A Little Future, A Little Science, A Little Dystopia; A Fiction Book Talk
Tattered Cover welcomes author Laura Maylene Walter on Monday March 22nd at 6pm MT to discuss her new book, Body of Stars, which can be purchased below. She will be in conversation with Liz Breazeale.
Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter - CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOUR COPY
Perfect for fans of Leni Zumas's Red Clocks and Naomi Alderman's The Power, Body of Stars is a unique and timely exploration of girlhood, womanhood, and toxic masculinity. A piercing indictment of rape culture, it is an inventive and urgent read about what happens when women are objectified and stripped of choice—and what happens when they fight back.
Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage to adulthood. Like every girl, she was born with a set of childhood markings—the freckles, moles, and birthmarks on her body that foretell her future and that of those around her—and with puberty will come a new set of predictions that will solidify her fate. The possibilities are tantalizing enough to outweigh the worry that the future she dreams of won't be the one she's fated to have and the fear of her “changeling period”: the time when women are nearly irresistible to men and the risk of abduction is rife.
Celeste's beloved brother, Miles, is equally anticipating her transition to adulthood. As a skilled interpreter of the future, a field that typically excludes men, Miles considers Celeste his practice ground—and the only clue to what his own future will bring. But when Celeste changes, she learns a devastating secret about Miles's fate: a secret that could destroy her family, a secret she will do anything to keep. Yet Celeste isn't the only one keeping secrets, and when the lies of brother and sister collide, it leads to a tragedy that will irrevocably change Celeste's fate, set her on a path to fight against the inherent misogyny of fortune-telling, and urge her to create a future that is truly her own.
Laura Maylene Walter is a writer and editor in Cleveland. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, Kenyon Review, The Sun, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, and many other publications. She has been a Tin House Scholar, a recipient of the Ohioana Library Association’s Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, and a writer‑in‑residence at Yaddo, the Chautauqua Institution, and Art Omi: Writers. Body of Stars is her debut novel.
Liz Breazeale is the recipient of a 2020 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and won the 2018 Prairie Schooner Book Prize for Fiction for her first book, Extinction Events: Stories. She holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University and lives in Denver, where she teaches at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in the Cincinnati Review, Juked, Best Small Fictions, Kenyon Review Online, Best of the Net, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Fence, and others.
Registration includes access to this live stream event the night of the event, before it is posted on Tattered Cover's YouTube Channel, two days after.
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