Welcome to Season 3 of The Writers' Cafe! Brought to you from the award-winning indie, Sevenoaks Bookshop!
This week's visitor to the cafe is the wondeful Shannon Sanders! Shannon is an award-winning American author and an attorney, whose debut novel, The Great Wherever, follows a woman who inherits her late father's share of a haunted Tennessee farm. It is a multigenerational family saga narrated in part by the family's own ghosts. Shannon is also the author of the linked story collection Company, which won the 2024 LA Times Book Prizes' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize. Join us as we discuss all things family legacy, gentrification, storytelling, and the ghosts--literal and otherwise--that never quite let go.
Denise's Bookseller review: “Wow! I was completely invested in every character from start to finish! This is a wonderful, wry family saga about Aubrey Lamb, a directionless 30-something-year-old who's just lost her father and her relationship in the same breath - and then inherits his stake in a Tennessee farm tangled up in old secrets. The twist is that the story is narrated in part by the family's ancestors, who linger on the land watching, gossiping, and correcting the record. Sanders grounds the novel with genuinely complex, funny and flawed characters, and it makes readers think about just how true it is that storytelling is a form of immortality. Moving between generations and time periods, it's ultimately a book about grief, inheritance, and how we come to understand ourselves through family we didn't choose. I laughed, I cried, and devoured this book in a single sitting!!\"
If you are new to The Writer's Cafe pod: Inspired by our own in-shop cafe of the same name and the conversations about books, life, literature, and so much more every single day - as well as the literary salons of old where gossip thrived - this podcast seeks to highlight and celebrate the best writers and voices every episode with a warm, detailed conversation about their work and craft.
Shannon's work can be purchased with us here:
The Great Wherever: https://sevenoaksbookshop.co.uk/shop/the-great-wherever-by-shannon-sanders/
Company: https://sevenoaksbookshop.co.uk/shop/company-by-shannon-sanders/
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