Local author Megan Baxter will celebrate the launch of her debut book, The Coolest Monsters, with a launch party at CrossFit (25 Delano Drive) on Friday, November 16 at 8:00 pm. This event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served. Fiction Addiction will be selling books on site. Books can also be purchased online, at the store, or by calling Fiction Addiction at 864-675-0540.
The pieces in this collection range in setting from the small towns of New England to the deserts of the Southwest. Grounded in personal experience these essays ask through narrative what it means to be a rebel girl, a rebel teenager, and a rebel woman in a world that seems to offer no real alternative to traditional roles.
Infused with lyrical and figurative language, this collection combines the swiftness of the prose poem with the power of the personal essay resulting in writing that pulls the ground out from under the reader again and again. The collection is organized chronologically in a way that charts the development of a woman as she attempts to adapt to the world around her through stories of love, heartbreak, and adventure.
The essays travel with the narrator from a summer camp in Maine, to opal mining in Nevada, to the story of a deadly thunderstorm in Vermont, to hunting for ginseng, asking the questions about belonging, expectation and, ultimately, if there is a chance for real happiness.
Megan Baxter holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA in poetry from Goddard College. In 2004 she graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and was a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Her essays have won numerous awards including The Faulkner Society’s Gold Award and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been published in such journals as The Threepenny Review, The Florida Review, Hotel Amerika, and The Open Bar at Tinhouse. She currently lives in Greenville, South Carolina with her fiancé and their four beloved dogs.
If you cannot make the event, you can reserve a personalized copy of the author’s book by contacting Fiction Addiction in advance at 864-675-0540 or at [email protected].