Award-winning professor and author Phyllis Weliver was in the first wave to fall ill with long COVID.  The Arrow Tree: Healing from Long COVID chronicles Weliver's move from the city to a woodland cottage above a Michigan lake in order to regain health. Weliver reflects on the process of integrating mind/body health with the natural world. As she recovers from long-haul COVID, the author draws inspiration from forest bathing, traditional Odawa and Ojibwe culture, ancient Chinese philosophy, and British and American literature. While this memoir may be of special interest to those dealing with chronic illness, Weliver's narrative ultimately addresses how we might all mend from the bruising pace of modern life.

Twice funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities for her scholarly work, Phyllis Weliver is Professor of English at Saint Louis University and Fellow of Gladstone's Library in Wales. Her previous books include Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon (Cambridge University Press). She is from Michigan and now lives in Missouri with her husband and son.

This is an in-person event.  Masks are required for all attendees. Copies of The Arrow Tree will be available for purchase and signing at the event, courtesy of Subterranean Books.

Margaret Hermes' character Betsy, in her novel The Opposite of Chance, is sheltered at age thirty-two. Sheltered by a close-knit family, Catholic schools, college in her hometown, and a marriage at 20. It takes the discovery of her husband's serial philandering to open her eyes and push her out of the nest. It's the summer of 1981, Betsy grabs a backpack and a few good books and puts distance--geographically and emotionally--between herself and the life she knew in the American Midwest. She begins to make her own decisions: about cities, hotels, and dinner entrées. At airports, on trains, and in pensiones, Betsy takes her first steps into independence as she negotiates the brief, but intense relationships travelers have.

Margaret Hermes grew up in Chicago and lives in Saint Louis. Her short fiction collection, Relative Strangers, was the recipient of the Doris Bakwin Award. In addition to dozens of stories that have appeared in journals such as Fiction International, The Laurel Review, Confrontation, River Styx, and The Literary Review, and in anthologies such as 20 Over 40 and Under the Arch, her published and performed work includes a novel, The Phoenix Nest, and a stage adaptation of an Oscar Wilde fable. When not writing, she concentrates her energies on environmental issues.

This is an in-person event.  Masks are required for all attendees. Copies of The Opposite of Chance will be available for purchase and signing at the event, courtesy of Subterranean Books.