On October 9, members of the Class of 2029 swung into classroom 18 in Founders Hall to spend the evening talking books and writing with author Kenneth Cadow. Cadow, who visited St. Andrew’s students virtually, wrote Gather, the III Form summer all-read. A National Book Award Finalist in Young People’s Literature, Gather is a coming-of-age novel set in rural Vermont. Through the lens of teenaged protagonist Ian, the book tackles homelessness, addiction, resilience, hope, and sense of place, a narrative blend that appealed to Harrison Rowland ’29 and his own sense of place.

“Gather was a thought-provoking book that I felt was especially meaningful for freshmen as we’re all facing the challenges of being in a new place together,” says Rowland, who opted into the conversation out of a curiosity about the creative process that powered the novel. “The story taught me the importance of resilience and hard work, which I found relatable and inspiring.”

“Gather fit the level of difficulty for incoming students, yet it also yielded plenty for us to discuss and reexamine when classes started,” says Stuart Chair in English Gretchen Hurtt ’90. “The book's main character, a young person determined to hold onto his home and his identity, has a strong and memorable voice. The depictions of connections to the people around him, and the setting around him, are compelling and fit with students coming to our campus and setting up new lives. We had good conversations about the book—it was a good way to start the year around the seminar table.” 

At the talk, Cadow told students Gather was a work two decades in the making. “Phase one started when I was collecting stories in hunting camps [in Vermont], places where the tradition of oral storytelling still exists,” he said. Years later, Cadow said, his main character, Ian, “ran” onto the page. “That moment still gives me goosebumps. From that point on, after I met Ian, I wrote like wild. The more real Ian became, the more I stopped writing for an audience and wrote instead because he urgently needed to tell his story.”

Along the way, Cadow noted the best advice he got was to “get out of your own way.”

“That really resonated with me,” says Rowland. “Mr. Cadow advised us to leave judgement behind and keep our fingers off the backspace key. I believe that implementing this in my own writing will help me express more of my thoughts and ideas.”

Marlowe Richman ’29 found the advice applicable, too. “As someone who is a perfectionist in writing, I needed to hear that,” she says. A lover of books who looks forward to the reading curriculum in the English department, Richman enjoyed looking beneath the surface of Gather to find themes with which she could connect.

“Mr. Cadow talked about the danger of labeling people,” she says. “I think that’s something really important to keep in mind, especially as freshman who are meeting so many new people from different places.” To wit, around the table that evening were first-year students from Virginia, Delaware, Georgia, South Korea, New York, and beyond.

The event wasn’t mandatory, but Richman says she felt strongly about attending, partly due to the gratitude she felt after reading Gather. “I'm into writing, so I wanted to hear from an actual author. I also really liked the book and learned a lot,” she says. “But really, reading Gather made me so grateful for what I have, and the fact that I'm here at St. Andrew's. We have these opportunities that probably the main character in the book wouldn’t have in his rural public high school. We had this rare opportunity, and I wanted to take advantage of it.”