Rosie Sultan, author of “Helen Keller in Love.”
Rosie Sultan came to AAUW on January 9th to talk about her novel, Helen Keller in Love. Ms. Sultan is a very engaging, dynamic, and knowledgeable speaker. She had us on the edges of our seats with stories of her lifelong fascination with Helen Keller, the tiny seed in a biography of Keller that grew into an entire sensitively imagined novel, the challenges of writing in the first person when that person is without two of our primary senses — sight and hearing — and more. She also did a moving reading from the beginning of the novel.
Ms. Sultan did meticulous and extensive research before writing Helen Keller in Love, so she was able to enlighten us about many lesser-known facets of Helen Keller’s life and times, her family, and her progressive politics and advocacy, along with the novel’s central — and true — love story. And who knew that the Fiske Public Library in Wrentham still had Helen Keller’s bathing suit?!? Ms. Sultan also told us a lot of fascinating things about Annie Sullivan’s life that we hadn’t known before — we can’t wait for her to write that novel!
In Other Meeting News
A lot of AAUWers were unable to make the January meeting and missed a really terrific program. We hope that everyone who was ailing is feeling better, and that everyone who had other commitments gets a chance to relax and unwind soon. However, there is one way in which January absentees are lucky: Because of the low turnout, we decided to wait until the February meeting to raffle off the beautiful cream and cafe au lait afghan crocheted by Kendra’s friend.
AAUW Melrose-Wakefield Branch 