Friday, September 9, 2016

Invite These DMV/Baltimore Women Writers to Speak at Your Book Club!

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)
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
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



 *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


Work-in-Progress

DC-area author Leslie Pietrzyk explores the creative process and all things literary.