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.
The musicians became friends at the high school where Frampton’s father was Bowie’s art teacher and Frampton sat in on Bowie’s jam sessions. When Bowie shot to fame in the late 80s, he recruited the guitarist to play on his Never Let Me Down album and Glass Spider tour. Frampton said Bowie’s faith in him “restored my credibility” as an artist. 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.
Bowie bolstered Frampton’s credibility as an artist
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
In Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels, Elena and Lila are frenemies. From childhood to adulthood, together or apart, they are each other’s best friends and worst critics. 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.
Elena and Lila are lifelong frenemies in Ferrante’s four Neopolitan Novels
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
The two fantasy novelists were members of a literary critique group called The Inklings. Lewis, after seeing Tolkien’s sketches, encouraged him to write what became Lord of the Rings. Tolkien helped Lewis return to Christianity, which resulted in The Chronicles of Narnia. 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.
Authors and friends, they encouraged each other to write their greatest works
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
Of the many friendships in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the one between Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee is iconic. With his loyal, kind, and brave friend Sam, Frodo faces challenges, overcomes setbacks, and accomplishes his mission. 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.
Iconic friends Frodo and Sam together accomplish the great mission in Lord of the Rings
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout (Rated 5) – Surreal Reality. With the pandemic in the rearview mirror, my memories of lock down and social isolation have blurred. Reading Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout brought the strangeness back with clarity. In sparse prose, Strout captures the discombobulating effect of not knowing when the weirdness will end. We’re thrown together with people we may not choose to be with, and separated from those we do. We’re stuck at home and dreaming of escape, or far from home and longing for its familiar comforts. Authors, myself included (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), are typically advised to wait before writing about current events, allowing temporal distancing to give us the wisdom of hindsight. Yet, there is also something gained by writing as events are unfolding. Given that Strout’s novel was published in 2022, she wrote it “in the moment.” And, given her literary gifts, she nails it. Lucy by the Sea blends visceral immersion with detached observation, replicating the surreal qualities of the pandemic itself. Perusing it now, readers cannot only recollect those days, but also prepare for the next pandemic that will assail us in the foreseeable future. I choose to be with Strout.
What we hold onto when everyday life is swept away
Why writers read: A book can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” – Madeleine L’Engle
50 Give or Take published another piece of my microfiction, titled “Exhuming Laughter.” The idea came to me during a discussion with my fellow end-of-life doulas about what happens to our “essence” after we die. Sign up to receive and submit your own ultra-short stories, free, at 50 Give or Take.
You never know what a writer’s creative mind will dig up
Why writers write: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein
Escape artist Houdini gave silent film actor Keaton his stage name. Houdini, who co-owned a traveling show with Keaton’s father, saw little Joseph Frank Keaton fall down the stairs. Houdini admired how well the baby took a “buster” and the nickname stuck. 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.
How Harry Houdini nicknamed “Buster” Keaton
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
Founding Fathers, Washington and Hamilton, fought for U.S. independence and worked to build a stable country. They also became friends who shared the federalist view that Americans should have a strong central government as opposed to Thomas Jefferson who favored a decentralized (states’ rights) model. 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.
Washington and Hamilton: Political allies and friends
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney ((Rated 5) – The Roz Chast of Prose. Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is the first book by this acclaimed author that I’ve read. Suspicious of hype, I heretofore resisted, but now conclude the praise is justified. “Rooney reading” is slow going. I mean this literally but not at all negatively. Her writing is intense, characterized by what my fellow fiction writers and I call “interiority.” (See my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page.) Rooney readers don’t zip through pages of dialogue or plot points. Rather, from the perspectives of the novel’s three neurotic protagonists, she takes us inside their heads to eavesdrop on their jumbled, obsessive, occasionally self-content, but more often self-doubting, ruminations. Rooney is the Roz Chast of prose. We recognize ourselves in her characters. We too have felt insecure, fearful of judgment, wronged by others, and guilty about how we’ve wronged them. Delving into the antagonistic relationship between two brothers grieving their father’s death, and the murky entanglements of their respective romantic affairs, Rooney sets our neurons atingle. Intermezzo is a quiet book about the cacophony inside our heads as we strive to appear capable to the outside world. That is, until an intermezzo — a threatening move unexpectedly played in the middle of a chess game — disrupts our defenses. The novel’s endgame isn’t obvious, but it’s very satisfying.
Unrelenting and absorbing internal monologues
Why writers read: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C. S. Lewis
