Author Archives: Doug Cumming

The American South isn’t the only place where heritage groups claim a particular day to wave their flags. When I was in Northern Ireland a few years ago, a nervous public waited to see whether the traditional July 12 parades … Continue reading →

Another semester is ending. It always feels a little messy, like cleaning up a gymnasium after a big dance party during which (you remember) some things happened you wish had not happened. But several of my students have sent me … Continue reading →

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 1, 2016: Emily Wright Cumming, a multi-talented, dynamic fourth-generation Atlantan, died Nov. 27 at age 90 after a brief illness. She is survived by her husband of 68 years, Joseph B. Cumming, Jr.; four children; … Continue reading →

My friend and mentor, poet Stephen Sandy, died last week in Bennington, Vt., at 82. I learned this in an email announcement from Bennington College. That’s where he taught when he became my literature teacher, adviser and senior-thesis tutor. Although … Continue reading →

Why is it, I asked Daddy, that we two writers, with such rich material to work with, have never made fiction out of our family? Pat Conroy did it with his family. Yeah, he said, and it wasn’t very nice … Continue reading →

My daddy, now 90, entertains us with an endless scroll of family stories, and I had never heard this one until recently. One year, when he was a boy, he rode his father’s horse in the Confederate Memorial Day parade … Continue reading →

Tom Wolfe, you old rascal! You’ve done it again. You’ve taken on the entire academic field of linguistics – as an outsider, a mere journalist – and played your snappy Emperor-has-no-clothes game on them. Bingo! And once again, you’ve stolen … Continue reading →

JOUR395 F17 Specialty Reporting (Education) Douglas O. Cumming, associate professor Notes toward a SYLLABUS – 8/27/16 This course fulfills the requirement for a 3-credit specialty reporting class required for majors in the Journalism sequence. Journalism and Strategic Communications majors must … Continue reading →

It’s a convenient catastrophe for us, another post-Katrina experience just an hour and fifteen minutes to the west. There is a house in Caldwell, W. Va., one among hundreds, soaked by the Flood of ’16 and abandoned by a widow … Continue reading →

In the 1920s, according to the sign outside the heavy door, DeWitt Wallace spent countless hours in the high-ceilinged sanctum within, reading and condensing magazine articles. This was how he filled Reader’s Digest, the unorthodox little magazine he and his … Continue reading →