Join us to celebrate the launch of Tessa Fontaine’s debut novel, The Red Grove, which will be out on May 14th! Pre-order it here.
Tessa Fontaine (photo by Max Cooper)
Tessa Fontaine is the author of THE ELECTRIC WOMAN: A MEMOIR IN DEATH-DEFYING ACTS, a New York Times Editors' Choice, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, and best book of 2018 by Southern Living, Refinery29, Amazon Editors', and The New York Post. Other writing can be found in Outside, The New York Times, Glamour, AGNI, The Believer, LitHub, Creative Nonfiction, and more. Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa is a former professor and has taught in jails and prisons for five years. She co-founded and teaches the Accountability Workshops with writer and pal Annie Hartnett, and lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, goofy dog and sassy cat. THE RED GROVE is her first novel.
Tessa will be joined in conversation with Michelle Kicherer.
Michelle Kicherer (photo by Roderick Allen)
Michelle Kicherer writes fiction and covers books and music for the San Francisco Chronicle and Willamette Week. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Masters Review, Forbes, Portland Monthly, The Berkeley Fiction Review, 580 Split, The Deli, The Bay Bridged, SF Station, The Cutaway, Into The Void, Rose City Review and many others. Michelle is a writing instructor for Literary Arts, Litquake, Portland Community College and Writing Workshops. She loves to teach and is always encouraging her students to get a little weirder.
The Red Grove is a special place, protected. Some say a spell was cast by the community’s founder, Tamsen Nightingale. Some say the mountain lions who stalk the nearby hills guard its mysteries and its people. Some say the mighty redwoods keep them safe.
Yet Luce’s mother, Gloria, has gone missing. A man came seeking answers among the Red Grove’s mysteries―a connection to the beyond―and died. And then Gloria vanished. The Red Grove is Luce’s whole world. She is devoted to its mission, its rituals and myths. But she knows that her mother, frustrated free spirit though she might be, wouldn’t just leave without a word, wouldn’t leave her little brother, Roo, and especially their aunt Gem, whose care in that suspended state of everdream depends on Gloria in every way. But as Luce tries to figure out what has happened to her mother, she discovers that this special place is not what it seems and that protection comes at a cost.
The debut novel by the acclaimed author of The Electric Woman, Tessa Fontaine's The Red Grove is an exploration of the legacies of violence, the price of safety, and the choices we make to protect what we love.
