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.
“On my 17th birthday, I was transported to Auschwitz. When the selection officer asked how old I was, I stood on tiptoe and lied that I was 19. He let me join my brother, age 20, who was already with the workers.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
After completing an intensive training course, I have earned a National End-of-Life Doula Alliance (NEDA) Proficiency Badge and End-of-Life Doula (EOLD) Certification from The Dying Year. An EOLD provides a wide range of non-medical services and referrals to people preparing for death. They coordinate with, but do not replace, the help offered by hospice, social workers, financial and legal advisors, funeral arrangers, home health aides, or other caregivers. Within their scope of practice, EOLDs are professionals bound by a code of ethics. Applying my literary skills, the primary service I offer is helping people write their Life Review and Ethical Will. A life review is the process of looking at our experiences, especially our “stories,” to draw meaning from our lives. An ethical will is a statement of the values and life lessons that one wants pass along to those left behind. If you are interested for yourself, or on behalf of a loved one, I’d be honored to assist you. Learn more about my credentials and services at END-OF-LIFE DOULA.
The U.S. issued visas to 25,000 refugees escaping the Nazis, including Jews, but refused 800,000 on the waiting list, most of whom perished. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly by Kwan Kew Lai (Rating 5) – Not Her Mother’s Life. Kwan Kew Lai’s memoir, The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly, is a soaring account of her flight from childhood poverty in Malaysia to college and medical school in America, a prelude to her subsequent work as a physician and global medical human rights activist. Amenities most people take for granted — one’s own bed, new socks, sweets — were to Lai pleasures reserved for royalty. Yet she doesn’t indulge in self-pity for the hardships she suffered, or her father’s dismissal of daughters being as worthless as “spilled rice.” It’s pointless to waste time feeling sorry for yourself when there is so much to do to escape the fate of her mother and countless women like her, consigned to bearing many children and struggling to feed them. Filled with evocative recollections of her family and country of birth, Lai’s writing propels readers forward much as she spurred herself. She soon realized that education was her ticket out. To her own credit, Lai was smart and hard-working. To the credit of others, a few family members and teachers encouraged her, and Wellesley College took an academic and financial chance on her. While rejecting her mother’s life, and her father’s attitudes, Lai is remarkably nonjudgmental. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page, I appreciate Lai’s ability to bring this compassion for difficult characters to the page. The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly is a stirring and inspirational tale of what is possible from a grateful and talented author.
50 Give or Take published another piece of my microfiction, Vintage Varmints, a story guaranteed to elicit a chuckle whether you prefer the newfangled or the old-fashioned. (FYI: The Hungarian Mudi, an all-purpose farm dog, has been around since the 1800s, but only recently did the breed become the hottest new member of the American Kennel Club.) Sign up to receive and submit your own ultra-short stories, free, at 50 Give or Take.
I’m tickled that “Snappily Ever After” will be in the Improbable Press anthology, Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead, which imagines better endings for women who have been ignored, vilified, or otherwise mistreated in literary works. My piece, “Snappily Ever After,” is a series of limericks about maligned females in fairy tales and classic children’s books. While the submission calls for prose, and these rewrites are technically poems, they can be read as micro-fiction, or very short stories. The anthology will be published in 2023. Learn more at Improbable Press, a London publisher featuring books about “everyone and anyone from whom we don’t hear enough.” Read about my other short fiction in SHORT STORIES.
“‘When will I see my mother?’ one woman asked Dr. Mengele. ‘In a few weeks,’ he answered pleasantly. ‘When will I see my little girl?’ another asked and got the same answer. We almost believed him. He looked so elegant and civilized, like a God. He really meant we’d see our loved ones in a few weeks, going up to heaven in smoke from the crematorium.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
The restrictive quota system for southern and Eastern European Jews predated Nazism, going back to the 1920s, and perpetuated by antisemitism, xenophobia, and national security concerns that suspected Jews of being communists. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“After Germany occupied northern Italy, my father, his friends, and I fled to the mountains to cross the Alps into Switzerland. A guide, descended from famous mountaineers, helped us across a steep rock face. Then he stopped, pointed straight ahead at a glacier, and said, ‘That’s the border. I can’t go farther. Now you must go alone.’” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of The Boys: A Novel by Katie Hafner (Rating 5) – Recovery and Reentry. The Boys by Katie Hafner is a sly yet sympathetic journey into how we cope with the dual traumas of loss and isolation. Ethan Fawcett, the protagonist, is aided by the love of two good women. After his parents are killed in a tragic accident, Ethan is raised by lukewarm grandparents and grows up a socially awkward tech wizard. With traits that could easily be dismissed as “on the spectrum,” he is instead rendered by Hafner as endearing. His coworker Barb, a psychologist who studies loneliness, falls in love with his quirkiness too. She draws the introverted Ethan into a richer life, captured in their idyllic honeymoon bicycle trip through Italy, run by Hill and Dale, a service-oriented company. Back home, Barb wants to expand their family. Ethan is torn between his fear of being an inadequate parent and his desire to please her, but agrees to a “trial run” when she brings home Tommy and Sam, orphaned Russian twins. In a reversal, Ethan becomes the more nurturing parent. COVID further enables him to isolate with the boys, supervising their diet, hygiene, home schooling, and media consumption. His protectiveness is so all-consuming and restrictive that Barb feels she has no choice but to leave. Devastated, but doubling down on his devotion to the boys, Ethan decides to recapture the elation of the Italy trip by repeating it with them. He is taken underwing by his tour guide, Izzy, another woman who values his strangeness. The novel opens soon after their return, with Ethan receiving a letter from the head of Hill and Dale, politely asking him to never use their services again. What happened? And what does it mean for Ethan and his family? The surprise Hafner delivers could have been contrived but is instead deftly produced and believable. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire her talent for humanizing odd characters and persuading readers to suspend their disbelief. A contemporary comment on isolation, the novel asks timeless questions about whether we can heal from trauma and redeem ourselves, not through penitence, but through re-immersion in joy. The Boys restores hope for those we care for, those who care for us, and ultimately, for ourselves.
