At Superstition Review, we like to keep up with upcoming literary events in the Phoenix area. Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference scholar and Pushcart Prize nominee, Michelle Hoover, will be visiting Changing Hands Bookstore on Tuesday October 12th at 7 p.m. She will be reading from her debut novel, The Quickening, which was released in June.
Based on her family’s rich history of oral story-telling and her grandmother’s diary, The Quickening narrates an interminable feud between two Iowa farming families. The conflict lasted over four decades, spanning across both World Wars and well into the Great Depression. A timeless tale of humanity’s intuition in times of peril, Hoover’s entrance into the world of literature is felicitous.
While The Quickening is Hoover’s first novel, her first-hand experience of growing up in Ames, Iowa ensures validity in her work. It is obvious that this experience combined with the recounted stories from family members over the generations has provided the necessary knowledge to convey this story with immense accuracy. Michelle Hoover has also previously published fiction in The Massachusettes Review, Best New American Voices, and Prairie Schooner, as well as others. She teaches writing at Boston University and Grub Street, Inc., a group that assists writers in developing their manuscripts through six to ten week workshops.
Hoover’s website, http://www.michellehoover.net/, includes a list of upcoming readings and events and a video message about The Quickening. It also offers the opportunity to tell your own story about working or growing up on a farm. Stories must have a minimum of 500 words and be submitted by December 1st to be eligible. Two lucky winners who have shared their story will be picked to receive a copy of The Quickening. The winners will be posted on her website on December 15th. You can also follow Michelle Hoover on Twitter via http://twitter.com/quickeningnovel for frequent updates on her successes and recent work.