Animal Wife by Lara Ehrlich: Animal Wife is a collection of fifteen stories about girls and women who are seeking liberation. From family, from society, and from themselves. You’ll read about a girl born with feathers who searches for her mother, a woman who becomes psychologically trapped…
News & Review Type: News
Animal Wife a contender in Parade’s BEST book covers this fall!
Conversation with Lara Ehrlich – Midwest Writers Workshop
Watch MWW YouTube “Conversation with an Author”
Midwest Writers Workshop presents another installment of our “Conversation with an Author” series. MWW board member Lylanne Musselman’s talked with MWW alum Lara Ehrlich about her newly released book, her writing life and her MWW experience.
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Scoundrel Time Article, “MY CULTURAL APPROPRIATION” by Deborah A. Lott
“I recently saw photos of Instagram influencers who had darkened their faces in a misguided show of solidarity for Black Lives Matter. Their efforts made me cringe and reminded me of a time in my own life when what began as empathy resulted in an equally ignorant act of cultural appropriation. It started when I was eight. My mother and I were watching the evening news. Ruby Bridges appeared. She was a little younger than me, and she was being escorted into a classroom in New Orleans…”
Read the rest of Deborah A. Lott’s article here.”
Amy Shearn on OtherPPL Podcast
Listen to the full interview here!
The New York Times features Jennifer Risher
Jennifer Risher took a job in campus recruiting at Microsoft in 1991. She was 25 and given stock options worth several hundred thousand dollars. While working there, she met her husband, David, who had more stock options than she did. He later left to work for Amazon when it was still just selling books and got even more valuable options there.
In a few years, they were worth tens of millions of dollars and on their way to a comfortable life. When Ms. Risher looks back, was it luck or good decisions that helped her land that Microsoft job?
She poses that question and others in her book, “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth,” which is out next week. They are an effort to prompt critical thinking about money and the status and power that are accrued from it.
Read the full profile here!
Here Are Some Great Virtual Book Events Happening This Week: Sept. 28–Oct. 3
Rachel Howzell Hall (And Now She’s Gone), Alyssa Cole (When No One Is Watching), Tiffany D. Jackson (Grown), and Tracy Deonn (Legendborn) in conversation for a Black Girl Mystery panel — hosted by Books Are Magic, 7 p.m. ET, more info.
Nancy Jensen discusses her novel In Our Midst with Dzanc Books publisher and editor-in-chief, Michelle Dotter — hosted by Literati, 7 p.m. ET, more info.
Read the full list here.
Jennifer Risher’s Letter to the Editor of the New York Times
When Publishing Focuses on the Bottom Line
Re “Best Sellers Sell the Best” (Sunday Business, Sept. 20):
With publishers preordaining certain titles as likely successes, the homogenization of literary culture is particularly problematic.
Publishing is one of the least diverse industries in the country. We all saw the pent-up frustration when “American Dirt” was released. Now, nine months later, Penguin Random House’s work force remains 79 percent white.
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OK, So …: Episode 14 – Amy Shearn
Welcome to the Season Premiere and Episode 14 of “OK, So …”. This week, I sat down with Amy Shearn, Editor at Medium and author of three novels, including her newest “Unseen City”, which drops next Tuesday, September 29th from Red Hen Press. Amy and I talked about the new school year, growing up in the Chicagoland area, the halcyon days of Internet web fiction and all manner of New York-related things. As always, please give us 5 stars on iTunes and follow us on Twitter @podcastokso
Listen to the full episode here.
Elissa Washuta, Kristen Millares Young, Sierra Crane Murdoch in Conversation | Open Book On Location
Kristen Millares Young (Subduction) in conversation with Elissa Washuta (White Magic), Sierra Crane Murdoch (Yellow Bird), and William F. Deverell.
Watch the full video here.
Talking About Wealth, Jennifer Risher on The Crazy Money Podcast
As early Microsoft employees, Jennifer and her future-husband, David Risher, made millions of dollars from their stock options in the quickly growing company. When David joined an online book-seller called Amazon, those “millions” became “tens of millions,” and Jen found herself nervously navigating the world of affluence.
In her new book, We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth, she explores the mind-bending experience of earning way more than she needed or ever imagined. While acknowledging their very good fortune, she nevertheless found herself dealing with guilt, awkward social situations, imposter syndrome, and the loss of identity that comes when you stop working.
To continue reading, click here.
Interview: In ‘We Need to Talk,’ Jennifer Risher starts a candid conversation about wealth
Months ago, when Jennifer Risher was gearing up for her new book, “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth,” initially set for release in May, she knew she would be offering a candid look around what she saw as the universal conversational taboo of money.
Then the pandemic hit, and her book release was pushed back to Thursday, Sept. 24. Now amid an entirely new landscape, it makes her book perhaps even more uncomfortable, but all the more necessary during what has been an economically devastating year for many Americans.
To read more, click here:
UNSEEN CITY is one of “6 Fall Books to Curl Up with All Season Long”
A librarian, a ghost, and New York city walk into a book—and there you have a recipe for what I never realized is my perfect novel, “Unseen City.” What can be described as a love letter to New York, Amy Shearn’s novel serves as a romantic, haunting story that weaves together the metropolitan behemoth’s past and present.
See the whole list here.
Amy Shearn on IGTV with Natalka Burian
Amy and Natalka discuss UNSEEN CITY on IGTV. Watch the video here!
Rebecca McClanahan Interview at The Rumpus with Julie Marie Wade
Nearly twenty years ago, I read an essay that has always stayed with me. The writer is reading a copy of Denise Levertov’s Evening Train, which she has checked out from the New York Public Library. As she reads and documents this experience for her reader, the writer finds herself engaging not only with the nuances of Levertov’s poetry but also with the penciled marginalia of an unknown reader—she presumes a woman—who has borrowed the book from the library before her. The essay is deftly layered: Levertov, unknown reader, essayist as reader of both Levertov and unknown reader, and also as reflector on the text of her own life.
For years, I searched for this essay, but because I had forgotten the title (“Book Marks”) and author (Rebecca McClanahan), I was never able to find it.
Continue reading here.
“Fourth Estate” by Ellen Meeropol
I first saw the painting 30 years ago, when I walked into friends’ tenth floor apartment on Manhattan’s upper west side. My children immediately hurried to the large window, excited by the sight of the Clearwater sloop sailing down the Hudson River. I stood in front of a large painting hung on the white wall above a white sofa.
On the canvas, a crowd of strikers walk towards the viewer. Three figures lead the march: two men and a woman carrying an infant. The workers are rendered in grays and browns, beige and mud greens. Many of them gesture emphatically with their hands, as if we’ve interrupted their discussion about demands and tactics. The earth tones, and the similarity of their clothing and stance, pulled me into their close group, committed and steadfast.
Continue reading here.