Kent School News

Kent Hockey - A Century of Pride and Tradition

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:41:41 -0000

A Recently-Published History of Kent Hockey

Dedication of Don Gowan '66 Court

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:16:02 -0000

Story and video from the Don Gowan '66 Court Dedication on 14 January 2012.

Sean Durkin '00 -- A Filmmaker on the Rise

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:54:51 -0000

It’s been quite a year for Sean Durkin ’00. In January 2011 he won the Best Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival for his film Martha Marcy May Marlene. Following this achievement, his film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in May. And now it’s set to be released by Fox Searchlight on October 21st. Written and directed by Durkin, the film is a psychological thriller starring Elizabeth Olsen as a young woman who struggles to reclaim her former life after fleeing a cult. The cult leader is played by John Hawkes, who was nominated for an Oscar last year for his performance in Winter’s Bone.

Martha Marcy May Marlene, Durkin’s first feature-length script, was produced by Borderline Films, a company he co-founded with a fellow NYU film school graduate in 2003. Durkin and his partners have written, directed and produced a number of award-winning films, including Buy it Now, which won the student film competition at Cannes in 2005. Sean Durkin is definitely a name to watch in the film world!

John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen in
Martha Marcy May Marlene

Joseph Brothers in the NFL

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:05:41 -0000

Elisha “Eli” and Elijah Joseph ’07 were signed recently as free agents by the Green Bay Packers. The twin brothers graduated in June from Temple University, where Eli played nose tackle and Elijah linebacker for the Temple Owls. At Kent, Elijah was the co-recipient of the Mitchell Trophy for the MVP of the football team. At Temple, Eli also earned academic honors as a member of the 2011 National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame's Hampshire Honor Society. Congratulations Eli and Elijah!

Read the article about the Joseph brothers in The Hartford Courant.

Amanda Eyre Ward '90 Publishes Novel

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:29:03 -0000

Amanda Eyre Ward ’90 recently published her fifth work, Close Your Eyes, a novel described as “electrifying, a literary whodunit of the first order – breathless and disturbing and hopeful and true.” The idea for the novel stemmed from an incident that occurred during Amanda's youth -- a brutal murder near her home town of Rye, New York. “I think, in writing the book, I wanted …. to create a world where this wrong was righted, and a broken town was sewn back together. I wanted to imagine a town that was loving and safe, a place that might never have existed in real life.” Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah's Key, wrote, “I absolutely loved this beautiful, haunting story...This is the kind of book that hooks you right in, brings tears to your eyes, and ends on a note of shining hope.”

Amanda's earlier works include How to Be Lost, Sleep Toward Heaven, Forgive Me and Love Stories in This Town. Her novel Sleep Toward Heaven won the Violet Crown Book Award sponsored by the Writers’ League of Texas and was optioned for film by Sandra Bullock and Fox Searchlight.

After Amanda graduated from Kent, where she was an editor of the Kent News, she earned her bachelor's degree from Williams College and her MFA in fiction writing from the University of Montana. Amanda currently lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two sons.

Visit Amanda's website and listen to her talk about Close Your Eyes on radio station KUT in Austin, Texas.