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.
I’m happy to announce that my article “It’s Not Your Story: Citizenship Rules for Writers Groups” has been accepted for publication by Black Fox Literary Magazine. Here’s the log line: The craft essay “It’s Not Your Story: Citizenship Rules for Writers Groups” acknowledges that while some literary tenets beg to be broken, writers group etiquette rules are worth following to derive the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of membership. I’ll post the link when the essay is up and open for comments on the Black Fox blog. Read more of my thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.
Black Fox seeks fiction from under-represented genres and styles Why writers write: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach
My Amazon and Goodreads review of Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History (Rating 4) – More Deaths Per Page Than a War Book. In the battle for the skies, the history of aviation is littered with shattered bodies. All were intrepid souls, none more so than the women in Keith O’Brien’s Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History. Male aviators had to fight physics, mechanics, and weather. Women overcame all those and also the men who, both on and off the field, demeaned and tried to defeat them. Fortunately, the support among the women handily counteracted the discouragement of the men. “Fly Girls,” as the press dubbed them, were competitors but also friends. While some were bent on promoting themselves, all were primarily out to promote women’s full participation in aviation. Despite harrowing accounts of sacrifices and tragedies, this book is ultimately about victory and the amazing women whose dreams and persistence made their success possible. As a writer of historical fiction who often features women overcoming tough odds (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I cheered them to the heavens.
Sisterhood in the air “If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl
My creative nonfiction piece “My Name Could Be Toby Gardner” is now online as the featured essay at bioStories. The essay begins: “I lost my name. Perhaps the name was never mine to begin with. In which case, will I ever own one? Or, if the name was once in my possession, can I get it back?” While you’re visiting the site, check out, like, and follow the other features at bioStories, which “offers word portraits of the people surrounding us in our daily lives, of the strangers we pass on the street unnoticed and of those who have been the most influential and most familiar to us but who remain strangers to others.” Read more about my creative nonfiction in MEMOIR.
Me (bottom right) with my family at age five, when “Toby” became “Ann”
Tens of thousands of teachers, parents, and researchers have read my books about early development and education, most notably The Intentional Teacher. I also write literary fiction for grownups: On the Shore, Tazia and Gemma, and A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. Read more about my NOVELS and SHORT STORIES. We’re never too old to learn.
Strategies to support early learning An immigrant Jewish family in turmoil during World War I An Italian immigrant survives the Triangle Fire and flees with her unborn childA fictional biography of the Munchkin Coroner in The Wizard of Oz
I’m happy to announce that my short story, “A Mule of One’s Own,” will be published in Orca (2020, Issue #3). Here’s the log line: “A Mule of One’s Own” is about a pack horse librarian who delivers books and hope to Kentucky’s rural families in the Depression while her own family falls apart because her job threatens her unemployed husband. Here’s the history behind the story: In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded local women to serve as “equestrienne librarians,” visiting isolated families in Kentucky’s remote hills. The women traveled miles through rutted, icy, and muddy trails to teach children and adults to read, and deliver books, magazines, and other materials, in hopes they’d have a better chance of finding employment when the economy recovered. Read more in SHORT STORIES.
The WPA paid local pack horse librarians to visit Kentucky’s remote hills during the Depression An equestrienne librarian was a lifeline to poor isolated hill people in Kentucky in the 1930s
My Amazon and Goodreads review of Olive, Again (Rating 5) – Godfrey. Thank God Olive Kittridge is Back. In Olive, Again, Elizabeth Strout returns us to the coastal town of Crosby, Maine. All I can say is, “Godfrey. Thank God Olive Kittridge is back.” In stories that feature Olive, or bring her on for a cameo, Strout introduces us to residents whose lives are filled with sadness, even tragedy, but who evince a New England determination not to complain and to carry on. Olive delights us with her own small epiphanies, often reached reluctantly but embraced when she accepts that they are inescapable. One of Strout’s most satisfying creations is Jack Kennison, Olive’s late-in-life second husband, who is her match in irascibility and likability. Best about Jack is how much he likes Olive. Olive herself is one hot, leaky mess of contradictions: tactless and kind; humorless and funny; oblivious and self-aware; judgmental and open-minded; exasperating and endearing. I was reluctant to read the last story because I didn’t want the book to end. As a writer (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that my characters never leave me. I hope that is true for writer Elizabeth Strout, because as a reader, all I can say is “Godfrey. Please don’t ever die Olive. I can’t bear the thought of a world without your bulk.”
The prickly but endearing Olive Kittridge is one hot, leaky mess of contradictionsWhy writers read: “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” – Oscar Wilde
Five years before the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, the Nazis conducted a “test killing” of 9,000 disabled people to make sure the carbon monoxide gas method they’d developed was “suitable” for mass extermination. Citing the theories of eugenics, the Third Reich claimed the murdered children and adults were “animals, not humans.” The test was declared a success, and followed by the killing of 70,000 additional disabled people at that site, another 230,000 elsewhere, and 6 million Jews and other victims in concentration camps. The site of the test killing, Aktion T4, in Brandenburg, Germany, contains the remains of an old brick barn with only a small memorial plaque. By design, there were no survivors left to testify about the Nazi “experiment.” Read about a disabled person who escaped the Nazi social hygiene policies in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
Aktion T4, in Brandenberg, Germany, site of the mass “test killing” of disabled people by carbon monoxide gasA Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. by Ann S. Epstein (Alternative Book Press, Editors’ Choice Selection of Historical Novel Review)
If writers succumbed to charges of cultural appropriation, literature would be devoid of imagination and empathy. Says Hari Kunzru in The Guardian (10/01/16), “Clearly, if writers were barred from creating characters with attributes that we do not ‘own’ (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on), fiction would be impossible. Stories would be peopled by clones of the author.” For more thoughts on writing see REFLECTIONS.
Why writers write: “To survive, you must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco
A year before the tragic 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire in New York City, women staged the Chicago Garment Workers Strike against Hart, Schaffner, and Marx, which employed several thousand workers in dozens of clothing factories — sweatshops — around the city. Women unified across racial and ethnic boundaries to protest low wages and poor working conditions. The strike, which lasted from September 1910 to January 1911, ended when labor and management agreed on a deal to raise wages and meet health and safety standards. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
The Chicago Garment Workers Strike ended, successfully, just two months before the tragic Triangle Waist Company Fire in New York City Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press) by Ann S. Epstein
I’m happy to announce that my short story “Over the Road Song” will be published by The Manhattanville Review in their January 2020 issue. Here is the log line: In “Over the Road Song,” women truckers (CB handles mothertrucker2, Grannygears, and tankertopper) from three generations have a testy debate about the pros and cons of life on the road. The story will be online at the end of the month on The Manhattanville Review website. Read more in SHORT STORIES.
Of the 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S., only 6.6% are women Why writers write: “To speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so.” – Albert Camus
