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.
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
The Sister Knot is garnering five-star reviews from readers. Here are some excerpts from their posted reviews:
“A historical fiction novel that’s all heart; intensely real.”
“An intriguing addition to World War II historical fiction.”
“Kudos to Epstein for pulling off a splendid oxymoron: an uplifting novel about hardship.”
“A master tale of sisterhood.”
“Passionate, illuminating, and reflective.”
“An extraordinary saga!”
“From page one to the end, one is captivated by the story.”
See more review excerpts at REVIEWS. See the full reviews of The Sister Knot on Goodreads and Amazon. Please read, rate, and post your own review of The Sister Knot. I’d be most appreciative. Thanks!
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
Today is the book birthday for my latest novel, The Sister Knot. Two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, follow different paths, yet defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A poignant, compelling, and unforgettable novel about the power of sisterhood.
My new novel The Sister Knot comes out next month (April 2024), but yesterday I signed a contract with Vine Leaves Press to publish the one after that, Who Cares? (to be released December 2025). Here’s a synopsis: Who Cares? is the story of a lively place where old people go to die. Set in 1960, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, this literary novel — whose title could be a cynical dismissal or heartfelt plea — invites readers into Woodruff Home for the Aged, a public facility for the indigent elderly. Faced with a tanking economy, city officials solicit a developer’s proposal to buy and convert the home to a pricey private senior residence. Woodruff’s tenants fret over where they will live; employees worry about losing their jobs. As the clock ticks, the novel tracks the city’s deliberations about the sale, the strategies devised to block it, and the intimacy and intrigue among the book’s many players. With empathy, humor, and memorable characters, the novel is told from multiple perspectives: Miss Mamie Martine, a feisty octogenarian with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies and her political adversary, Mr. J. T. Hillenbrand, a once wealthy nonagenarian wiped out in the Depression; Jilly Duprey, the teenage biracial great-granddaughter of Mr. Hillenbrand who is at odds with Hugh Pepper, the city manager; Laurel Robbins, the home’s reformist director and Rupert Boyle, the anti-authoritarian custodian who defies her; Mamie’s nephew Simon Walpole, an amateur sleuth intent on digging up dirt on Franklin Savoy, the shady developer; and an omniscient narrator who offers a sardonic prologue and epilogue. Zippy as a spry senior citizen, Who Cares? challenges readers to weigh the disposability of the elderly against their dignity. Read more at NOVELS.
Why writers write: “If you’re a writer, you don’t have to retire but can keep on doing the thing you love till you drop off the chair.” – Alex Miller
An excerpt from my forthcoming novel The Sister Knot is featured in the March 2024 issue of the Washtenaw Jewish News (pp. 1 & 23), a free publication with a readership of 10,000 in Southeast Michigan. Those who subscribe to WJN can read the excerpt in print; the free publication is also available to everyone online. The Sister Knot, which will be released on April 30, 2024, is about two Holocaust orphans who survive on the streets of Berlin before a Jewish refugee agency brings the girls to the U.S. One is adopted and one is sent to a group home, but even as their lives diverge, they maintain a lifelong friendship. Read more about the book in NOVELS.
Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship
Why writers write: “Writing eases my suffering. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.” – Gao Xingjian
“Snappily Ever After” was published in the anthology Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead (Improbable Press). The collection imagines better endings for women who have been ignored, vilified, or otherwise mistreated in literary works. My piece, “Snappily Ever After,” is a series of limericks about maligned females in fairy tales and classic children’s books. Each verse lauds the prowess of these undervalued girls and women. Read more about my other POEMS and SHORT STORIES.
Re-imagining the lives of women in literature
Why writers write: “I write to dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet or poor suffering soul.” – Gloria E. Anzaldúa
The Historical Novel Society (HNS) published my essay “The Goldilocks Question” about finding the “just right” balance between history and fiction in historical fiction. The essay is part of a feature promoting the HNS June 2025 conference. Read more in ESSAYS.
Ann’s historical fiction is “just right”
Why writers write: “Writing a novel is taking life as it exists to make an object that might contain this life inside it, something that never was and will not be again.” – Eudora Welty
50 Give or Take published another piece of my microfiction, Hand Me Ups, a family tradition that began when I inherited clothes from my daughter, then in middle school, and continues as my grandson, now in middle school, gives me the shoes and clothes he’s outgrown. Sign up to receive and submit your own ultra-short stories, free, at 50 Give or Take.
Hand me downs and hand me ups across generations
Why writers write: “Writers write not because they know things but because they want to find things out.” – Julia Alvarez
My latest microfiction, “Uncle Joe,” appears in the January 10, 2024 issue of Fifty Word Stories, my first publication in this daily online journal. While readers will likely appreciate the punch line, the challenge for me as a writer was detailing what Uncle Joe hoped to impart to his nephew and niece. Read more about my SHORT STORIES from micro to flash to full-length.
Why writers write: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach
Behold the cover design for my forthcoming novel, The Sister Knot, to be published by Vine Leaves Press in April 2024. Read more about the book in NOVELS. While you’re on that page, browse my other five published novels. I’d love to increase my readership, so if you like my books, please tell the readers in your life, and rate and review the novels on Goodreads and Amazon. Thanks for your support! (Why writers write: “I write to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.” – Paulo Coelho)
The Sister Knot by Ann S. Epstein will be published in April 2024
