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CANDIDATES FOR THE TWO BOARD POSITIONS: (in alphabetical order)
Kirk Curnutt
Troy University
Kirk has taught at Troy University since 1993, and has been with the Hemingway Society two years longer, joining during his PhD studies at Louisiana State University. In twenty-six years of paying dues on-time (more or less), he’s published a few books on Hemingway (most recently my Reader’s Guide to Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not), served as program chair for the 2004 Key West conference, and spoken on Hemingway on behalf of the Society, including this past summer at the Key West Arts and Historical Society.
Curnutt has served on the board since 2005 and asks for another term not because he wants to be the Betty White of Hemingway Studies, but because of the responsibilities he’s undertaken. In the past three years he’s compiled four issues of the Hemingway Society Newsletter, growing it from eight pages in 2014 to twenty-four in 2017. As a member of the communications committee he has helped transition the Society to its new website. During his past term he also drafted the revision that brought the Society’s bylaws into the digital age, the first significant update since 1998. He also continued in his role as permissions editor, dealing with a number of requests for quotes from various authors and institutions to clarify who owns the copyright to what works. He is particularly proud to have helped many friends/colleagues navigate these sometimes tricky waters. Through his relationship with Scribner’s/Simon and Schuster and the estate, he has some surprises cooked up for attendees to the 2018 Paris conference. (How’s that for a “wait and see”?). He’s also spent twenty-two years serving on the Kennedy Library liaison committee selecting grant applications.
He would relish the opportunity to volunteer and serve the Hemingway Society for another term and extends many thanks for your consideration.
Verna Kale
Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project
Verna Kale’s interest in Hemingway began on a night train to Barcelona when she borrowed a copy of The Sun Also Rises from an expat American friend. She immediately and permanently fell “in love with Papa.” When challenged on this point she likes to cite Linda Miller’s essay on what it means to enjoy Hemingway at both a scholarly and an affective level.
Verna holds a PhD in English from Penn State, is currently Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project and Assistant Research Professor of English at Penn State, and has almost fifteen years’ experience teaching at the college level. She has published a biography of Hemingway (Reaktion/U of Chicago P, 2016), edited a collection of essays on Teaching Hemingway and Gender (Kent State UP, 2016) and has contributed essays and shorter pieces to The Hemingway Review; Hemingway and the Geography of Memory (Cirino and Ott, eds); Hemingway in Context (del Gizzo and Moddelmog, eds) and others (a full publication and presentation list is available for download at http://english.la.psu.edu/faculty-staff/vlk123 ). She is also on the advisory board to the Hemingway Review and on the Society’s media committee (as the [wo]man behind the curtain of the Society’s Facebook page).
On being nominated to the Board, Kale writes: “What makes me suited to serve on your Board is not that I know a lot about Hemingway (anyone reading this blurb does too), but that I bring to the Board the experience of someone off the beaten (tenure) track—perspectives that must be recognized if we are to stay vibrant (those of grad students, adjunct laborers, alt-ac professionals, creative writers, independent scholars, and others). I will work to make the Hemingway Society events, publications, and online presence accessible and relevant to a diverse membership.”
Raúl Villarreal
Coordinator for Cultural Programs, Santa Fe College, Gainesville, Florida
I am deeply honored to have been nominated to serve on the Board of the Hemingway Society. Most of my life I have been aware of Ernest Hemingway. However, at first, I only knew him as Papa. I was born in San Francisco de Paula and in my house Papa was always present. He was present in books, photographs and in my father’s stories. For my father, Hemingway had first been his friend el Americano, then employer, mentor and eventually a father figure.
My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in the visual arts. I have been very fortunate to have exhibited my art throughout the United States and internationally. Since the mid 1990s I have researched and studied the work and life of Ernest Hemingway. It was then when I realized that I was ready to write my father’s story because I understood what Hemingway meant to him. Now, I understand what Hemingway means to me. I interviewed my father for almost three years and started to work on what eventually became Hemingway’s Cuban Son, published in 2009 by the Kent State University Press.
For a number of years, it has been a pleasure to assist numerous Hemingway scholars and filmmakers with information of Hemingway’s life in Cuba and at the Finca Vigía. I am honored to be part of the family that helped preserved Hemingway’s house and legacy on the island. It started with my father when he worked as Hemingway’s majordomo from 1946-1961 and later as administrator of the museum from 1962-1970. For over thirty years, I have maintained a great relationship with the administration at the Finca Vigía and often assisted them with details about the house and historical information. For thirty years I have also maintained a collection of Hemingway photographs and my father’s personal notes on Hemingway.
In 2006, my father was able to reunite with Valerie Hemingway at the Hemingway Society Conference in Ronda, Spain. They had not seen each other since the summer of 1961. My father often spoke about that conference and how much it meant to him and of all of the new “Hemingway amigos” he made. Sometime later at home, I was able to witness Valerie and my father candidly speak about the man they called Papa. I have been able to attend other Hemingway Society conferences and presented at the one in Lausanne, Switzerland. I have presented Hemingway’s Cuban Son in numerous places in the United States, Spain, Switzerland and Cuba.
As a member of the Board, I pledge my full attention to keeping our Society active and strong and to further promote a better understanding of Ernest Hemingway’s life and writing. For me this is a professional mission and a personal one as well. The great success of the national and international conferences serves as a testament to Hemingway’s lasting legacy. The Letters Projects, the Hemingway Review, newsletters and other publications maintain our members engaged and well-informed. The conferences and publications also assist in introducing Hemingway to new generations providing them the opportunity to become familiar with a writer, whose work provides us with a unique perspective on our humanity.
We will work together to keep the superb publications and conferences novel, successful and constantly expanding, as each one of us continue to benefit by learning something new from one of our most insightful writers.
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