Amy Hackney Blackwell '91 and Christopher Blackwell Ph.D. '95
With three advanced degrees between them,
Amy Hackney Blackwell and Christopher Blackwell are anything but
dummies--they just write for them.
The Greenville, South Carolina, couple two years ago churned out
Mythology for Dummies in about four months to provide a basic overview
of the role myths have played through the centuries in explaining
life. The 384-page book focuses on Greek and Roman gods and heroes
but also covers myths of Native Americans and peoples of Scandinavia
and Asia. It has sold so well that it has been translated into
Spanish and Dutch and will soon be available in German and Russian
editions.
"We didn't want this to be goofy stories about cultures that
didn't have meteorology," says Chris Blackwell, an associate
professor who chairs the classics department at Furman University. "We
wanted stories to teach something about people, to show that myths
can exist alongside of rational explanations."
He was offered the assignment in 2001 after a colleague declined
an offer by Hungry Minds Inc. to write a Latin entry in the publisher's "Dummies" series
of books. Blackwell says, initially, he wasn't interested because
of his hefty teaching load, but his wife was looking for freelance-writing
assignments after having given birth to the couple's second child
that spring. And so, they took on the assignment as a team.
"I don't know anyone who knows all mythology, so we did it
with an eye toward what we already know," says Amy Blackwell,
who had learned about Japanese myths during a two-year stint teaching
English there after leaving Duke. She also holds a master's in
history from Vanderbilt University and a law degree from the University
of Virginia.
After putting the children to bed each night, the Blackwells would
stay up until midnight doing research and putting together one
chapter after another. "Amy's job was to rein me in, because
I would write so many pages on Homer or some other topic," says
Chris Blackwell, whose doctorate is in classical studies. "We
tried to keep it close to our research sources while making it
easy to read and understand."
Still, the authors sheepishly admit that a few errors made it through
the editing process and into print. "That's to be expected
when you write a book in four months, but that doesn't diminish
the value of the scholarly research that went into it," Amy
Blackwell says.
The book has made the couple minor celebrities on Australian talk
radio, where they are routinely invited to speak on late-night
call-in shows; it's midday in South Carolina when they answer questions
from curious Aussies about religion and mythology.
The book has also boosted Amy Blackwell's career by helping her
retain an agent and land other writing jobs. She has since published
a book on Irish history and now is putting her law degree to work
by writing a law dictionary for the Barnes & Noble bookstore
chain.
Chris Blackwell, who earned his bachelor's at Marlboro College,
says that being associated with a "Dummies" book hasn't
hurt his professional standing, either, noting that he was promoted
and granted tenure shortly after the book was published. "The
colleagues whose opinions I care about all thought it was a hoot," he
says, adding that he asks his faculty critics how many books they
have published in five languages.
"It's the responsibility of scholars not only to advance knowledge
but to make it relevant to the general public," he says. "We
need to get people interested in our fields, or no one is going
to care about what we do anymore."
--Matthew Burns
Burns is a freelance writer based in Raleigh. |
