All posts tagged: teen pregnancy

Searingly Sharp Novel-in-short-stories about scandal, secrets, relationships, a teen pregnancy, IF THE ICE HAD HELD Wendy J. Fox talks about exposing motivations, artful intimacy, writing contests, more

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By Leslie Lindsay  A web of intersecting lives–often dysfunctional and unusual–told in a hauntingly intimate prose with insight and empathy. ~FICTION FRIDAY|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ When this book came to my attention, I knew I had to read it. IF THE ICE HAD HELD (April 2019, winner of the Santa Fe Literary Press Award), is a gorgeously told web of intersecting lives told in a taut, lyrical prose about disillusionments, deceptions, relationships, motherhood, and so much more. Melanie Henderson is a 35-year old professional living and working in Denver. She dabbles in affairs with married men, but still hasn’t learned that the woman who raised her is actually her aunt. But that’s only the tip of the ice berg. Told from seven different POVs over three decades, and thirty-seven chapters, Melanie only receives sixteen of them. So who are these other people and how do they fit into Melanie’s narrative? I really enjoyed this structure, but can see how others might find it frustrating and confusing–there are a good deal of threads to maintain and …

National Book Award-winning and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Woodson’s RED AT THE BONE, about family, history, ambition, and a teen pregnancy

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By Leslie Lindsay  Beneath the trouble, lies a very powerful and poignant tale about race and class, ambition, and more. RED AT THE BONE is destined to become a classic.  ~Wednesdays with Writers: SPOTLIGHT!~ The thing with ‘classic’ literature is that it is typically polarizing; that is, not everyone is going to love it, there will be themes that make readers squirm, that make us uncomfortable. Classic literature does that. That’s exactly what we’ll find in this bestseller from Jacqueline Woodson, RED AT THE BONE (September 17 2019). Told in a forward-and-backward momentum, Woodson tells the story of two African American families from different social classes who come together because of a teen pregnancy and the child it produces. We begin with a sixteen-year-old’s coming-of-age party in somewhat contemporary (2001) times. Melody is that baby from sixteen years ago, when her mother was an unmarried pregnant teen. Adoring relatives look on, but what we don’t know is the pain each of them has carried. “In less than 200 sparsely filled pages, this book manages to encompass issues of class, …

Write On, Wednesday: Eric Lotke Author of MAKING MANNA talks about how moods affect scenes, writing from different POVs, the justice system, & how he doesn’t have literary favorites (exactly)

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By Leslie Lindsay Here’s a story that will have you alternatively feeling hopeful and disgusted, wrought with inner angst, and pulling at your skin to help escape the torturous injustice of the penal system.  You’ll fall in the love with the searing honesty, the glittering prose, and the characters themselves. They might remind you a bit of someone you know…maybe even  yourself. MAKING MANNA (2015, Brandyland Books) reads like it could be a memoir, but it’s fiction. But like all good fiction, it’s tied together with a few strands of the truth. Click here to read an excerpt. Today, I am honored to have Eric Lotke chat about his book, MAKING MANNA. Highly recommended you read the last third in a bakery, or at least have some freshly baked bread nearby. Leslie Lindsay: I am always fascinated by what brings a writer to the page. There has to be something that is intriguing to you, keeping you awake at night to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about, writing, and well…the whole process of getting …