"Delicate Edible Birds" release party
Lauren Groff at Wild Iris Books, January 27th, 6:00 pm
New York Times Bestselling author Lauren Groff will be at Wild Iris Books on Tuesday, January 27th at 6:00 pm, to launch her second book, Delicate Edible Birds. A collection of nine short stories, Delicate Edible Birds ranges in time and place, from a contemporary Templeton, New York, in “Lucky Chow Fun,” where Groff’s debut novel The Monsters of Templeton took place, to the 1918 flu epidemic in New York City in “L. DeBard and Aliette,” to a group of war correspondents fleeing the Nazis in the title story, “Delicate Edible Birds.” Publisher’s Weekly calls the book “innovative and beautifully written.”
A resident of Gainesville, Groff has won a Pushcart Prize and published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Best American Short Stories, and Ploughshares, among other journals and anthologies. The Monsters of Templeton was critically acclaimed, a Booksense and New York Times Bestseller, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, and has been translated into nine languages.
The event is free and open to the public.
In January 2009, Hyperion/Voice will publish Delicate Edible Birds, a collection of nine short stories of widely different styles and structures. “L. De Bard and Aliette “The Atlantic” recreates the medieval tale of Abelard and Heloise in New York during the 1918 flu epidemic; “Lucky Chow Fun” returns to Templeton, the setting of Groff’s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton ; or a contemporary account of what happens to outsiders in a small, insular town; the title story, “Delicate Edible Birds,” is the tale of a group of war correspondents, a lone woman among them, who fall prey to a frightening man in the French countryside while fleeing the Nazis.
Stories from this collection have appeared in journals and anthologies including:
Best American Short Stories 2007;
Best New American Voices 2008
The Pushcart Prize Anthology: Best of the Small Presses XXXII
The Atlantic Monthly ;
Ploughshares
Glimmer Train Stories
One Story /a>
The Chattahoochee Review
“Tales of ordinary transformations and everyday occurrences are made magical in a collection of nine stories by Groff (The Monsters of Templeton, 2008).The details make the difference in this sophomore effort. They range from specific realities, as when a lonely teen swimmer watches her breath rise in ‘a great silver jellyfish-bubble of air’ before her small town falls apart in ‘Lucky Chow Fun,’ to dreamlike metaphor, as when another young woman feels her depression as ‘this black sack filled with cobras’ in ‘Majorette.’
‘Lucky Chow Fun,’ which returns to Templeton, the fictionalized Cooperstown,N.Y., of the author’s debut novel, was previously published, as was the vivid ‘L. DeBard and Aliette,’ a retelling of a tragic romance, set in NewYork during the flu epidemic of 1918. As a collection, the stories are loosely connected by their themes of metamorphosis, as girls grow up, lose their illusions and, often, find unexpected happiness. Images of water and fire run through these tales as well: Aliette, the Heloise substitute, regains her strength after polio via swimming lessons with the handsome L. DeBard, and, in ‘Watershed,’ a diver tells of an elderly couple who end their pain by diving into a waterfall. ‘There is no ending, no neatness in this story,’ the narrator offers. ‘There never really is, where water is concerned.’ The ‘wild, febrile, kind, ambiguous’ nature of the elements may serve to explain the power in these stories, which could have faltered in the hands of a lesser writer.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The richly conceived, finely detailed stories offer portraits of smart, daring women who are in search of, in thrall to, or disillusioned by love. .
. . Vivid tales from a gifted young writer who continues to surprise.” –Booklist
By: CherylCheryl is a computer networking professor at Sante Fe College for the past 14 years and is a highly sought after internet and computer consultant. Previous to her tenure at Sante Fe, Cheryl spent seven years working for the American Red Cross in Jacksonville. During that time she served as a founding member of the North Florida Aids Network, Vice-Chair of the North Florida Drowning Prevention Coalition and wrote many grants for HIV/AIDS education training. Cheryl has, also, had the privilege of being mother to two wonderful human beings. Her 19 year old son Sean and 17 year old daughter Jessie have been very supportive of her commitment to Wild Iris Books and have been very helpful its growth and success. Cheryl is the logistical and strategic thinker of the team who is one of the most non-judgmental, compassionate persons on the planet.
Website: http://friendsofwildiris.org/members/cheryl/
I must shamefully admit that as a new “small farmer”, I thought this was about birds I could raise and eat. I do so love to JUMP to that wonderful land of conclusions.
Have a giggle at my expense, I sure did.