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.
Agamemnon, Greek Trojan War commander, sacrifices his daughter to win victory at sea. When the goddess Artemis, pissed he’s killed her sacred stag, calms the waters at Aulis and stalls the fleet, Agamemnon appeases her by sacrificing his beautiful daughter Iphigenia, even convincing Iphigenia that submitting to death is an act of heroism. For the 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.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, touring “midget troupes” performed throughout Europe and Russia. One troupe, the Royal Russian Midgets, composed of poor peasants with few other opportunities, toured the world, often exploited by managers and venue owners. Their last stop was the U.S., where they retired in 1941 after purchasing land in Sweetwater Estates just off Florida’s Tamiami Trail. The community thrived until the last house was torn down in 1970. Read the novel A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. to learn about another group of exploited little people from Eastern Europe, the Leopold von Singer Midgets, who played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Find out more about the book in NOVELS.
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired” (Anton Chekhov). French feminist filmmaker Céline Sciamma, profiled by Elif Batuman in The New Yorker (February 7, 2022), says that while patriarchy insists “conflict is the natural dynamic of the storyteller,” she moves beyond that dictum. In Sciamma’s movies, situations that would typically elicit an explosive conflict are met with acceptance, even agreeableness. Yet her films sustain dramatic interest. (Disclaimer: I haven’t seen Sciamma’s films, only read about them.) Comments Batuman, “Perhaps Sciamma is on to a secret that nobody else has guessed: you don’t actually have to shoot Chekhov’s gun.” I wondered whether writers could likewise make their characters say “No problem” instead of “No way!” It was akin to inverting Tolstoy’s observation and declaring, “Every happy family is happy in its own way.” As a feminist myself, I applaud Sciamma’s sensibilities, but I can’t imagine eliminating conflict from my narratives. My work rarely features physical violence, but conflict, conveyed through words, gestures, and body language, is key to character development and plot. A gun may not be fired, but someone is bound to shoot off their mouth or fire off a letter. So, my view is that what makes a creative product “nonpatriarchal” is how conflicts are resolved. Read more of my thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.
As a caseworker at a homeless shelter, Nick Flynn, author of the memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, meets his estranged father, a self-proclaimed poet and ex-con who served time in a federal prison for bank robbery. If Flynn weren’t such a funny writer, the book would be too painful to read. For the 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.
