Marjorie Herrera Lewis, adjunct professor of media ethics in the media arts department, was inspired to write her new novel when she got an allergy shot.

Lewis, a former sportswriter with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News, wore a T-shirt with a football printed on it while nurse Jean VanWaters gave the shot. VanWaters told Lewis about her grand-aunt Tylene Wilson, who coached a football team in Brownwood during World War II. When the Men Were Gone (Harper Collins) is a fictionalized account of Wilson's story.

"I wanted to memorialize what Tylene had done during such a difficult time in our country's history," Lewis says.