Sen. Edward Kennedy gets the writing credit in the Hachette Book Group’s blurb for his upcoming memoir, True Compass. But search a little deeper in the publisher’s website, and you find that the 47-year veteran of the U.S. Senate “worked closely on this book” with Vermont author Ron Powers. Powers coauthored the number-one bestselling Flags of our Fathers (2000) and was a finalist fr the National Book Critics Circle Award for his bio Mark Twain: A Life.

This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2009.

Pamela Polston is a contributing arts and culture writer and editor. She cofounded Seven Days in 1995 with Paula Routly and served as arts editor, associate publisher and writer. Her distinctive arts journalism earned numerous awards from the Vermont Press Association, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the New England Newspaper & Press Association. Pamela was inducted into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2015. In 2021, the Vermont Arts Council presented her with the Walter Cerf...