James J. Patterson Reads from MELANIE’S SONG on Latest LFTRR
The new mystery novel by ASP's Joanna Biggar is given the Patterson treatment in Episode 11 of Live from the Reading Room
“Melanie’s Song is an unputdownable, riveting feat of storytelling.”
Set in the era of Woodstock and Watergate, Melanie’s Song centers on a young woman’s mysterious disappearance, and on her friend’s determined search for her.
Melanie, who fled her marriage to a straight-laced classical musician in order to hitch-hike to Woodstock and San Francisco, was last seen at a commune in the California hills. Rumors abound: that she took up with a Black radical; that she had his child; that she and her lover, armed, ran a bank heist a la Patty Hearst; that she developed a mystical gift for spiritual healing; that she died in a possible accidental, possibly staged commune fire.
Trying to sift truth from invention pulls her friend, the young reporter, J.J., into the underbelly of the sexual and social revolutions of the 60s and early 70s, where she encounters corrupt cops, paranoid hippies, activists, mystics, drug-runners,and most astonishingly, Melanie’s own parents. Risking her job, her connections, her life, J.J. follows Melanie’s trail, determined to find out what happened to her once-compliant friend now turned, it seems, into a rebel angel.
ASP Celebrates AAPI Month With Selections from the Work of Linda Watanabe McFerrin
ASP celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with works by Japanese-American poet and writer, Linda Watanabe McFerrin. The two poems and one essay below are featured in her Legacy Collection, Navigating the Divide.
THE OTHER ONES named “great summer read” by Pittsburgh Magazine
Pittsburgh Magazine includes Dave Housley’s new novel, The Other Ones, among it’s list of must have summer reads for 2022. Whether on the beach, exploring the Alleghanies, or just relaxing in the sun, The Other Ones is a page turner suitable for anyone averting themselves from clammy office life.
Saida Agostini’s “let the dead in” Featured in Ms. Magazine
Saida Agostini’s debut collection of poems receives a glowing recommendation from Ms. Magazine in three words: “Mythology, ancestry, triumph.”