Writers Available for Book Club
Appearances
Courtesy of DC Women Writers
I belong to a fabulous and generous networking group of
women writers in the DC/Baltimore area, and writer Kathy Flann had the brilliant idea
of putting together a list of area writers who are willing to visit book clubs
and talk about their writing/book/life/etc. Speaking for myself, I enjoy
meeting with readers and listening to their insights about my book—always hearing
something new that I hadn’t considered!—so if you are in a book club and have
pondered inviting a writer, I say, DO IT! And please start here…these are
wonderful writers, wonderful people, and wonderful books!
Contact information is provided, though in some cases you
may have to get the email address through the author’s website.
And please check back periodically—I plan to update this
list from time to time.
*SANDRA BEASLEY
COUNT THE WAVES (W.W. Norton)
The third collection from an award-winning poet, examining
the ways intimacy is both lost and gained over long distances. Available in
paperback this winter.
DON’T KILL THE BIRTHDAY GIRL: TALES FROM AN ALLERGIC (Crown,
2011)
A funny, conversational memoir that doubles as a cultural
history of food allergies, weaving in research from science and medicine.
Available in paperback now.
Sandrabeasley AT earthlink DOT net
www sandrabeasley DOT com
*JESSICA ANYA BLAU
THE TROUBLE WITH LEXIE (HarperCollins)
The perfect cocktail of naughtiness, heart, adventure and
humor, The Trouble with Lexie is a
wild and poignant story of the choices we make to outrun our childhoods—and the
choices we have to make to outrun our entangled adult lives.
Jessicaanyablau AT mac DOT com
www jessicaanyablau DOT com
*JODY BOLZ
SHADOW PLAY (Turning Point Books)
Hypnotic and provocative by turns, this novella-in-verse
retraces a journey across Asia in search of the marriage that faltered in its
wake. Part love poem, part elegy, the book enacts the conflict between memory
and estrangement. In his introduction, novelist Vikram Chandra calls it
"an incarnation of the ineluctable passage of time itself."
jodybolz AT aol DOT com
*LISA COUTURIER
THE
HOPES OF SNAKES (Beacon Press)
An essay collection, with a rare
endorsement by poet Mary Oliver, that celebrates the forgotten lives of animals
and women in the northeast. Described as "full of rapture, mystery, and
surprise . . . a keeper, a teacher . . . "
ANIMALS/BODIES (Finishing Line Press)
ANIMALS/BODIES (Finishing Line Press)
A poetry chapbook with poems about
women, birth, and animals. Awarded the 2015 Chapbook Award from the New England
Poetry Society founded by Robert Frost.
LCouturier AT me DOT com
www lisacouturier DOT com
*SOLVEIG
EGGERZ
SEAL
WOMAN
The story of a German woman contracted
to work on a farm in Iceland shortly after WW II but who cannot let go of those
she lost during the war. Based on a documented migration.
solegg24 AT gmail DOT com
www solveigeggerz DOT com
*SUE EISENFELD (DMV area only; unable to travel to
Baltimore)
SHENANDOAH: A STORY OF CONSERVATION AND BETRAYAL
A hiking journey through the history of the lost communities of
Shenandoah National Park in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains (literary
nonfiction).
www sueeisenfeld DOT com
*KATHY
FLANN
GET
A GRIP (Winner of the George Garrett Award, Texas
Review Press)
In this
collection of short stories, we meet Estonian brothers trekking from their
blighted neighborhood to a college interview, a TV meteorite hunter in town to
search for otherworldly treasure, and other colorful Baltimore
characters. Named a Best Book by Baltimore Magazine and Baltimore
City Paper. Winner of National Indie Excellence Award and International
Book Award. Writer grew up in NoVa.
kathyflann
AT yahoo DOT com
www kathyflann
DOT com
*PAMELA
GERHARDT
LUCKY
THAT WAY
(Oct. 2013, University of Missouri Press)
Lucky
That Way won the American Society of
Journalists and Authors 2014 Outstanding Book Prize. Gerhardt is also a
frequent contributor to The Washington
Post.
gerhardt AT umd DOT edu
http:// pamelagerhardt DOT com
*GARINE ISASSI
START WITH A BACKBEAT:
A MUSICAL NOVEL
This humorous novel is set in 1989's New York music scene.
Jill and her mostly middle class co-workers at Mega Big Record Label are tasked
with finding the next big 'gangsta' rapper. They fluctuate between alliances
and rivalries, tripping over the stereotypes of race, class, and musical genre.
Garine AT rocketmail DOT com
*LYNN
KANTER
HER
OWN VIETNAM (Shade Mountain Press)
A nurse who served in Vietnam must make
peace with her history on the eve of the war in Iraq.
lynnkanter AT gmail DOT com
lynnkanter AT gmail DOT com
https:// lynnkanter DOT com
*JOANNE
LEEDOM-ACKERMAN
THE
DARK PATH TO THE RIVER [originally published
by Saybrook/Norton and reissued by the Author's Guild Backinprint series]
A political thriller about strong-minded women and men, The
Dark Path to the River tells a love story that moves between Wall Street and
Africa. Barbara Kingsolver
has said, "Well-written, thematically rich. I fell in love with the
characters. I didn't want the pleasure to end."
Jlajoanne AT aol DOT com
*JEN MICHALSKI
THE
SUMMER SHE WAS UNDER WATER (Queen’s Ferry Press)
Its been 20 years since Sam Pinski, a
33-year-old novelist, has spent the Fourth of July with her family at their
cabin on the Susquehanna River in Maryland, and she dreads confronting everyone
at once: her father Karl, a manic-depressive former steelworker on disability;
her mother Pat, a retired secretary in professional-grade denial; her
ex-boyfriend, Michael; her friend Eve; and her brother Steve, who ran away to
New Jersey to play in a Bruce Springsteen cover band.
jen.michalski AT gmail DOT com
jenmichalski DOT com
*RANDON BILLINGS NOBLE
BE WITH ME ALWAYS: ESSAYS (University of Nebraska Press)
In a way, all good essays are about the things that haunt us until we have somehow embraced or understood them. Here, Randon Billings Noble considers the ways she has been haunted—by a near-death experience, the gaze of a nude model, thoughts of widowhood, Anne Boleyn’s violent death, a book she can’t stop reading, a past lover who shadows her thoughts—in essays both pleasant and bitter, traditional and lyrical, and persistently evocative and unforgettable.
randonbillingsnoble AT gmail DOT com
randonbillingsnoble DOT com
*CAROLYN PARKHURST
HARMONY (Pamela Dorman Books)
A family struggling to raise an autistic child gives up
their ordinary life to follow a charismatic parenting guru to New Hampshire to
help start a "family camp."
carolynparkhurst AT yahoo DOT com
*LESLIE
PIETRZYK
THIS
ANGEL ON MY CHEST [winner of the 2015 Drue Heinz
Literature Prize, University of Pittsburgh Press]
Linked collection of short stories
about the death of a young husband, based on the author's life, many set in
NoVa.
lesliepietrzyk AT gmail DOT com
www lesliepietrzyk DOT com
www lesliepietrzyk DOT com
*PAULA
WHYMAN
YOU MAY SEE A STRANGER is an “honest and sharply observed
linked story collection, spanning the life of Miranda Weber from her teens
through her late 40s. The opening story, “Driver’s Education,” sets up many of
the collection’s themes as Miranda learns to drive while gaining insights into
herself, her sexuality, and the class and racial tensions in ...Washington,
D.C...Together, these smart, artful
stories capture a woman’s life and the moments that define her.“ --Publishers
Weekly starred review.
www paulawhyman DOT com
Twitter: @paulawhyman
*JESSICA ANYA BLAU
THE TROUBLE WITH LEXIE (HarperCollins)
The perfect cocktail of naughtiness, heart, adventure and
humor, The Trouble with Lexie is a
wild and poignant story of the choices we make to outrun our childhoods—and the
choices we have to make to outrun our entangled adult lives.
Jessicaanyablau@mac.com
http://www.jessicaanyablau.com/
*SUSI WYSS
THE CIVILIZED WORLD
A book of fiction set across Africa that follows five women
as their lives intersect in unexpected and sometimes explosive ways.
susi AT susiwyss DOT com
*MARY KAY ZURAVLEFF
MAN ALIVE! (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
Lightning strikes Dr. Owen Lerner at
Rehoboth Beach, sending his entire family into freefall in this novel of
“devastating humor and rare generosity.”
Washington
Post Notable Book
mkzur AT verizon DOT net
www mkzuravleff DOT com
