Isabel Weinger Nielsen

Lost Orchard II Isabel Weinger Nielsen

Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community (SUNY Press, 2014)

featured a diverse collection of poems, short stories, novel excerpts, creative nonfiction,

and one-act plays by the Kirkland community. The work was well-received, and requests

for a Lost Orchard II now come to fruition, with work exploring the impact of the short-

lived Kirkland College and the authors who came out of that innovative institution.

Lost Orchard II: Nonfiction from the Kirkland College Community brings together

essays on subjects as wide-ranging as aging, loss, parenting, feminism, place, the Kirkland

experience, and interviews with members of the Kirkland College Community. Kirkland

College in Clinton, New York, was the last private women's college created in the United

States before it was assumed by its coordinate college, Hamilton College. Kirkland fostered

independent learning and creativity, with academic disciplines such as American studies,

visual arts, dance, and history of science. It also offered one of the first undergraduate

creative writing majors at a four-year college. Preserving Kirkland's daring educational

experience, this collection echoes the second wave of the feminist era at its finest.




Although short-lived, Kirkland had an outsized impact upon Hamilton College, its

alumnae, and undergraduate writing programs across the country. Many Kirkland

alumnae, who graduated from 1971 to 1978, have gone on to careers in professional

writing,