historical fiction

#ArtLitPhx: Lisa Windgate: Before We Were Yours

Superstition Review

The bestselling author and former journalist shares her latest, a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling historical fiction.

Before We Were Yours book cover

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

PARKING / LIGHT RAIL

  • Don’t want to drive? Take the Light Rail! It lets off at the Central Avenue/Camelback Park-and-Ride, which has hundreds of free parking spaces across the street from Changing Hands.
headshot of Lisa Windgate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her work has won or been nominated for many awards, including the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. Wingate lives in the Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas.

EVENT INFORMATION:

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W. Camelback Rd.,
Phoenix

Date: Friday, May 24

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about this event, click here.

Event: Lori Eshleman Book Talk

Superstition Review

PachacutiPlease join us for a book talk by Lori Eshleman

When: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 7pm

Where: Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ

Lori Eshleman, whose historical novel set in 18th century Ecuador titled Pachacuti: World Overturned (Bagwyn Books, 2015) (An imprint of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) has recently been published. Lori will be giving a book talk on March 25:  “Shamans, Jesuits and Rebels: Encounters in the New World.” http://www.eventbrite.com/e/shamans-jesuits-and-rebels-encounters-in-the-new-world-tickets-15051213585

Lori Eshleman has a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Arizona, where she teaches at Arizona State University, and she has lived and traveled extensively in Ecuador. She has taught courses in Medieval art, Mexican art, and art of the Americas. This is her first historical novel.

For more information about Lori and her novel please visit:

https://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/pachacuti-world-overturned

Kindle Edition: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SW535H0

 

 

Announcing: Melissa Pritchard

Superstition Review

Superstition Review would like to announce that Melissa Pritchard’s collection of short stories, The Odditorium: Stories, is due for release January 10, 2012. It is now available for pre-order from Amazon.

Pritchard was the featured reader in our Superstition Review reading series in November 2010.

Praise for Melissa Pritchard:

“Melissa Pritchard is one of our finest writers.”—Annie Dillard

“Pritchard’s quicksilver ability to blend biting social/political commentary with a rueful analysis of relationships makes [her work a] delight.”—Publishers Weekly

“I have admired Melissa Pritchard’s writing for several years now for its wisdom, its humble elegance, and its earthy comedy.”—Rick Moody

About The Odditorium: Stories:

In each of these eight genre-bending tales, Melissa Pritchard overturns the conventions of mysteries, westerns, gothic horror, and historical fiction to capture surprising and often shocking aspects of her characters’ lives.

In one story, Pritchard creates a pastiche of historical facts, songs, and tall tales, contrasting the famed figures of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, including Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull, with the real, genocidal history of the American West. Other stories are inspired by the mysterious life of Kaspar Hauser, a haunted Victorian hospital where the wounded of D-Day are taken during World War II, and the story of Robert LeRoy Ripley of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” and his beguiling “odditoriums,” told from the perspective of his lifelong fact checker. (From Amazon.com)

Congratulations, Melissa. We look forward to this release.