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.
Another piece of my microfiction, “Mom?” (every mother’s nightmare) was published in 50 Give or Take. Sign up to receive and submit your own ultra-short stories, free, at 50 Give or Take.
Fear of answering
Why writers write: “A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood
U.S. “Founding Fathers” Adams and Jefferson were “founding frenemies.” Adams favored a strong central government; Jefferson championed states’ rights. Yet they enjoyed mutual respect and worked together for two decades until they both ran for president and stopped speaking to each other. They later reached a truce and died on the same day: July 4, 1826. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Adams and Jefferson: Political opposites united to create a new nation
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
Thanks to Glacier Hills Senior Living Community in Ann Arbor, Michigan for hosting my talk, “The Holocaust: How Fact Shapes Fiction.” I read from my two most recent novels, One Person’s Loss and The Sister Knot and led a lively discussion of how creative treatments of the Holocaust in literature, film, art, music, and dance help us explore, understand, and heal from this dark period in human history.
Talking at Glacier Hills Senior Living Community in Ann Arbor
Reading from One Person’s Loss and The Sister Knot
Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
My Goodreads and Amazon review of This Strange Eventful History: A Novel by Claire Messud (Rated 3) – Barren Territory. This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud traverses decades, continents, and viewpoints to portray the three-generation history of a French-Algerian family. The novel starts strong with memorable characters and fraught events, but detours into peripheral names, happenings, and literary and philosophical ruminations. Messud’s “erudite” writing is self-indulgent and begs for a firm editorial hand. Ultimately the book is a screed against forgetting — multiple figures have Alzheimer’s — and near the end, a dying father recollects life’s small moments, especially those spent with family. The passage would have been more poignant had the book not been stuffed with irrelevant tangents whose clutter stifles explorations into character. For example, there is a stark contrast between the patriarch besotted by his wife and the strained relations between subsequent generations whose emotional connections are as uprooted as their peripatetic family. Messud paints them with broad swaths of exposition, rarely revealing the roots beneath their feelings. Messud merely implies that love is blind or has no rhyme or reason. But as a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I believe our role is to spark insights into emotions. Messud’s book offers this promise initially, then migrates into barren territory.
A rambling portrait of a French-Algerian family
Why writers read: “Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?” – Annie Dillard
The fictional friends in the Calvin and Hobbes Comics by Bill Waterson are what real childhood friends should be: a trusted companion, someone to hang out with, a pal to laugh with or complain to, the person who’s always there for you. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Calvin and Hobbes: Buddies content to just hang out together
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship