Laura Kalpakian

"You listen to me, my girl" Ruth Douglass tells her daughter. "You've got three choices in this world, and only three. A woman can be a virgin, a wife, or a widow, and that's all there is." Ruth Douglass should know. The central character in Laura Kalpakian's novel of three generations of Mormons, Ruth soon finds herself neither wife, widow, nor virgin. Born into genteel Salt Lake society, she marries Samuel Douglass and is flung into a hardscrabble...

"An unforgettable novel from an award-winning author about an ambitious young agent's daring fight to protect blacklisted writers in McCarthy-era Hollywood and her passionate relationship with an African American journalist. Outraged by her grandfather'sillicit affair with Empire Pictures' latest femme fatale, Roxanne Granville forsakes her position as Hollywood royalty and rejects the man who raised her, determined to strike out on her own. Backed...

"The memoir is not the story of what you know, it's the story of how you learned it. Memory into Memoir provides a lively guide for anyone looking to wrestle the unruly past onto the page. In thirteen chapters, Laura Kalpakian provides tools to develop narrative form, scenic depiction, character development, and dialogue. There are chapters devoted to excavating the Family Story and the slippery Truth, especially when telling stories not solely your...