February 15, 2019
WCBS News Anchor Mary Calvi is a nine-time Emmy Award winner widely recognized for her aggressive pursuit of high-profile news stories, including two terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the 2009 emergency landing of a commercial airliner on the Hudson River.
But when the day arrived to start writing her debut historical novel, Dear George, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington’s First Love, which St. Martin’s Press is scheduled to release February 19, Ms. Calvi took pause.
“It was intimidating. My decision to write a novel was completely unexpected. I am such an accidental author that it does not even make sense,” said Ms. Calvi, prompting laughter from a crowd of journalism students who gathered Tuesday, February 5, in St. John’s University’s College of Professional Studies (CPS) on the Queens, NY, campus for the introduction of “The Journalist Series,” with Ms. Calvi as the inaugural guest speaker.
The Journalist Series offers a chance for students interested in journalism careers to interface with industry professionals who are invited to St. John’s to share their experiences and challenges as reporters, editors, anchors, videographers, and others in the field.
“These events are great opportunities for students to ask questions, learn from, and network with professional journalists. Journalism has many different platforms and there are still viable, traditional ones like newspapers and television news, as well as new ones online and in social media,” said Michael A. Rizzo, the series creator, Assistant Professor, and Director of the Journalism program at CPS. “We want students to hear from those on the front lines of modern journalism who can tell them how they present their stories to news consumers in all media.”
Ms. Calvi, who is coanchor of CBS2 This Morning and CBS2 News at Noon on WCBS-TV in New York City, strongly encouraged her audience to delve into topics they know little to nothing about, a situation journalists routinely face in the course of their day-to-day job responsibilities. “Go into territory that may not be in your comfort zone, especially if you are preparing to enter the journalism field, because it really helps you to branch out and learn something absolutely new.”
“Keep an open mind, because you really never know where your career will lead you in terms of what you cover, or even whether you get into print or broadcast or online journalism,” Ms. Calvi said, adding she was aiming for a career in newspaper journalism as a student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where she graduated magna cum laude, until a professor inspired her to explore broadcast journalism.
Another encounter with uncharted territory for Ms. Calvi occurred with the research and writing of her historical novel. “We journalists are always looking for untold stories to tell, and this story just hit me over the head,” she said.
Dear George, Dear Mary focuses on the little-known, ill-fated, romantic relationship between George Washington, when he was a promising, 24-year-old Virginia colonel, and Mary Eliza Philipse, a New York heiress, who at that time was the wealthiest single woman in Colonial America.
A native of Yonkers, NY, who lives there now with her three children and her husband, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, Ms. Calvi said she was led to the Washington-Philipse courtship when she was helping her husband prepare for his re-election inauguration, set to take place at the Philipse Manor Hall, formerly the Yonkers City Hall and the birthplace of Mary Philipse.
“I asked my husband, ‘Isn’t there a local legend that George Washington once courted the woman who lived here?,’” she recalled. “I began asking around, but no one could substantiate it or say for sure that it was just urban legend.”
But once she read a passage by famed historian Henry Cabot Lodge in his biography of Washington that he ‘fell in love, apparently on short notice, with heiress Mary Philipse,’ she became deeply intrigued. “I had no idea. So, of course I kept asking questions, employing many of the journalistic tools involved in research, interviewing, and information gathering all of you students are learning to do now.”
During several years of research, which led her to the New York Public Library and other institutions throughout New York and Washington, DC, as well as at Harvard University, Ms. Calvi culled thousands of archived letters, including some penned by Washington himself, witness accounts, journal entries, documents, and published articles written about the Washington-Philipse relationship. Her original plan was to create a historically-based documentary or television special.
“I wanted to write this as a nonfiction story, but the publishers wanted me to write it as a novel,” Ms. Calvi said. “That was a great opportunity because I knew nothing about the publishing industry and I knew nothing about writing a novel, or how to write a book proposal, which is what publishers require when you want to submit a fictional work. I just knew how to write news stories as a reporter. So, this was quite intensive, because I had to be a quick study at developing characters and plots.”
“I wrote pretty much every day, whenever I could, for three and a half years,” she added. “And it was really exciting to do something different.”
Ms. Calvi also shared with students her overall approach to her journalism career: hard work, including a willingness to work long shifts that include nights and weekends. She said she wakes up daily at 2:30 a.m. to be at her job by 4:30 a.m.
Despite the potential for accruing lengthy work shifts at odd hours, she counseled, the students should truly savor their professional journeys. “Do not think you have to get everything done within a year or, otherwise, success for you is never going to happen,” Ms. Calvi said. “Get into your career and really enjoy it, no matter what it is, even if you are working at a tiny newspaper that is down the street from where you live.”
“Just know that it really takes a marathon and not a sprint—that is how it went for me,” said Ms. Calvi, who noted her first professional job was as a freelance news reporter for a “very small” radio station in rural New York, working her way to television broadcasting and a stint as anchor and assistant news director at News 12 Westchester, before her arrival at WCBS-TV in 2002.
Ms. Calvi’s advice especially resonated with Gina Varvaro, a Journalism major in her third year at St. John’s. “As a college student, I often worry about the future and ‘making it,’” Gina said. “Mary Calvi proves that it is possible to work at a very small news station and eventually be on a huge network. I am very impressed with her dedication and work ethic.”