Who We Are

Evander Lomke is the co-author of Right Off the Bat: Baseball, Cricket, Literature, and Life (on which this blog is based). He worked in publishing for over thirty years, wherein he edited 1,200 books, including the groundbreaking single-volume Encyclopedia of American Literature as well as two by recent U.S. Presidents. Since 2005 he is executive director, since 2008 also president, of the American Mental Health Foundation, which, among its philanthropic programs, publishes Erich Fromm, Stefan de Schill, works on posttraumatic stress disorder as well as issues of psychology for professionals and general readers. A lifelong Yankees fan, it’s only right that he lives in the Bronx, New York.

Martin Rowe is the co-author of Right Off the Bat: Baseball, Cricket, Literature, and Life (on which this blog is based). He is the co-founder of Lantern, a book publishing and media company, and author of a novel, Nicaea: A Book of Correspondences. He has published many books, including The Polar Bear in the Zoo: A Speculation and The Elephants in the Room: An Excavation. He is also the editor of two nonfiction anthologies, The Way of Compassion: Vegetarianism, Environmentalism, Animal Advocacy, and Social Justice, and Running, Eating, Thinking: A Vegan Anthology. A supporter of the England cricket team, he co-hosts a literary salon in Brooklyn, called (imaginatively) “The Salon.” He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

William van Ornum, guest blogger, is a Chicago Cubs fan. He was president of the Cal Koonce Fan Club in the mid-1960s, leading the club on yearly trips to Wrigley Field where members enjoyed front-row right-field bleacher seats (obtained at the time for $1.25 each). Later, he helped pay school expenses while driving loads of fans from Wrigley down West Addison Street as a CTA bus operator. One of his first jobs was working for Pete Marcantonio, head groundskeeper at Wrigley, where he was issued a big burlap sack before summer games and went on the field, picking up all those discarded Hamm’s Beer cups. He teaches at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and is director of research and development of the American Mental Health Foundation.