Mindy Nichols Wendel

Mindy Nichols Wendell, a longtime writing instructor at SUNY Fredonia, has released a novel titled “Light and Air.”

Holiday House published the book earlier this year. The novel “deals tenderly and insightfully with isolation, quarantine, found family, and illness,” according to a promotional press release.

The novel revolves around a little girl, Halle, and her mother who are diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1930s upstate New York. They are sent to J.N. Adam Tuberculosis Hospital in Perrysburg, and it “is a closed and quiet place. But it is not, Halle learns, a prison. Free of her worried and difficult father for the first time in her life, she slowly discovers joy, family, and the healing power of honey on the children’s ward, where the girls on the floor become her confidantes and sisters. But when Mama suffers a lung hemorrhage, their entire future – and recovery — is thrown into question. But when Mama suffers a lung hemorrhage, their entire future – and recovery — is thrown into question.”

Wendell served as director of the Composition Program at SUNY Fredonia for many years. She received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019.

She and her husband, Steve, live not far from the ruins of the J.N. Adam hospital, which is the inspiration for “Light and Air.”