Milkweed Books
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Minneapolis, MN 55415
United States
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. PLEASE RSVP HERE.
Join Milkweed Books and Milkweed Managing Editor Lauren Langston Klein as we welcome author JOSELYN TAKACS in launching her debut novel, Pearce Oysters, out now with Zibby Media. The program will include a reading from the author, followed by an editorial conversation with Lauren Langston Klein. They will discuss novel-writing as a craft, the editorial process, publishing how-tos, and moderate a lively Q + A.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A divided family. A devastated community. And the disaster that brings them all together.
Pearce Oysters, a family drama set on the Louisiana coastline during the historic 2010 oil spill, follows the Pearces, local oyster farmers whose business, family, and livelihood are on the brink of collapse. This is eye-opening, eco-fiction at its best–a story that highlights the grit and beauty of lives lived in an overlooked corner of the American South. Diving deep into the bonds of family, culture, class, and industry, the novel elevates the voices of deeply sympathetic characters: Jordan, the reluctant head of his family’s storied oyster company; May, his distressed, widowed mother; and Benny, his beatnik musician brother, who returns from New Orleans in their time of crisis. The dynamic between Jordan’s desperation to live up to, and become the business, and Benny’s determination to separate from his family entirely, before the spill, builds the perfect storm.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
JOSELYN TAKACS holds a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California and an MFA in Fiction from Johns Hopkins University. Her fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Narrative, Tin House online, Harvard Review, The Rumpus, DIAGRAM, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and elsewhere. She has published interviews and book reviews in the Los Angeles Review of Books and Entropy. She has taught writing at the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University. Her debut novel, Pearce Oysters, is a family drama set during the 2010 BP Oil Spill. She lived in New Orleans at the time of the spill, and in 2015, she received a grant to record the oral histories of Louisiana oyster farmers in the wake of the environmental disaster. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
LAUREN LANGSTON KLEIN is the managing editor for Milkweed Editions. Prior to joining the team, she worked as the editorial director for an independent press and as a senior editor for HarperCollins. Before discovering that her passion for editing is fueled by working with authors, she served as the managing editor for a print and digital magazine. She holds a BS in journalism from the University of Florida.