VCU news

Nancy Wright Beasley, author of “Izzy’s Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust,” will be the featured author at the Virginia Commonwealth University Fifth Annual Monroe Scholars Book and Author Luncheon at noon on April 15, at Willow Oaks Country Club, 6228 Forest Hill Ave.

“Izzy’s Fire” portrays the courage of a poor Catholic farm family who risked their lives to save 13 Lithuanian Jews during the Holocaust. As a result, the three family members were named “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem of the World Center for Holocaust Research in Jerusalem.

Beasley earned a Master of Science degree from what was then the VCU School of Mass Communications (now the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture in the College of Humanities and Sciences), where she taught from 2000 to 2003. She also earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in children’s literature at Hollins University.

Beasley began her journalistic career as a state correspondent for the Richmond News Leader (from 1979 to 1986) and later became a freelance writer. She served as a columnist and contributing editor for Richmond Magazine from 1998 to 2014.

Proceeds will benefit the VCU Alumni Monroe Scholars Book Award program, which provides $1,000 scholarships to high school students who meet the criteria of leadership and scholarship and who enroll at VCU. Tickets are $75 per person with $50 tax deductible. A table of 10 can be purchased for $700. Tickets are available at www.vcualumni.org/bookluncheon.  

Historical aspects of the Holocaust, as well as the background and story of “Izzy’s Fire,” are re-created through exhibits at the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond. For more information contact Diane Stout-Brown at dstout@vcu.edu.

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