Books to the Rescue: Emily Wallis Hughes Lifts Spirits of Sonoma County After Wildfires
Emily Wallis Hughes, based now in New York, is featured in Sonoma Index-Tribune for her efforts to aid her hometown in the wake of the California wildfires, one of which threatened her childhood home. It came down to books. Hughes "started contacting publishers and bookstores in New York and California to donate some books to the Sonoma Valley and Santa Rosa schools. Her plan came to fruition in December when two dozen bookstores, independent publishers and small presses donated about 1,500 books to the schools. The books have been pouring in since December and the schools are continuing to find homes for them." More, from Faith Gates:
“The books we donated were not textbooks either, they were children’s books, poetry books, fiction, novels, a lot of literature in translation and a lot of bilingual books that had the Spanish-English side-by-side translations,” Hughes said. “These are also books that are literature, too, but aren’t necessarily on the best sellers’ list so I think they’re nice gifts. They aren’t books that are super mass produced so I think they have some more meaning that way.”
Hughes worked a lot with librarians like Janet Hansen from Sonoma Valley High School and Mary-George Simonitch from Sassarini Elementary School. Together they found the best uses for the books in the schools, whether it was giving them to students to take home, using them in the classrooms or replacing the library books that were lost in the fires.
“All these brand-new books are a great tonic for us during our ongoing challenges,” said Hansen, who’s been organizing thank-you notes from the kids to send to Hughes and places that donated. Besides keeping copies for the library, Hansen has given copies to individual students and passing on sets to teachers for classroom use.
“Many of the books are by newer young writers and the book designs are modern and fresh, so these things draw student attention,” said Hansen. “The kids have enjoyed imagining literary people in New York empathizing with our difficulties and picking out books to send.”
Despite living in New York, Hughes still has a heart for her hometown. Her parents reside in Agua Caliente, luckily not affected by the fires, and she grew up in Sonoma, attending first St. Francis Solano School and then Ursuline High School in Santa Rosa. She left Sonoma County in 2004 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in English at U.C. Davis, and stayed there to earn her master’s in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing. After graduating in 2010 she stayed in the area to teach. After four years of that, the born-and-raised California girl left to do an MFA at New York University, and she has stayed on the East Coast ever since, as adjunct professor at Rutgers-New Brunswick as well as at the College of Staten Island. She also continues to write and volunteer at the nonprofit Ugly Duckling Presse.
“I still feel very connected to Sonoma. I have been able to come back twice a year and stay for two or three weeks at a time. I almost feel like I have two homes,” Hughes said.
Read all about it right here.