March 22, 2019
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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.