Cary Library's next Literary Cafe will mark Women's History Month with a panel presentation, hosted by Lexington's own Marjan Kamali (author of TOGETHER TEA and THE STATIONERY SHOP). Award-winning authors Joy Castro (ONE BRILLIANT FLAME), Ava Homa (DAUGHTERS OF SMOKE AND FIRE), and Katherine Sherbrooke (LEAVING COY’S HILL) will discuss the portrayal of women in fiction, the responsibility of telling stories about women who have been hidden from history, and how writing about women's lives impacts women's futures.

This event will be held on March 23 at 7 PM ET via Zoom. Register to receive the Zoom link.

About our Authors:
Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Stationery Shop (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), a national bestseller, and Together Tea (EccoBooks/HarperCollins), a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Kamali’s novels are published in translation in more than 20 languages and The Stationery Shop was awarded the Prix Attitude in France. Her essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. The Stationery Shop is being adapted into a TV series at HBO and Together Tea was adapted for the stage.

Kamali holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, Kamali spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S.  She currently teaches creative writing at GrubStreet and lives in the Boston area with her family.

Ava Homa is an award-winning novelist, a seasoned journalist, and a human rights activist. Her words have appeared in the Globe and Mail, BBC, Guardian, Literary Hub, Literary Review of Canada and many more. She has spoken about women's rights across North America and Europe, including at the United Nations, Geneva. Ava has a Master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor in Canada. Her book of short stories on modern Iranian women, Echoes from the Other Land, was nominated for the 2011 Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize. Her debut novel Daughters of Smoke and Fire, the story of a Kurdish woman’s search for justice and freedom in Iran, won the 2020 Nautilus Book Award, was a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Writing Prize, and was Roxane Gay's Audacious book club pick.

Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the 2023 historical novel One Brilliant Flame; Flight Risk, a finalist for a 2022 International Thriller Award; the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers Hell or High Water, which received the Nebraska Book Award, and Nearer Home, which have been published in France by Gallimard’s historic Série Noire; the story collectionHow Winter Began; the memoir The Truth Book; and the essay collection Island of Bones, which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also editor of the craft anthology Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Familyand the founding series editor of Machete, a series in innovative literary nonfiction at The Ohio State University Press. She served as the guest judge of CRAFT‘s first Creative Nonfiction Award, and her work has appeared in venues including Ploughshares, The Brooklyn Rail, Senses of Cinema, Salon, Gulf Coast, Brevity, Afro-Hispanic Review, Seneca Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine. A former Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies (Latinx Studies) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she directs the Institute for Ethnic Studies.

Katherine Sherbrooke is the author of a family memoir and three novels: the New York Times notable Leaving Coy’s Hill, which was selected for 2022 MA Book Award’s Honors in Fiction prize, and Fill the Sky, the winner of a 2017 Independent Press Award and finalist for the Mary Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction. Her newest novel, THE HIDDEN LIFE OF ASTER KELLY is set to publish in April of 2023. She just completed ten years serving on the Board of GrubStreet, the nation’s largest creative writing center and Boston’s first public arts space dedicated to the written word. She shares her newly empty next in Cohasset with her husband and black lab.

In collaboration with Ashland Public Library, Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, and Tewksbury Public Library.

This program is sponsored by the Cary Library Foundation - www.carylibraryfoundation.org/for more information.