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.
Composer Julia Wolfe sought the right scissors — dozens of pairs — for the New York Philharmonic’s 1919 premiere of her oratorio “Fire in My Mouth,” which commemorates the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire that killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrant women. Wiss manufactured the scissors that made the satisfying “swoosh” sound Wolfe wanted to memorialize their work and death. Read about a survivor of the fire and her daughter in the novel Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In November 1909, 23-year-old labor activist Clara Lemlich Shavelson led a strike of 20,000 women to protest working conditions in New York’s garment industry. Male union leaders opposed the strike, but three months later, factory owners agreed to a 52-hour work week and recognized the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). One holdout was the Triangle Waist Company, where a 1911 fire killed 146 workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. Read about a survivor of the fire and her daughter in the novel Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
In Greek mythology, Cronus was the leader of the Titans, divine descendants of Gaia (Mother Earth) and Uranus (Father Sky). At his mother’s request, he overthrew his father by castrating him with a sickle and throwing his testicles in the sea. Told that his own sons would in turn overthrow him, Cronus devoured his first five children at birth. When his sixth child, Zeus, was born, his mother Rhea hid the child. Once grown, Zeus used an emetic given to him by Gaia to force Cronus to disgorge his other children. For another (less gruesome) bad dad story, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true meaning of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of The Sentence by Louse Erdrich (Rating 3) – Too Much, Too Soon. What is The Sentence by Louise Erdrich about? The novel meanders through crime and punishment, love, a large Native American cast, the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, a bookstore ghost, and a line of rugaroos. By the end, you’ve consumed a whole sheet of half-baked cookies and wish you’d eaten only two fully baked ones. The current events, still raw, were even more so when Erdrich wrote about them. Writers, myself included (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), choose different genres to serve different ends. Journalism is a contemporaneous report; memoir recaptures thoughts and feelings experienced in another moment. Fiction imagines and reflects, processes enhanced by time and distance. In her haste to comment, Erdrich feeds readers a lump of indigestible dough. She should have stuck to writing about that ghost, whose sections alone bring the book to life.
Please join me and five other Vine Leaves Press authors for our event at the SMOL 2022 Book Fair, titled “Unhappy in Its Own Way,” featuring novels and memoirs about dysfunctional families. The virtual session is on March 24, 2022 at 5:00 PM Eastern Time and the event is FREE and open to all via the Zoom webinar link. See a complete description on the SMOL Fair Events page. I’ll read and answer audience questions about The Great Stork Derby, in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize, with disastrous results. I’ll also act as the event moderator. Thanks for attending! Please spread the word.
In Die Walkure, Wotan, King of the Norse Gods, strips his daughter, the Valkyrie Brunhilde, of immortality for disobeying him. He ultimately grants her eternal protection, but audiences eternally struggle to decipher the plot in Wagner’s four linked Ring operas. For an easier-to-follow story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true meaning of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
