February 2020 – Ann S. Epstein Writer

Black Fox Literary Magazine to Publish Craft Essay

I’m happy to announce that my article “It’s Not Your Story: Citizenship Rules for Writers Groups” has been accepted for publication by Black Fox Literary Magazine. Here’s the log line: The craft essay “It’s Not Your Story: Citizenship Rules for Writers Groups” acknowledges that while some literary tenets beg to be broken, writers group etiquette rules are worth following to derive the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of membership. I’ll post the link when the essay is up and open for comments on the Black Fox blog. Read more of my thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.

Black Fox seeks fiction from under-represented genres and styles

Why writers write: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach

What I’m Reading: Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History (Rating 4) – More Deaths Per Page Than a War Book. In the battle for the skies, the history of aviation is littered with shattered bodies. All were intrepid souls, none more so than the women in Keith O’Brien’s Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History. Male aviators had to fight physics, mechanics, and weather. Women overcame all those and also the men who, both on and off the field, demeaned and tried to defeat them. Fortunately, the support among the women handily counteracted the discouragement of the men. “Fly Girls,” as the press dubbed them, were competitors but also friends. While some were bent on promoting themselves, all were primarily out to promote women’s full participation in aviation. Despite harrowing accounts of sacrifices and tragedies, this book is ultimately about victory and the amazing women whose dreams and persistence made their success possible. As a writer of historical fiction who often features women overcoming tough odds (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I cheered them to the heavens.

“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl

Creative Nonfiction Now Featured Essay Online at bioStories

My creative nonfiction piece “My Name Could Be Toby Gardner” is now online as the featured essay at bioStories. The essay begins: “I lost my name. Perhaps the name was never mine to begin with. In which case, will I ever own one? Or, if the name was once in my possession, can I get it back?” While you’re visiting the site, check out, like, and follow the other features at bioStories, which “offers word portraits of the people surrounding us in our daily lives, of the strangers we pass on the street unnoticed and of those who have been the most influential and most familiar to us but who remain strangers to others.” Read more about my creative nonfiction in MEMOIR.

Me (bottom right) with my family at age five, when “Toby” became “Ann”

Best Selling Author of Books About Young Children Also Writes Fiction — For Adults!

Tens of thousands of teachers, parents, and researchers have read my books about early development and education, most notably The Intentional Teacher. I also write literary fiction for grownups: On the Shore, Tazia and Gemma, and A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. Read more about my NOVELS and SHORT STORIES. We’re never too old to learn.

An immigrant Jewish family in turmoil during World War I

An Italian immigrant survives the Triangle Fire and flees with her unborn child

A fictional biography of the Munchkin Coroner in The Wizard of Oz

Orca to Publish “A Mule of One’s Own”

I’m happy to announce that my short story, “A Mule of One’s Own,” will be published in Orca (2020, Issue #3). Here’s the log line: “A Mule of One’s Own” is about a pack horse librarian who delivers books and hope to Kentucky’s rural families in the Depression while her own family falls apart because her job threatens her unemployed husband. Here’s the history behind the story: In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded local women to serve as “equestrienne librarians,” visiting isolated families in Kentucky’s remote hills. The women traveled miles through rutted, icy, and muddy trails to teach children and adults to read, and deliver books, magazines, and other materials, in hopes they’d have a better chance of finding employment when the economy recovered. Read more in SHORT STORIES.