Alumni Updates

Gillian Flynn ’97 MS

Gone Girl, a film based on the critically acclaimed novel by Gillian Flynn, opened this year’s New York Film Festival in September before hitting theaters in October. It was Flynn’s screenwriting debut. A film based on her second novel, Dark Places, is scheduled for 2015. Flynn’s debut novel, Sharp Objects, is being developed for the small screen as a one-hour serialized drama, which she will executive produce. She is also collaborating with Gone Girl director David Fincher on a remake of Utopia, the critically acclaimed British conspiracy thriller series, for HBO. (See “Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl,” spring 2013.)

Kevin Sites ’89 MS

Longtime war reporter Kevin Sites wrote Swimming with Warlords: A Dozen-Year Journey Across the Afghan War (Harper Perennial, 2014). Sites retraces the path of his 2001 journey through Afghanistan as an NBC News reporter to explore what has changed since the U.S. intervention. Sites recently returned from Iraq, where he reported on the advancement of the Islamic State group for Vice. He is an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. (See “War Stories,” summer 2013.)

Sal Manna ’76

Sal Manna and his trusty canine, Yankee, made the Australian Shepherd Club of America finals in Greeley, Colo., in 2013 for herding sheep. They placed fifth in the finals for herding ducks. The native New Yorker and former freelance journalist took up sheepherding on the outskirts of Los Angeles more than a decade ago. (See “Good Shepherd,” winter 2009.) He recently co-wrote Olives in California’s Gold Country (Arcadia Press, 2014), his third book on California history for the “Images of America” series. 

Sal Manna and his dog Yankee

Dave Eanet ’77

Northwestern Athletics named the Ryan Field radio booth in honor of longtime WGN Radio sports announcer Dave Eanet (see “Mr. ’Cat Enters Hall,” Sports, summer 2005). In August he kicked off his 25th season as the voice of Northwestern football. He has also been the play-by-play announcer for Wildcat men’s basketball since 1996. Eanet, WGN Radio’s sports director, was named the Illinois Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association in 2011. He lives in Deerfield, Ill.

Ben Knight ’98

Ben Knight and his chef wife, Vivian Howard, won a Peabody Award for their PBS series, A Chef’s Life. The half-hour reality show follows the life of the couple, who left New York City in 2005 to open Chef & the Farmer, a farm-to-fork restaurant in Kinston, a small town in eastern North Carolina. The second season premiered this fall, and filming for the third season is nearly complete. Knight and Howard, parents of 3-year-old twins, recently opened a second restaurant, Boiler Room. Howard is also slated to produce two cookbooks for Little, Brown and Co. The first, Deep Run Roots: Ingredients from My Corner of North Carolina, is due out in 2015. (See “Ben Knight: Food for Thought,” fall 2013.)

Aarti Sequeira ’00

The flavors of Aarti Sequeira’s foodie roots — her childhood in Dubai, her Indian heritage and her culinary coming-of-age in California — are on display in her first cookbook,  Aarti Paarti: An American Kitchen with an Indian Soul (Grand Central, 2014). Sequeira, a former CNN producer, is host of Taste in Translation on the Cooking Channel. She also runs the “Aarti Paarti” food blog. Sequeira (see “Aarti Sequeira: Party with Aarti,” winter 2010) and her husband, actor Brendan McNamara ’00, live in Los Angeles with their daughter, Eliyah.