FGCC is proud to celebrate the many creative and talented alumni, faculty, and retirees of Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges and invite you to join us in supporting our FGCC family by indulging in a book or other written piece of work.
And, if you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, you're also helping to support our Grossmont and Cuyamaca College students get to the next chapter of their lives.
Know of an alum or faculty member that has a published book or work available to read? Tell us about it! Email foundation@gcccd.edu.
All We Buried: A Sheriff Bet Rivers Mystery
Elena Taylor - Grossmont College Alum
Interim sheriff Elizabeth "Bet" Rivers who has always had one repeat nightmare: a shadowy figure throwing a suspicious object into her hometown lake in Collier, Washington. For the longest time, she chalked it up to an overactive imagination as a kid. Then the report arrives. In the woods of the Cascade mountain range, right in her jurisdiction, a body floats to the surface of Lake Collier. When the body is extricated and revealed, no one can identify Jane Doe. But someone must know the woman, so why aren't they coming forward?
Bodies of Water
Tammy Greenwood - Former Grossmont College Instructor
In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband’s demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.
Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The relationship that deepens between the two women offers a solace Billie has never known, until their secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.
Fifty years later, Ted and Eva’s son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers. Bodies of Water was a finalist for a 2013 Lambda Award.
Coordinating Chaos
Alicia Gibson - Grossmont College Instructor and Alum
Momlife is wacky. Between the kids, work, house work, school work, sports, activities.... having a feeling of overwhelm is inevitable. We look at the moms around us and feel inadequate. We see the pictures on social media and feel like everyone else 'gets it'. So what is wrong with us? The answer is - nothing!! Everything that you need to rock the mom life is in you right now - and with a little perspective and some strategies in your big mom purse, you can knock that overwhelm right out.
Ghosts of El Grullo
Patricia Santana - Former Cuyamaca College Instructor
Having left her much-loved San Diego barrio, Yolanda Sahagún is now living in the university dorms when a series of events--her mother dies and her father sells their home--forces her to re-examine her life. Yolanda visits her parents' hometown of El Grullo, Mexico, struggling to understand the ghosts in her life--her mother, her father, and her seemingly idyllic childhood. She fears losing herself in the disintegration of the family. For Yolanda, her father is her enemy (or so she thinks), and in the course of the novel we see him at his best and worst, and we see Yolanda at her best and worst.
This is a story of Yolanda's initiation into womanhood and about her fierce struggle to make sure her family does not dissolve. Family and sexual politics; love, death, and abandonment; the struggle to resolve a personal identity in the context of a shattered, first-generation immigrant American family--these are the hugely painful obstructions Yolanda must surmount or incorporate into her own being as she makes her life's journey.
Longhorns, Silver and Liquid Gold
Tom Scanlan - Retired Grossmont College Professor
This well-documented account of pioneering in Texas and New Mexico during those states' formative years focuses on just a single family. However, their story likely parallels the lives of many families that migrated from the eastern states to the still untamed Southwest at this time in our history. The Irvin family's story spans over one-hundred years, almost equally divided between their adventures in the hill country of west-central Texas, and in the rugged southwestern and northwestern corners of New Mexico. From the early 1840's to the late 1950's, four generations of Irvins tried their hand at cattle ranching, silver mining, land speculation, and drilling for gas and oil. Through good times and bad, this family persevered, just one family of many that helped settle these two great states.
Murder of a Mafia Daughter
Cathy Scott - Grossmont College Alum
Susan Berman grew up in Las Vegas luxury as the daughter of Davie Berman, casino mogul and notorious mafia leader. After her father died she learned about his mob connections. Susan then dedicated her life to learning about Vegas and its underworld chiefs. Her life took a bizarre turn in l982 when Kathie Durst—the wife of her good friend, Robert Durst, mysteriously disappeared. Durst was a prime suspect but the case was never solved. After the Kathie Durst case was reopened, the DA was about to question Susan Berman about what she knew regarding a phone call Kathie supposedly made to her medical school dean saying she was sick and wouldn’t be at school. The call was placed the day after she had vanished. Soon after the Kathie Durst case was reopened, Susan Berman was found dead, shot in the back of head. No forced entry, no robbery, nothing missing from her home.
The Falling Woman: A Novel
Rich Farrell - Grossmont College Instructor
First, it’s just a barely believable rumor: one person may have survived the midair explosion of a passenger jet on a cross-country course from Washington, DC to San Francisco. But soon she becomes a national media sensation when “the Falling Woman,” as the press dubs her, is said to have been taken to a Wichita hospital—and then to have disappeared without a trace.
As a dedicated National Transportation Safety Board agent joins the search for clues, he becomes drawn into the woman’s moving and personal fight to keep secret the story of her survival, even from her own family, and possibly at risk to his own career. The Falling Woman is a novel that asks questions about the value of life and what should be sacrificed in the name of love.
The Flight
Clair Runyan - Former Grossmont College Instructor
When a brilliant young doctor who has just discovered the miracle cure for cancer is caught during World War II and imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp, the dying President Roosevelt launches a top-secret mission to rescue him.
Why My Cup? How I Overcame Growing Up in a Crack House
Uhmbaya Laury - Grossmont College Alum
“Disobedient li'l children's better off dead,” Uhmbaya’s mother says whenever Uhmbaya ‘talks back’ about how crack cocaine is ruining their family. Mama says she’s quoting the Bible, and Uhmbaya’s scared to defy her. But ever since drug dealers moved into their southeast San Diego apartment complex, Mama and the rest of the family have been on a downward spiral of addiction, and Uhmbaya knows she has to speak up. It’s a lot for a 10-year-old girl to handle, but she just has to try.