August 20, 2009
Nursing dean emeritus explores a new path as a poet
By Ashley Wiggin
School of Nursing
What started out as a simple journaling of daily events for UW School of Nursing Dean Emeritus Sue Hegyvary has led to her first chapbook of poetry. The former dean has written and published a collection of poems, titled Fire Season, set to hit bookshelves later this month. Chronicling her family’s experiences as landowners in Eastern Washington, Hegyvary compiled the book over the course of several years at her cabin.
“Being at the cabin and out in the woods is elating for me,” Hegyvary said. “Sometimes it’s simply fun, sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s emotional or even spiritual.”
After moving to Seattle from Chicago to join the School of Nursing as dean in 1986, Hegyvary and her family were drawn to Eastern Washington as a place to rejuvenate in the gray months of Seattle’s winter.
“We wanted a ‘retreat’ and I wanted it to have good light and four seasons,” she said. “We looked for two years for land within two hours of Seattle, and the minute we walked on it, we said ‘this is it.'”
While exploring life as a landowner on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, Hegyvary became interested in understanding forest management and the impact that forest fires were having on the environment around them. Interviews and conversations with faculty from the UW’s College of Forest Resources, firefighters and staff at the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service gave Hegyvary and her family a deeper understanding of how to be responsible land owners and visitors in an area susceptible to the destruction of forest fires.
“We had no concept of forest management going into our experience,” she said. “You cannot buy a forest and simply let it be or you’ll lose it. There was a time when one could leave forest management to ‘mother nature,’ but let me tell you, she’s one tough mother.”
Hegyvary led the School of Nursing for twelve years as dean, from 1986 to 1998, when she stepped down after a serious car accident. She continues to teach courses in research methods and international health, both in nursing and global health. Although she did some creative writing as dean, she became especially interested in pursuing writing after returning to the faculty. She completed a certificate program in creative writing at Bellevue College in 2006, where she started work on her first novel, which tells the tale of an urban family’s experiences owning a cabin in the woods.
“My favorite part of the writing process is hatching an idea and putting words to it. I like finding a particular turn of phrase. I like writing in first person so readers can get inside the protagonists’ head and emotions,” said Hegyvary. “And, I love acceptance letters!”
While some would think that the challenges of being a land owner and being a faculty member are far from similar, Hegyvary thinks that there are ties that connect the many different aspects of her life. In a meeting with a forestry consultant, her family realized that you have to pay attention to both the individual trees and the health of an entire stand and ecosystem.
“The ah-ha was realizing a similarity between forests and the human populations,” said Hegyvary. “For all types of populations, we have to see both the forests and the trees.”
Hegyvary’s experiences as dean and as a faculty member at the UW have been especially important to her, as she continues to teach part time and mentor junior faculty in her department. While she has enjoyed both roles, she especially enjoys working with students and other faculty members.
“I like being creative, seeing the light come on in students’ eyes when they ace their thesis proposals,” she said. “I enjoy consulting with other faculty on their work and seeing them achieve major milestones. I’ve greatly appreciated having such great colleagues and friends.”
Hegyvary’s published creative writing has also included a poem “The Researcher,” published in a nursing magazine, a story in two editions of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and a chapter from her novel in progress, Cabin in the Woods, published in an anthology called New Voices 9.
For more information about Fire Season, please visit Hegvary’s Web site at http://sue-fireseason.blogspot.com. The chapbook is available after Aug. 28 at http://www.finishinglinepress.com.
