Suzanne Strempek Shea

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

Some of the best writers in New England join us for an event centered on memory, grief, history, family. Join us for discussion on these topics!

Richard Hoffman is author, most recently, of the memoir Love & Fury, a finalist for the New England Book Award from the New England Independent Booksellers Association. He is also author of the celebrated Half the House: a Memoir, and the poetry collections, Without Paradise, Gold Star Road, winner of the 2006 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the 2008 Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club, and Emblem. A fiction writer as well, his Interference & Other Stories was published in 2009. A past Chair of PEN New England, he is Senior Writer in Residence at Emerson College.

Spanning the course of three wars and almost a century, An Italian Wife: A Novel by Ann Hood, best-selling author of The Obituary Writer and The Knitting Circle, is a multi-generational saga chronicling the story of the Rimaldi family, from the first generation who immigrated to the United States from Italy on the cusp of the twentieth century to their great grandchildren. This is the American experience writ small, explored through the lens of one immigrant family. Beautifully written and deeply emotional, it will thrill fans and critics alike.

Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, Suzanne Strempek Shea began writing fiction in her spare time while working as reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and The Providence (Rhode Island) Journal.

She is the author of five novels: Selling the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily of the Valley, Around Again, and Becoming Finola, published by Washington Square Press. She has also written three memoirs, Songs From a Lead-lined Room: Notes - High and Low - From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation; Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures From a Year in a Bookstore; and Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith.

Helen Peppe returns to share Pigs Can't Swim: A Memoir, an outrageous, hilarious, and touching memoir of childhood by the youngest of nine children in a hardscrabble, beyond-eccentric Maine family.

Location: Street: 45 S Main St Additional: City: Concord , Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03301 Country: United States (afegit de IndieBound)… (més)

Whether crossing continents or crossing centuries, writing fact or fiction, an author must tackle a lot of research to create a book. Join authors M.P. Barker and Suzanne Strempek Shea for a talk about the behind-the-scenes stories of their newest titles.

M.P. Barker is a freelance historical consultant and author of the award-winning historical novel A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008).Her new historical novel, Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014), is about three misfits—a peddler, a runaway, and an Irish horse whisperer—who mend each other’s broken lives as they heal a traveling circus’s mistreated ponies.

Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of five novels and three memoirs, and this year will celebrate the release of two more books, the first of which, This is Paradise: An Irish mother's grief, and African village's plight and the medical clinic that brought fresh hope to both, is just out from PFP Publishing.

m. p. barker suzanne strempek shea mending horses (mpbarker)… (més)

Join us for the seventh annual “Are You a Bookie?” book club gathering, featuring keynote speaker Michael A. Ponsor, senior district judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Western Division, and author of the newly released thriller, The Hanging Judge.

On the author panel, M.P. Barker will read from and discuss her second historical novel, Mending Horses; John Jarvis will read from and discuss his new biography, Johnny Pail Face Becomes a Human Being; and Suzanne Strempek Shea will read from and discuss her nonfiction book, This is Paradise: An Irish Mother’s Grief, an African Village’s Plight.
m. p. barker a difficult boy mending horses suzanne strempek shea michael posner (mpbarker)… (més)

Join us as we welcome author Suzanne Strempek Shea to our store where she will be reading from and discussing her biography of Mags Riordan, This is Paradise.

Your brakes fail and your car plunges from a pier into a February-frigid harbor. You are thrown to safety but your four-month old daughter, trapped in her car seat, drowns. Four years after that horror, you return from a trip to the shore and lift you four-month old son from his carrier only to realize he's dead, too, a victim of SIDS. Twenty-two years later, your twenty-five-year old son drowns whiles wiming in a Malawi, Africa lake. How do you survive that first death, never mind the second, or the third?

Mags Riordan would know. The guidance counselor from Country Kerry, Ireland, endured those three tragedies, and became changed in a very different way after the third. In 2000, while bringing a memorial stone to the remote Malawian village where Billy Riordan drowned the year before, Mags saw the beauty of the place he called "paradise." But she also saw the need, including the abscence of medical care in an area with one doctor for 800,000 people. Four years later, she founded the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic in Cape Maclear, Malawi, recruiting an all-volunteer staff of international doctors and nurses, which as the clinic marks its tenth anniversary, has served over 275,000 and saved countless lives.

This is a story about motherhood, loss, grief, healing, and traveling - in many ways - into the unknown, and shows keenly how one person indeed can change the world around her, even if starting with little more than two hands and one broken heart.

Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of five novels and four works of nonfiction. She has been featured on NBC's Today, NPR and Voice of Americ, and in USA Today and the Washington Post. Shea teaches at the University of Maine's Stonecoast MFA program and is writer in residence at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

Location: Street: 222 West St. City: Keene, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03431 Country: United States (afegit de IndieBound)… (més)

– SUZANNE STREMPEK Shea discussing and signing This is Paradise the true story of Mags Riordan who lost two young children to tragedies and then 22 years later her 25 year old son drowned in a lake in Malawi, Africa, a place he called “paradise”. When Mags brought a memorial stone to the remote Malawian area she saw the critical need for medical care. Four years later she founded the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic recruiting an all volunteer staff of international doctors and nurses that has in its 10 years served over 275,000 patients and saved countless lives. Suzanne Shea’s book shows keenly how one person can change the world, even if starting with little more than two hands and one broken heart.

Location: Street: 12 Depot Square City: Peterborough, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03458-1421 Country: United States (afegit de IndieBound)… (més)

Suzanne Strempek Shea , Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith.

SUNDAYS IN AMERICA: A YEARLONG ROAD TRIP IN SEARCH OF CHRISTIAN FAITH is the chronicle of Shea's year of visiting a different non-Catholic Christian church every Sunday for a year, from coast to coast and in between, from Baptist Easter in Harlem, to a sing-along at the Cowboy Church in Colorado, to Joel Osteen's multimedia experience at the largest church in the country. (booksense)… (més)