian Magazine and featured on C-Span and public radio stations nationwide.
Steve Orlando
Class of 2008
Orlando is a comic book writer, known for his work for DC Comics writing characters such as Batman, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman, and two series starring Midnighter that were nominated for a GLAAD Media Award.
Kamila Shamsie
Class of 1994
Pakistani and British writer Shamsie has achieved international acclaim for her novels, the first of which, In the City by the Sea, evolved from a short story she wrote originally for a class at Hamilton. Her second book, Salt and Saffron, earned her a place on Orange’s list of “21 Writers for the 21st Century,” and her seventh, Home Fire, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Lauren Reynolds Nelson
Class of 2002
After getting her start as sports editor at The Spectator, Lauren Reynolds Nelson is vice president, executive editor of ESPN Digital where she’s responsible for setting editorial direction across digital platforms and co-manages SportsCenter’s Universal Coverage Group. She oversees reporters, analysts, editors, and bureau producers charged with daily content creation, newsgathering, and analysis for all professional leagues, college sports, combat sports, and premium content.
Peter Meinke
Class of 1955
Meinke has published 18 books of poems and short stories including The Piano Tuner, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. He is the poet laureate of Florida.
Terry Brooks
Class of 1966
Brooks became inspired to write fantasy at Hamilton when he was given a copy of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, his novel The Sword of Shannara became the first work of fiction ever to appear on The New York Times trade paperback bestseller list. Since that time, he has written numerous works in the Shannara, Landover, Word/Void, and Viridian Deep series, and none other than George Lucas recruited him to write the novelization of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which hit No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list.
Richard Nelson
Class of 1972
Nelson wrote the book for the musical James Joyce’s The Dead, which earned him a Tony Award in 2000, as well as the book for the 1988 Broadway production of Chess. Among his many other works are Goodnight Children Everywhere (Olivier Award), The Vienna Notes (Obie Award), and Principia Scriptoriae (London Time Out Award). He also received the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award and an Academy Award, both for his career. He is an honorary artistic associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has produced 10 of his plays.
Barrett Seaman
Class of 1967
Seaman served as a correspondent for Time magazine from five bureaus in the United States and abroad, including stints as senior White House correspondent during the Reagan administration and special projects editor. He co-authored a book about the Chrysler bailout, Going For Broke: The Chrysler Story, and also wrote Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You, a report on student life at America’s colleges and universities based on information he gathered over two years living on 12 campuses across the country.
Lauren Magaziner
Class of 2012
Magaziner writes humorous books for young readers, including the series “Case Closed” and “The Mythics.” She wrote her debut novel, The Only Thing Worse Than Witches, while studying abroad as a junior at Hamilton.
Peter Cameron
Class of 1982
The author of several novels and collections of short stories, he has earned praise for his elegant prose and developing characters with “painterly precision.”
Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Class of 2011
Wolfgang-Smith’s debut novel, Glassworks, was was long-listed for the Center for Fiction and VCU Cabell First Novel Prizes and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Apple, and Good Housekeeping. Her second novel, Mutual Interest, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2025.
Evan Smith
Class of 1987
As editor-in-chief of Texas Monthly, Smith earned 14 nominations for the National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. He is co-founder of The Texas Tribune and a senior adviser at Emerson Collective, which advises local news nonprofits throughout the country and advocates for strengthening democracy by informing communities.
Rachel Dickinson
Kirkland Class of 1978
A travel and history writer and author of seven books, Dickinson’s pieces have appeared in The Atlantic, Men’s Journal, Audubon, National Geographic Traveler, salon.com, Yankee, smithsonian.com, Old Farmer’s Almanac, and Christian Science Monitor.
Kyandreia Jones
Class of 2019
With two books in the “Choose Your Own Adventure SPIES” series, Jones puts young readers in the shoes of Mary Bowser, a Civil War heroine, and James Armistead Lafayette, who helped Revolutionary War forces defeat the British.
Steve Wulf
Class of 1972
Wulf is a former executive editor of ESPN The Magazine and senior writer for ESPN.com. His articles have appeared in outlets ranging from Sports Illustrated to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Preeta Samarasan
Class of 1998
Bestselling author Samarasan’s two novels, Evening Is the Whole Day and Tale of the Dreamer’s Son, each focus on key turning points in the history of her native Malaysia. The former novel earned the Avery and Jule Hopwood Novel Award and was described by one reviewer as “exuberantly lyrical and masterfully constructed.” A former Writing Center student tutor, she has published short fiction and nonfiction in Hyphen, the Michigan Quarterly Review, EGO Magazine, A Public Space, and in the anthology Urban Odysseys: KL Stories.
Stuart Kestenbaum
Class of 1973
The Maine State poet laureate and author of several collections of poetry, Kestenbaum was director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, where he established innovative programs combining craft and writing.
Annie Hartnett
Class of 2008
Her second novel, Unlikely Animals, was named “one of the best books of the year (so far)” by Book Riot, while her debut, Rabbit Cake, was listed as one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2017.
Olivia Waxman
Class of 2011
An honors graduate of Columbia Journalism School, Waxman is a staff writer with TIME and TIME.com covering all things history and education. She has also written for the Nation, Politics, Tech, Entertainment, and Health sections.
Stephen Krensky
Class of 1975
Krensky is the author of more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books for children, including The Dragon Circle, Lionel at Large, Big Bad Wolves at School, Benjamin Franklin and the bestselling How Santa Got His Job (an ALA Notable Book). His books range from picture books to novels, fantasy to realism, poetry to folklore. He has also adapted material from other media, including numerous short chapter books from episodes of the popular “Arthur” television show.
Henry Allen
Class of 1963
Allen, feature writer and editor at The Washington Post, received a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for “his fresh and authoritative writing on photography.” Allen covered the White House and Capitol Hill for the New York News before joining the Post’s Style section. A writer of essays, fiction, and poetry, he earned praise for his book What It Felt like: Living in the American Century, which captured the social and cultural spirit of the 20th century.
Nancy Avery Dafoe
Kirkland Class of 1974
Dafoe has published 14 books ranging from mystery novels to a hybrid memoir/poetry book on dealing with Alzheimer’s, which was a finalist in the William Faulkner/William Wisdom Creative Writing competition. Socrates is Dead Again , her most recent novel, won GOLD in the 2023 Human Relations Indie Book Awards.
“It’s not just about making an argument; it’s about figuring out what your argument is and making a better argument through writing.
Hamilton faculty members and Writing Center tutors have developed a variety of writing resources that cover everything from basic skills to discipline-specific stylistic advice. Check out insider tips from literature majors or learn how to write about race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, gender, sexuality, and more.
“Being in medicine, you think that science is the most important part of your education, but through the course of my career, being able to write well and be a reasonably good public speaker have proven to be tremendously important.
“You should have gone to Hamilton. You would have learned to write.”
We often hear stories about how the writing skills alumni developed on College Hill set them apart in graduate school or in their professions. Here’s one such story that has gone down in Hamilton lore …
The setting is a large hall at Georgetown University Law Center. A second-year student, and Hamilton alumna, sits among a class of law students nervously awaiting the return of their first paper of the semester. The professor is Samuel Dash, former special counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee during the Nixon era.
Dash stands at the front of the room, randomly calling numbers assigned to each student. “Number 27?” Student 27 raises his hand, the professor hands over the paper asking, “Where did you go to college?” The student replies, and Dash moves on. This continues with each student receiving a paper and answering, “Harvard, Penn, Princeton …”
Finally, when all but one paper is distributed, Dash calls out, “Number 18?” The Hamilton alumna raises her hand. “Where did you go to college?” “Hamilton,” she replies. “Okay, the rest of you,” Dash announces, “you should have gone to Hamilton. You would have learned to write.”
But there’s more …
As the story was passed down over the past 25+ years, the name of the student somehow didn’t pass with it. But thanks to some recent sleuthing courtesy of the College’s Information Services staff, we tracked down the Hamilton/Georgetown Law writer extraordinaire. It is none other than Sarah Kanwit Morehead ’95, now the career law clerk to a federal judge in the Western District of Washington, where she conducts legal research and analysis, draft orders, and assists the judge in courtroom proceedings.
“The job requires extensive writing every day,” she says. “I am grateful to Hamilton for its strong writing curriculum that definitely helped me hone my communications skills. Strong, clear writing is important in so many professions.”
