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Reading: Dian Greenwood and Suzy Vitello
Both novels pivot on immigration stories and their influence on the novel's main stories.
About Forever Blackbirds:
Told in dual timelines, Forever Blackbirds traverses protagonist Marta Gottlieb's escape from 1914 Russia to her tribulations in rural North Dakota during WWII. Young Marta, now in her mid-forties, begins to question her evangelical faith in the turbulence of mid-century America and another war. Forging her way through the loss of a son, estrangement from her community, and the disquieting reality of a loveless marriage, Marta discovers an indomitable spirit she didn't know she possesses.
Dian Greenwood started in the Dakotas and has been a West Coaster since adolescence. She studied both writing and counseling psychology in San Francisco. An early focus on poetry led her to fiction. Dian is the award-winning author of About the Carleton Sisters (She Writes Press, 2023). Dian has also published personal essays in The Big Smoke, a weekly online magazine, and contributed to a collaborative book, 2020* The Year of the Asterisk. She writes and works as a therapist in Portland, Oregon.
About Bitterroot:
A forensic artist confronts a crime against her own family, while MAGA politics, racism and violence rage in a small town in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho. Set in the fictional town of Steeplejack, nestled in the Bitterroot Mountains, Hazel Mackenzie provides law enforcement with sketch art and victim reconstruction following suspected crimes. Hazel is catapulted from observer to participant when her husband dies in an accident and then soon after, her gay twin brother Kento is shot by a member of Steeplejack's growing anti-LGBTQ community during a gender reveal party for his child. Hazel soon discovers her husband wasn't who she thought he was. She uncovers hidden family secrets about her grandparents' forced internment during World War II, mirroring the same racism and prejudice that threaten to strip Kento and his husband of their basic rights to their baby. As physical violence charges up her driveway and engulfs her life, Hazel battles for herself, her brother, and a town torn apart by hate. And somehow during all this, she stumbles on a different kind of love and a more courageous way to live her life.
Suzy Vitello writes and lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and her dog and occasionally one or more of their five kids. She holds an MFA from Antioch, Los Angeles, and has been a recipient of an Oregon Literary Arts grant. Her previous novels include Faultland, The Moment Before and the YA Empress Chronicles series.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2512360-0
