NEWS FROM THE CAMBRIDGE COMMON PRESS http://CambridgeCommonpress.com
HARRISBURG MEMOIR “THE VIEW FROM THIRD STREET” TO LAUNCH IN JUNE
Book by national journalist includes coverage of Hurricane Agnes and the Flood of 1972
May 4, 2022
—When 23-year-old Ani moved in with her boyfriend in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she had no idea that she’d soon be involved with an underground newspaper or a major political trial– or that she’d have to evacuate her home during a devastating flood.
But that’s what happened some 50 years ago, just before Watergate, and it’s how national journalist Anita M. Harris started her career.
Harris writes about those experiences in an unconventional new memoir called The View from Third Street: Ani and the Harrisburg Independent Press.
The book‘s title refers to the Harrisburg street on which the newspaper, HIP, was located, and to Harris’ younger self, “Ani,” from whose point of view the story is told.
The memoir highlights the challenges faced by a young woman at a time of tumult– when civil rights, feminism, and anti-Vietnam war activism clashed with the status quo. It will be published by Cambridge Common Press in June, 2022, in conjunction with Harrisburg’s commemoration of Hurricane Agnes and the 1972 flood.
The View from Third Street, which includes rarely seen photos and cartoons from the early 1970’s, is written primarily in third person. It braids together carefully researched stories of:
- Harris’ adventures covering Harrisburg for HIP
- The iconic Trial of the Harrisburg 7, in which a group of nuns and priests stood accused of conspiring to kidnap Presidential Advisor Henry Kissinger and blow up underground heating tunnels in Washington, DC.
- The devastating flood of 1972, caused by Hurricane Agnes, which left 122 people dead.
“I wrote The View from Third Street to show how individuals impact and are impacted by clashing forces of history,” Harris says, “and to show how the journalistic search for truth can make a difference. I hope the book will provide support and inspiration for a renewed quest for peace and freedom, today.”
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After her experiences in Harrisburg, author Anita M. Harris went on to report for Newsday, WRFM Radio, and MacNeil Lehrer (now the NewsHour) of PBS. After completing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, she taught journalism at Harvard, Yale and Simmons Universities and authored two non-fiction books: Broken Patterns: Professional Women and the Quest for a New Feminine Identity (WSU Press) and Ithaca Diaries (Cambridge Common Press). She is currently managing director of the Harris Communications Group, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Harris is available for interview and would welcome reviews. She can provide downloadable page-proofs of the book, pre-publication excerpts, or first person accounts and scanned photos of her experiences during the flood.
She notes with humor that the building at 1004. N. Third Street that housed HIP in the tumultuous early 1970s is now an ice cream shop called “Urban Churn.” And that although former Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp was her cousin, she is not related to Harrisburg’s 18th century founder, John Harris.
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Contact:
Anita Harris, Author/Publisher
Cambridge Common Press
Anita.M.Harris@harriscom.com
W. 617-576-0906