Ghosts of Cuba

Publisher: Green Place Books

Two weeks after purchasing their plane tickets and against the back drop of President Donald Trump’s re-instated restrictions on travel to Cuba, MacLean and Shanta Lee Gander prepared for their first month-long visit to Cuba in December 2017. Initially started as dispatches for a local Vermont blog, their experiences shifted into something neither of them expected.

Ghosts of Cuba invites the reader to experience their month-long adventures through race, sexuality, politics in Cuba alongside the ghosts that exist against the backdrop of a culture and country. How is their experience colored by their interracial marriage amidst an intense and tumultuous time in America? Ghost of Cuba is a conversation between husband and wife, an interplay of their reflections, and the stories of their experiences.

MacLean Gander is a professor of English and Journalism at Landmark College, where he has worked in various roles for thirty years and teaches courses in journalism, education, and creative writing. Before joining Landmark, he worked as a researcher, reporter, and writer for Newsweek in Manhattan and then as a free-lance journalist in Manila during the 1986 revolution. He studied writing at Harvard with Seamus Heaney and Robert Fitzgerald, and with George Starbuck at Boston University, where he was a Hoyt Fellow in Creative Writing in 1981. His first collection of poems, The New City, was published by 21st Editions in 2007.

Shanta Lee Gander is an artist and multi-faceted professional in leadership, marketing, management, event planning, and other areas. As an artist, her endeavors incorporate writing prose, poetry, and articles, as well as photography. She currently serves as a Brattleboro Selectboard member and sits on the Sandglass Theater board.  Her writing has been featured in Rebelle Society, on the Ms. Magazine Blog, and in VOICES, a mixed-media show that she has co-created with her husband.  Shanta Lee serves on the Leadership Committee of the Peoples, Places, and the History of Words project, an effort that is a part of an 3.5 year grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Her contribution includes leading a research pod about the life of Lucy Terry Prince ( America’s first known African American poet)  and creating podcasts for a larger walking tour.   Shanta Lee is currently completing her MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.