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The writings of UA lecturer Beth Alvarado and several University alumni have been published in a book that will provide funds to the Save Darfur Coalition.

After Beth Alvarado was invited to Northern Arizona University in 2007 to give a lecture about the craft of fiction and in creating characters, she met a man in the audience with whom she already had a connection.

It was Luke Reynolds, who was studying English at NAU at the time. The year prior, he had written a positive review of Alvarado's book, "Not a Matter of Love."

In speaking after the talk with Alvarado, a lecturer in the University of Arizona's English department, Reynolds proposed that she compose an essay for a book he and his wife were putting together to raise awareness about the conflict and genocide in Darfur.

Alvarado obliged, joining what amounted to 50 authors – Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and O. Henry Award winners and also four other UA alumni being among them – to contribute to the now-published book, "Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope.

The book is a collection of essays co-edited by Luke and Jennifer Reynolds. Both, who now live in Massachusetts, were graduate students and were deeply troubled by the conflict in Darfur when they set out on the project.

"One day after we had read a New York Times article, we felt driven to do something," Luke Reynolds said. "We felt we couldn't remain sedentary any longer when a genocide of this magnitude was occuring." 

Authors wrote about social justice, drug abuse, sexual assault, gun control, depression, skydiving, mountain climbing, dealing with writer's block and a range of other issues and experiences.

"Some of the stories are directly related to genocide and political oppression, but a lot of them are about the quiet risks people take in order to speak out," said Alvarado, a UA alumna who also earned a degree from Stanford University's writing program.

Published by the Rutgers University Press, the book features the writings of Ishmael Beah, Robert Pinsky, Jane Smiley, Howard Zinn, Nadine Gordimer, Frank McCourt, George Saunders and others. The four UA alumni who also contributed are Sherwin Bitsui, Robert Boswell, Ann Cummins and Peter Turchi. Cummins, a creative writing professor at NAU, was Luke Reynolds' instructor at the time.

The two targeted writers whose works inspired them.

"We wanted to try and chorale those authors whose words had burned fire into our own souls to come together in one volume, sing as one chorus, to help effect change and create hope for a situation in which hope was so necessary," Reynolds said.  

"We believe that our world today can only be changed by those wiling to risk vulnerability, new ways of thinking, and forming bonds," he said.

Rutgers University Press described the book as containing "original and inspiring essays that celebrate the glories gained from taking risks, breaking down barriers and overcoming any obstacles."

The description continued: "Some people carry signs, others make speeches, many take action. What is most special about this book is that it extends beyond words and ideas, into a tangible effort to affect change."

Sales of the book will benefit the Save Darfur Coalition, which has mobilized millions of people around the world to work on legislation, produce policy papers and host conferences and discussions about the conflict and genocide in Darfur.

In 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement initiated a conflict that the coalition reports accounts for an estimated 2.5 million people have fled Darfur. The United Nations estimates that about 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict began.

"I think they wanted a collection of essays that would inspired people to take risks," said Alvarado, who will moderate a discussion about the book during the second annual Tucson Festival of Books.

The UA is hosting the festival in March, and the discussion's panelists are authors Robert Boswell, Ann Cummins and Peter Turchi.

For her contribution, Alvarado opted to write about the risk writers take in creating characters that loosely mimic others in their lives – one she said is a necessary risk.

The essay, "Life Drawings," opens recounting a story about the daughter of famed author Bernard Malamud, who became upset while reading one of her father's stories. In it, she came upon what appeared to be a description of her toes.

"For 20 years, that stuck with me: ‘Why did that hurt her feelings?' That's where the essay starts," she said. "We are told that whenever you write, begin with what you know. Anytime you write something, you risk revealing something about yourself."

And that's a good thing, Alvarado added.

"You have to draw on those around you – to make the characters feel real to people," she said. "I think what you're trying to do is to create an emotional reality through the gestures a character might make or the way a person speaks or in details about their past.  

This process can be either conscious or unconscious, she said. Either way, it allows a writer's imagination to be free and to "understand the emotional and psychological truths" of others, she said.

"I think that what we gain is a kind of empathy," Alvarado said. "And out of that empathy, we can learn from and respond to others."

And that is what makes "Dedicated to the People of Darfur" such an honest and progressive book, she said.

"The book is pretty amazing," she said.

Luke Reynolds, a teacher and freelance writer, is "really passionate about reading and writing and about ways both can enlarge the world of his students," Alvarado said. "I think it was through this book that he wanted them to become as passionate about writing and writing as he is."