University of Denver Autumn 2025

RELEASES

New Books and Music for the Fall Let these stories and sounds take you away.

Behold the Bird in Flight Terri Lewis (BA ’72)

Porthole Joanna Howard (PhD ’04, associate professor of literary arts and director of creative writing)

“Behold the Bird in Flight” is a coming-of-age story and a royal love triangle based on real events in medieval France and England. Terri Lewis imagines the life of Isabelle “Isi” d’Angoulême, a young girl who is betrothed consents to marry her, but only for her money. Hoping for his love, Isi flirts with England’s King John to make to Hugh de Lusignan, a French nobleman who

Hugh jealous. John, though, is so smitten that he abducts Isi and marries her. Now trapped in cold, warring England with a malicious husband, Isi must hide her yearning for Hugh and find her own power. If she fails, she won’t live to return to her beloved. “Behold the Bird in Flight” is set in a period that valued women only for their dowries and childbearing. Isabelle’s story has been mostly erased by men, but the medieval chronicles suggest she was a woman who developed her own power and wielded it.

The latest novel by Joanna Howard, “Porthole,” celebrates the art form of film and filmmaking, and the power dynamics involved. The story is told by Helena, a world renowned art-house director, who feels responsible for the on-set death of her latest muse, leading man and frequent bedmate Corey. Haunted by the accident, Helena unravels and is sent to a luxury retreat where fellow sufferers of psychic exhaustion ferry her to and from meals, rest activities, and spa experiences, all with hilarity and wit. “Porthole” is a portrait of an auteur at the peak of her powers and in the midst of an extravagant meltdown. Filled to the brim with champagne toasts, boathouse romps, brothels, yoga pants, Parisian hotels, dressing room hookups, and red-carpet faux pas, “Porthole” gifts us the world through the eye of the camera lens.

Where Does This Find You Adam Gang (MM ’24, adjunct faculty, Lamont School of Music) While working on his master’s degree in music performance, saxophonist Adam Gang began composing his latest jazz album with help from Lamont professors Remy Le Boeuf and Annie Booth on composition.

“I was just writing a lot of new music, and in August 2023, I got some of my good friends to record the album with me, to play the music. And it came out much better than I would have hoped for,” Gang says. “Where Does This Find You” is an eclectic mix of songs heavily influenced by Middle Eastern music.

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UNIVERSITY OF DENVER MAGAZINE | AUTUMN 2025