Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
From 1900 to WWI, 4 million Italians, most from southern rural areas, emigrated to America to escape poverty and sickness (pellagra, cholera). The Commissariat of Emigration, created in 1901, helped them at the point of embarkation and after they arrived, including dealing with U.S. labor laws that discriminated against alien workers. Immigrants sent money home, accounting for as much as 5% of Italy’s economy. Read more about Italian-Americans in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Taste of Cigarettes: A Memoir of a Heroin Addict (Rating 5): Soars with Poetry, Sears With Pain – Jon Vreeland’s memoir, The Taste of Cigarettes, is a detailed and vivid description of a junkie’s nightmare existence. Just when readers think his body can’t take more abuse, we descend into yet another graphic tale of life off the rails and in the gutter. Such is the nature of addiction and Vreeland renders the endless search for the next fix in language that soars with poetry and sears with pain. Only the haunting anguish of permanent separation from his young daughters finally pushes him across the line from overdose to recovery, from obsession to redemption. Vreeland has written a hell of a book that ends on a rushing updraft of hope.
At the 1935-36 California-Pacific International Exposition in San Diego, 7.2 million visitors were awed by the Pacific Fleet at the U.S. Naval Base and a new assembly plant, Convair, which built Navy flying boats. Read more San Diego and Navy history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS), which officially launches tomorrow (05/29/18).
The Tazia and Gemma book launch & reading is at Bookbound Bookstore on Sunday, June 3, at 2 PM, 1729 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor. See the Facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/813290068858590/. Learn more about the book at http://www.vineleavespress.com/tazia-and-gemma-by-ann-s-epstein.html and see the trailer on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lijLhwR2Yb0. Hope to see you on June 3! For a complete list of my publication events see NEWS; to read more about my books see NOVELS.
The Spirit of St. Louis, the custom M-1 monoplane that Charles Lindbergh flew on his 1927 cross-Atlantic solo flight, was built in San Diego, California by Ryan Airlines. On May 10, Lindbergh flew 4 hours overnight from Rockwell Field on North Island in San Diego to Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri. His historic flight from New York to Paris happened May 20-21. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
My Amazon and Goodreads review of Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope: My True Story (Rating 5): Surviving on the Strength of Family – For over 40 years, Nazi Holocaust survivor Irene Butter remained silent about the horrors of her childhood. In her mid-50s, she decided she had to speak out. Now in her late 80s, she has engaged for decades in memorial, educational, and peace-building efforts. Shores Beyond Shores is her most recent contribution to guaranteeing that the lessons of the Holocaust are remembered and applied. What makes this story unique is the focus on her family. Through tenacity, abetted by good fortune, Irene, her parents, and older brother stayed together throughout their concentration camp years. Amid the nightmare stories, Butter and her collaborators John Bidwell and Kris Holloway also capture the humor of bantering siblings, the confidences shared by friends, the sacrifices of those who refused to lose their humanity and dignity, even the tenderness of first love. To read and share this book is to help Irene and other survivors carry on their work and spread their message of hope.
At midnight on 12/31/1914, President Woodrow Wilson pressed a Western Union telegraph key in Washington, D.C. which turned on the lights and touched off a display of fireworks to open the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego’s Balboa Park. Crowds surged across Cabrillo Bridge to see the exhibits and the park’s Spanish Colonial architecture. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In the early 20th century, the Chicago meat-packing industry used immigrant labor, especially from Eastern Europe. Working conditions and sanitary practices were scandalously bad, as revealed in the Upton Sinclair political novel, The Jungle, published on February 26, 1906. Later that year, Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act on the same day, June 30, 1906. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
My Amazon and Goodreads review of The House of Broken Angels (Rating 4): A Multicolor Portrait of a Multi-generational Mexican-American Family – In his vivid multi-generational tale of a Mexican-American family, Luis Alberto Urrea offers up fallen angels (husbands, fathers, sons, brothers) and caregiving saints (wives, mothers, daughters, sisters). At times, I had trouble remembering the identities of third or even second generation characters, a confusion exacerbated by their multiple nicknames. And, even in context, the meaning of some Spanish expressions eluded me. Despite these gaps, I was drawn into the wild ride of life events and complicated relationships among the de la Cruz kin. Some are common to all extended families, others unique to a culture proud of itself yet shamed by a society that regards them as “less than” their white counterparts. Overall, the book has the zest, orneriness, kindness, rage, and spirit of a wild and crowded fiesta.
In the spring of 1903, flooding on the Kansas River inundated North Topeka, an industrial section with flour mills and lumber yards that lies in a valley. Hundreds were marooned in their homes and 29 drowned. There was high water again in 1908, 1923, and 1935 but the dikes constructed after 1903 flood held. Read more Topeka and Kansas history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
