A couple of years back, I had the honor of doing a literary reading with some wonderful authors, including Jane Smiley, Joshilyn Jackson, Eileen Goudge, and Tatjana Soli. We were all from different parts of the country, and it was the first time we'd all met, so that in itself made it memorable.
Besides selling a few books, we shared a few great meals, more than a few excellent bottles of wine, took the wrong ferry on the way to the event (as the event's host, my bad!) and made a couple of life-long friends.
One whom I cherish greatly is New York Times bestselling author, Tatjana Soli--
Which is why I hope you'll join us when I interview her on Wednesday, September 5, 2012, at San Francisco's Booksmith, for a fun, insightful, and intimate conversation regarding her latest book, The Forgetting Tree.
If you didn't pick up her bestselling debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, I suggest you do so, post haste! For this book, she was the winner of the internationally esteemed 2011 James Tait Black Prize. The novel was also a New York Times Notable Book, and was finalist for the LA Times Book Award, among other honors.
Like The Lotus Eaters, The Forgetting Tree is a saga filled with broken dreams, acts of courage, tragedies and redemption. Tatjana is a writer whose stories have the lyricism of poetry.
Or as the New York Times' Janet Maslin puts it: "A haunting debut...quietly mesmerizing."
So true.
What else can I tell you about Tatjana? Well, let's see: her stories have appeared in Boulevard, The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Third Coast, Sonora Review and North Dakota Quarterly. Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories. She lives with her husband in Southern California.
Oh yeah: and she does a mean tango.
