Mary Cappello '82, professor of English at the University of Rhode Island , published Awkward: A Detour with Bellevue Literary Press. The book-length essay was released June 1, and early reviews have been positive.

Susan Salter Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times wrote in her review of the book: "FINALLY, there is a study of awkwardness in all its many forms: speech, touch, breathing in public, clumsiness. Author Mary Cappello writes of situational awkwardness; of immigration and its attendant awkwardness; of how it pops up between family members, even nations; and of the important place it has assumed in the lives of creative people (Emily Dickinson, Henry James and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, to name a few)."

Awkward: A Detour delves into the ways in which awkwardness affects the fabric of everyday life. In the book, Cappello explores manifestations of displacement, awkwardness and society's obsession with adjustment and fitting in, which was inspired by her 2001-02 experience abroad in Russia and Italy.

Cappello was teaching for the fall 2001 semester at the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow under a Fulbright fellowship during the events of September 11th and spent her spring and summer semesters in Italy and Sicily. Faced with re-adjusting to life in a post-9/11 United States , Cappello experienced an awkwardness related to national and global displacement. From this, she expanded her thoughts to explore the nature of awkwardness and decided to write a book on her ponderings.

The work contemplates examples of awkwardness like Sen. John Kerry's awkwardness during his 2004 presidential campaign, the awkwardness of "finding a death certificate of a loved one in a drawer filled with insignificant files," the awkward experience of dissecting at frog at 10 years old, and many other events both minute and broad that play important roles in our social history.

C. Schwennsen of The Elliott Bay Book Company Review of Books noted that "Cappello sees this glitch [of being awkward] as the rule, not the exception," and that her work has achieved "awkwardness's opposite: grace."

Cappello's work indeed embraces awkwardness, claiming that "what's awkward about anyone is also what is beautiful about them." She also declares that "the degree of awkwardness you can tolerate may tell you just how much you can love—other people, living, the world."

Cappello graduated from Dickinson with both a teaching certificate and a B.A. in English and was a founder of the Arts Haus. She insists that "Dickinson had a hugely formative influence on me as a writer, as I had the good fortune to work with outstanding professors, not only in the English department, but in languages, in art history, and in other disciplines."

She is also the author of Night Bloom: A Memoir and Appearances: Scenes from a Queer Friendship , as well as various works of poetry, prose and literary nonfiction.

More information about her work and Awkward: A Detour can be found at her Web site www.awkwardness.org.

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