After the Parade, Lori Ostlund – Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade started as many novels do, with an overheard story. She heard about a woman whose father died falling off a parade float.
Ellen Birkett Morris
Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Beware the Tall Grass, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Award for Literary Excellence, judged by Lan Samantha Chang, published by CSU Press. She is also the author of Lost Girls: Short Stories, winner of the Pencraft Award and finalist for the Clara Johnson, IAN and Best Book awards. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, and South Carolina Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of an Al Smith Fellowship for her fiction from the Kentucky Arts Council.
Morris is also the author of Abide and Surrender, poetry chapbooks. Her poetry has appeared in The Clackamas Literary Review, Juked, Gastronomica, and Inscape, among other journals, and in eight anthologies. Morris won top prize in the 2008 Binnacle Ultra-Short Edition and was a finalist for the 2019 and 2020 Rita Dove Poetry Prize. Her poem “Abide” was featured on NPR’s A Way with Words. Her essays have appeared in Newsweek, AARP’s The Ethel, Oh Reader magazine, and on National Public Radio.
Morris holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University-Charlotte.
https://www.ellenbirkettmorris.com/
Patience, Persistence Yield The Stargazer’s Sister
The Stargazer’s Sister, Carrie Brown–Eighteen years ago, Carrie Brown was in the car driving her kids to school when she heard an intriguing snippet on the radio about Caroline Herschel, the first female astronomer to discover a comet, and her brother William, a noted astronomer and composer.
Perabo on the Power of What If
Why They Run The Way They Do, Susan Perabo, Simon & Schuster – Susan Perabo didn’t spend her childhood reading like many other writers. She was outside playing ball. She was a college film major before she discovered the power of story by writing plays.
The Muralist Blends Art and History in a Compelling Tale
The Muralist, B.A. Shapiro – B.A. Shapiro is no stranger to blending genres. Her latest, The Muralist, which alternates between modern day and the Depression era is part historical novel, part romance and part mystery.
Author Applies Visual Skills to the Creation of Novel
All We Had, Annie Weatherwax–At first glance, Annie Weatherwax, author of All We Had, seems like an unlikely prospect to be a writer. As a successful sculptor, she sculpted superheroes and cartoon characters for Nickelodeon, DC Comics . . .
Swanson Weaves Compelling Tale of Alternate Lives
The Bookseller, Cynthia Swanson, Harper Collins–As Cynthia Swanson’s novel The Bookseller begins we are with Kitty Miller, a thirty-eight-year-old single bookseller, when she wakes up in a bed that is not her own and discovers an alternate life in which she is a married mother of three children.
Focus on the Work, Advises Fox
Days of Awe, Lauren Fox, a tale about a woman’s attempt to piece her life together following the death of her best friend.
Dugan’s Novel Explores Love and Loss
The Sweetheart Deal, Polly Dugan, Little, Brown and Company — Polly Dugan’s novel THE SWEETHEART DEAL begins with an intriguing premise: What if you promised your best friend that if he died you would marry his wife?
How April Ford Found Her Way to THE POOR CHILDREN and Other Dark Tales
The Poor Children, April L. Ford, Santa Fe Writers Project — They bit, they kicked, sometimes they pulled out their own hair in such chunks they left hickey-like marks on their scalps that had to be washed and disinfected and covered with gauze.
Intuition, Imagination Lead the Way for Packer
The Children’s Crusade, Ann Packer, Scribner — From a young age Ann Packer knew what it meant to be a writer. Her mother was a fiction writer and was a professor at Stanford.
