Griswold ’91 and Fulenwider ’90 Talk Amity and Prosperity with SPS Community

More than 60 St. Paul’s School alumni, parents, and friends gathered at Convene in New York City on October 16, 2019, for a conversation with award-winning author, poet, and journalist Eliza Griswold ’91 and Anne Fulenwider ’90, editor-in-chief of Marie Claire USA.

The event, sponsored by the SPS XIX Society and open to all alumni and parents, featured a discussion of Griswold’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning book for General Nonfiction, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Lisa Hughes ’78, P’17,’19, XIX Society Steering Committee member, welcomed all attendees and gave a brief background of the SPS alumnae affinity group.

“We are so proud to be putting on this event,” said Hughes. “I think we’d all agree that being at St. Paul’s was a formative experience. There is this whole family of alumnae to tap into, and that’s something profound because we shared something profound.” In an e-mail sent prior to the event that Hughes read as part of her introduction, Griswold shared, “More than any single institution, St. Paul’s really formed who I hope I have become.”

Hughes presented the résumés of both Griswold and Fulenwider and then welcomed both women to the stage. After providing a brief overview of Amity and Prosperity, and noting she had a hard time putting the book down, Fulenwider asked Griswold about the first steps she took in writing her acclaimed nonfiction work. “I meant to write a book about the crumbling infrastructure in America,” admitted Griswold, adding that a chance encounter with a family from Amity, Pa., at a town hall meeting in West Virginia led to a seven-year relationship with that family and a shift in her book’s focus.

Fulenwider spent the next hour posing questions about process, influence, and the story’s details, before taking questions from the audience. The final question of the evening came from a current Sixth Form student watching the event at SPS via webcast from the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science: “What advice do you have for a young, aspiring writer?”

“You have to make [writing] a daily practice,” Griswold answered. “It’s a muscle like any other, and if you don’t use it, it will atrophy.” The evening ended with Griswold greeting attendees one-on-one and signing copies of her book.

“It is so much fun to be doing this,” said Griswold. “To be in such a kindred room and talk so intimately about the book, especially with Anne, is a huge gift.”