Alumni Authors Content

Rooted in Community: Davis Farmers Market Turns 50

Jocelyn C Anderson — May 18, 2026 - 9:08am

Fifty years ago, a group of 51�ԹϺ�� Davis alumni and students envisioned a new way to buy local, healthy food and founded the Davis Farmers Market. They helped change state regulations around direct selling by farmers and made the Davis market a model for markets throughout the state.

13 New Summer Reads by Aggie Authors

Jocelyn C Anderson — May 18, 2026 - 9:05am

Aggie authors have summer readers covered with a variety of topics — from fantasy fiction to academic nonfiction. Check out the list of new books by 51�ԹϺ�� Davis alumni and faculty.

ALUMNI AUTHORS

Ellen Cochrane ’84 tells a gripping — and true — survival story for middle grade readers in Follow the Water (Little Brown, 2026).

Alum Tells Story of Survival

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 17, 2026 - 9:28am

Ellen Cochrane '84 (Courtesy)

In 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke crash landed in the Amazon rainforest on a flight from Lima, Peru, en route to her family’s res

Alumni Books of 2025

Jocelyn C Anderson — December 16, 2025 - 9:02am

Aggies have you covered for the holiday gift-giving season, tackling myriad topics this year.

Check out 51�ԹϺ�� Davis Magazine’s full list of new books by alumni in 2025.

FICTION

Greg Sweatt ’73 takes readers back to the Civil War, when some battles were fought in little-known locations, for By the Hands of Parties Unknown (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2025).

Read Excerpts from Alum’s New Poetry Book

Jocelyn C Anderson — November 17, 2025 - 9:30am

Gabrielle Myers, M.A. ’08, explores the human experience in her new book of poetry.

Points in the Network (Finishing Line Press, 2025), her third poetry book, takes on complex feelings while also looking at social injustice, homelessness and more.

Alum Joe Sasto Is a Rebel in the Kitchen

Jocelyn C Anderson — August 18, 2025 - 9:24am

Alum Joe Sasto releases his first cookbook in October. (Courtesy of Bre Furlong)

Joe Sasto ’10 knows food.

Park Life

Jocelyn C Anderson — June 02, 2025 - 12:58pm

Did Al Capone have an outpost in the Everglades? How do inanimate stones manage to slide across the flat landscape of Death Valley National Park? And what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke?

For outdoor writer Mike Bezemek ’03, these tantalizing mysteries, and many others, are the subject of his new book, Mysteries of the National Parks: 35 Stories of Baffling Disappearances, Unexplained Phenomena, and More (Sourcebooks, 2025).

Ph.D. Alum Kathleen DuVal Wins Pulitzer Prize

Jocelyn C Anderson — May 21, 2025 - 9:40am

Kathleen DuVal, Ph.D. ’01, won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book Native Nations: A Millennium in North America (Random House, 2024). Prize winners were announced on May 5.

The announcement comes in addition to other prestigious awards DuVal has already received for the book, including the Bancroft Prize, the Cundill History Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize.

DuVal said the positive reception to the book was apparent immediately.

A Pandemic Project Comes to Light

Jocelyn C Anderson — May 19, 2025 - 9:00am

Jessica Guerrieri ’07 comes from a family of English majors, so that’s what clicked for her at 51�ԹϺ�� Davis. Her love of reading, journaling and writing led to her debut novel, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Harper Muse, 2025), out this month.

The book examines the link between motherhood and alcoholism through protagonist Leah, who is at a crossroads in her life. It’s her first in a two-book deal with the publisher.

An Adventurous Spirit

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

When Liese Greensfelder ’77, M.S. ’83, visits Norway again this summer, the trip will further deepen a bond with the country that goes back decades. When she was 20, Greensfelder temporarily became the sole farmer on a remote Norwegian farm, an experience she describes in a new book Accidental Shephard: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway (University of Minnesota, 2025).