Northshire Bookstore: Vermont in Fiction - Brett Ann Stanciu and Catherine Tudish - Call It Madness and A Thousand Souls

Two Vermont authors will join us to discuss their latest books - both set in rural Vermont, and linked through a deep connection to place and the characters' instinct to hold on to a defining narrative within the forces of disruption. Brett Ann Stanciu - Call It Madness Millennial Avah Lavoie' s crumbling relationship is the final push she needs to answer her estranged mother' s unexpected call: her great-grandfather Opa has died. Driving north to rural Vermont, Avah hopes to untangle the murky history of a family she barely knows. Rumors swirl-- about a long-lost farm, a sawmill accident, and Opa' s drinking. As a snowstorm closes in, complications escalate. A neighbor wants to buy Opa' s house and flip the lakefront land for profit. Trina, the neighbor' s sharp-tongued housekeeper, offers rides, coffee, and companionship-- but she has her own motives. When Avah tracks down her mother, holed up on a bender at the Blue Lion Motel, she catches a glimpse of the girl her mother once was: motherless, broken, still searching. Avah can' t forgive decades of drinking-- but empathy stirs. Catherine Tudish - A Thousand Souls A collection of fourteen stories interweaving the lives of three generations in the remote town of Neptune, Vermont. Catching sight of the village of Neptune nestled in a remote Vermont valley, a traveler likens it to a lost kingdom. The fourteen stories in Catherine Tudish's gorgeously crafted volume interweave the lives of three generations in this embarrassingly pretty town of upward of a thousand souls as they inevitably touch the outside world. A boy born of a secret affair travels by train to South Carolina for a first-time meeting with his respected father. A recent widow and Boston transplant solves the mystery of a teen girl gone missing. A beloved sheriff breaks up a drug operation, only to get busted himself for helping undocumented workers evade ICE. The disappointed wife of a rural mail driver presents him with a nude portrait--of herself. A shy girl with a speech impediment loses her stutter when she befriends and speaks to a black bear. Another boy has nightmares that seem to be the memories of a distant stranger's tragedy. BRETT ANN STANCIU is the author of Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal (Steerforth Press, 2021) and Hidden View (Green Writers Press, 2015). Recipient of a 2020 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and a 2024 Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, Stanciu lives in Hardwick, Vermont, in a century-old house built for granite workers and surrounded by lilacs. CATHERINE TUDISH is the author of the story collection Tenney's Landing and the novel American Cream. She has taught writing and literature at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the Bread Loaf School of English. She lives in a village in central Vermont, where she teaches a community writing workshop at the local library and serves as one of the town's three Fence Viewers.