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.
Readers continue to praise The Sister Knot, an award-winning novel about the lifelong power of sisterhood in the aftermath of wartime trauma.
“This book would just not let me put it down.”
“An engrossing, moving and well-crafted novel about resilience.”
“Ann Epstein depicts these complex women with empathy, warmth, and insight.”
A deep, complex emotional understanding of the binding power of wartime trauma.”
“Reading the final chapters had me in tears.”
“A brilliantly gifted writer.”
“Lines that ache in their beauty.”
“The persistence and struggles the women have in maintaining their sisterly connection fuel the narrative from beginning to end.”
“I’ve read books by this author before, and one of the things she does best is handle often deeply unsettling history, circumstances and consequences with gentleness and nuance, all in the service of displaying her characters’ growth and resilience.”
Everyone is invited to a reading of The Sister Knot at the Ann Arbor Jewish Book Festival: Local Author Event at the Ann Arbor Jewish Community Center (2935 Birch Hollow Dr, Ann Arbor, MI 48108) on Sunday, November 17, 2024 from 11:00-1:00 Eastern Time. The event, including brunch, is FREE and OPEN TO ALL. Register for the in-person event so they know how much food to order. This annual event features a variety of authors and genres and attracts a lively audience. Hope to see you all there! Thanks for the support!
The Sister Knot: First Place Award in Literary Historical Fiction
Author Ann S. Epstein writes novel, stories, memoir, poems, and essays
Everyone is invited to a reading of The Sister Knot at Booksweet Bookstore (1729 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor, 48105) on Sunday, November 3 at 2:00 PM ET. I’ll be reading with Caroline Huntoon, a nonbinary storyteller, educator, and author. The event is free and open to all. Hope to see you all there. Support Booksweet, your community bookstore!
The Sister Knot: First Place Award in Literary Historical Fiction
Author Ann S. Epstein writes novels, stories, memoir, and essays
As an end-of-life doula, I often ponder our reluctance to face death. We consider human cognition a blessing, yet many of us would prefer not to be “blessed” with the knowledge that we will die. Some take steps to avoid, or greatly delay, that reality. In recent years, Silicon Valley billionaires have invested in biotech start-ups and adopted lifestyles in pursuit of longevity, if not immortality. While the technology is new, the pursuit of a long life was also an obsession in medieval Europe. Some aspired to live for hundreds of years, like Methuselah. Then, as now, the emphasis was on prevention. One theory held that as a person aged, their body cooled and dried. While this process could not be stopped, proper living could slow it down. People were told to avoid sneezing and sex, which dried out the body; limit the intake of green fruits and vegetables; and avoid cutting their fingernails if the Moon was in the sign of Gemini, Cancer, or Pisces. Saturdays were a bad time for a manicure or pedicure. Yet a lot of old advice had merit and is now supported by empirical evidence: Exercise, get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, avoid excessive alcohol consumption, and take care of one’s mental health. Of course, it also helps to be rich. And lucky. Pope John XXI, who claimed he knew how to prolong life, died at 62 in 1277 when a ceiling collapsed on him. And the author of a 1489 medical text on longevity was killed by the disgruntled family of a patient. In sum: Accept the inevitable but do what you can to ward off the evitable: Eat your broccoli and cancel Saturday’s mani-pedi appointment. Most important, trite as it sounds, emphasize quality over quantity. It’s no coincidence that it’s usually the rich and powerful who want to unnaturally extend their time on earth. The rest of us want to use our allotted days well and bequeath valuable lessons and memories when our time is up. L’chaim.
“Webb [telescope] can also see further back in time [than Hubble] — a mind-bending thought. The light from this galaxy [Stephan’s Quintet] traveled through space for 40 million years before reaching Webb’s mirrors, which means we’re seeing it as it looked 40 million years ago. Webb is showing us the earliest moments in our universe’s history, fossilized in light.” (A Beginner’s Guide to Looking at the Universe by Kate LaRue, The New York Times Magazine, 11/12/23) “Fossilized in Light” — A metaphoric title for a story?
Stephan’s Quintet photographed by the Webb Telescope
There are as many answers to the question of why witches have green faces as there are warts on their noses. Here are some possible explanations: Theory One: Witches were said to concoct herbal potions. Herbs (the leafy parts of plants) are green. Theory Two: In the Salem witch trials, suspects were given henbane, a hallucinogenic that turned their skin green, to extract confessions. (The drug-induced “high” may also be the origin of witches flying on broomsticks.) Theory Three: Green is associated with being sickly, unwholesome, reptilian, and bilious (think of the four medieval humors), all “evil” witchlike characteristics. Theory Four: Green-skinned witches began with The Wizard of Oz, the first Technicolor movie. MGM used green face paint on Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, because it was vibrant, scary, and ugly. Before that witches typically had red or orange faces. [In Baum’s books, good witches were pretty, bad witches were ugly. Skin color was not specified.] Want to learn more about the making of The Wizard of Oz movie? Read the novel A Brain, A Heart, The Nerve. More at NOVELS.
Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 Technicolor movie The Wizard of Oz
A fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner
In 1926, the wealthy eccentric barrister Charles Vance Millar, having no heirs, left the bulk of his estate to the Toronto woman giving birth to the most babies in the decade following his death. The race was on for his fortune, which newspapers dubbed “The Great Stork Derby.” Inspired by this real, but bizarre, event in Canadian history, I wrote the novel The Great Stork Derby, about an imaginary family caught up in the madness. Fifty years later, the ailing widower Emm Benbow, who made his wife Izora have lots of babies, must now face his estranged grown children. The novel asks whether this “bad dad” can finally learn that the true value of fatherhood is not measured in big prizes, but in small rewards. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Toronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize
In recognition of June being Pride Month, I invite readers to revisit my short story “Death, Shmeath” (North American Review, Summer 2021), which was inspired by the life of Sidney Franklin. Here’s the log line: “In ‘Death, Shmeath,’ set in 1932 Brooklyn and based on a real character, an Orthodox father struggles with his son’s worldwide fame as the first and only gay Jewish matador.” Read more in SHORT STORIES.
Sidney Franklin, the gay Jewish matador from Brooklyn
North American Review, founded in 1815, is the oldest literary journal in the U.S.
Today, March 14 (3/14), is Pi Day, an annual event first celebrated in 1988 because 3, 1, and 4 are the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi. It is traditional to eat “pie” of every variety on this day, from the one- or two-crust pastry dough with a sweet or savory filling, to the thin- or thick-crust pizza pie topped with whatever sauce, cheese, meat, vegetables, and/or other ingredients one can stomach. Curious about the “storied” history of pie?
The first documented use of the English word “pie” appears in the 1303 records of a Yorkshire priory, possibly related to magpie, a bird that collects assorted things in its nest. However, pie’s origins are ancient. A written recipe for chicken pie from before 2000 BCE was discovered on a Sumerian tablet. Images of early pies, called galettes (flat, free-form crusty cakes of grain mixed with honey), are on the walls of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BCE. Greeks invented pie “pastry” in the 5th century CE by adding fat to a flour-water mix. Rome’s innovation was “covered” pie to retain the juices of the meat or fish used to stuff it.
The Roman Empire spread pies throughout Northern Europe, where they became a dietary staple of working people. Custard and fruit pies began to appear in the 15th century. Pilgrims brought their pie recipes to North America, adapting them to local game and produce. When Native Americans taught them how to boil down maple syrup, maple became a popular pie sweetener. Successive waves of immigrants brought their own variations — Scandinavian cheese and cream in the Midwest — as did enslaved peoples — molasses from the Caribbean and sweet potatoes from Africa in the South. Pies — notably pigeon and venison — appear often in the novels of Jane Austen. In fact they are the only food mentioned in the Christmas feasts she describes.
Pizza pie has its own history, a long one dating to the flat breads of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. However, the modern pizza pie was born in Naples, Italy. Legend has it that when King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, they were bored with French haute cuisine and asked for an assortment of pizzas from the city’s century-old pizzeria. The variety the queen enjoyed most was topped with soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil, coincidentally the colors of the Italian flag. Thenceforth, that combination was named the Margherita. But pizza pie wasn’t well known outside Italy until the 1940s, when Neapolitan immigrants brought it to the United States. The simple and adaptable aromatic treat soon became a hit in New York and other American cities. Who can forget John Travolta, as Tony Manero, slapping two slices together as he strides through Brooklyn’s pulsing streets?
If you like your pie encrusted in historical fiction, please continue to savor my website. See NOVELS and SHORT STORIES to read about the culinary traditions brought to America by immigrants. Leave a comment. Share your family’s pie and other food favorites.
Pi Day was created in 1988 to celebrate March 14 (3/14), the first three digits of PiEnjoy a pie of your choice on Pi Day
Although 2023 is not a Leap Year, I was curious about literary references to this quadrennial event. A search turned up surprisingly few. Here’s a calendrical listing of what I found. Can you cite more?
“For leap year comes naething but ance in the four.” (Robert Shennan, “Leap Year,” Tales, Songs, and Miscellaneous Poems, Descriptive of Rural Scenes and Manners, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1831)
“This being Leap Year the signs of the Zodiak are all on the rampage. There is no cause for alarm. Once in four years this frolic occurs, and is said by the doctors to be necessary for their health.” (Josh Billings, Farmers’ Almanac, 1872)
“In Leap Year the weather always changes on a Friday.” (Belgian proverb quoted in Rev. Charles Swainson, A Handbook of Weather Folk-Lore, 1873)
The while you clasp me closer, The while I press you deeper, As safe we chuckle,—under breath, Yet all the slyer, the jocoser,— “So, life can boast its day, like leap-year, Stolen from death!” (Robert Browning, “St. Martin’s Summer,” Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper, 1876)
“So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping Village.” (H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, 1897)
“Surely this was a sign on Leap Year night! It’s the 29th. Go in and win. Don’t be afraid.” (A. A. Milne, Lovers in London, 1905 )
“For jaywalkers every year is leap year.” (Bill Holman, “Auto Suggestions,” The Travelers Insurance Company, Thou Shalt Not Kill!, 1935)
Hobbits observe twelve 30-day months every year, including Solmath, equivalent to February. Five days are added to make 365 per annum. (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 1937)
Leap Year: A Novel by Steve Erickson (1989)
Leap Year: A Comic Novel by Peter Cameron (1990)
Other Leap Year Trivia
People born on leap year are called leaplings.
The first arrest warrants in the Salem witchcraft trials were issued on February 29, 1692.
Sweden and Finland added an extra Leap Day to February in 1712 to synchronize their outdated Julian calendar with the new Gregorian calendar.
British-born James Milne Wilson, who became the 8th premiere of Tasmania, was born on Leap Day 1812 and died on Leap Day 1880, his “17th” birthday. The rarity of the date aside, it’s not unusual for people to die on their birthday.
In 1928, bartender Harry Craddock invented a Leap Day Cocktail at London’s Savoy Hotel:
1 dash lemon juice 2/3 gin 1/6 Grand Marnier 1/6 sweet vermouth Shake and serve, garnished with lemon peel
