Primary Sources

While teaching her students about writing, Alyssa Salsberg Canelli 15PhD has sent them to Emory’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) to explore the Salman Rushdie collection. There they see stacks of his drafts and revisions, and they begin to understand a basic truth.

“One of the most difficult things to teach in a writing classroom is the simple fact that all writers, whether they are students or famous writers, must go through a long, sometimes frustrating, and often messy writing process,” Canelli wrote in an essay for MARBL’s “Writers” exhibition in late 2012.

Canelli teaches English and linguistics to Emory undergraduates. A doctoral student who is doing a comparative study of nineteenth-century American and twentieth-century South African literature, she is the first graduate fellow to benefit from the Anne and Bill Newton Endowment for Emory Libraries.

Created by Bill Newton 75C 76G and Anne Newton 76G to support Emory graduate students who conduct research in MARBL, the Newton endowment provides a stipend for one nine-month fellowship each year. It’s funded by annual gifts and a match from The Coca-Cola Company, where Bill Newton was a senior officer.

Now retired, he represents Emory Libraries on the Emory Alumni Board. The Newtons are members of Emory’s Wise Heart Society, which means they make leadership-level annual gifts to the university.