Miss Dennis School of Writing: and Other Lessons From a Woman’s Life

This first book from Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach is an intimate, personal collection of essays, remembrances, and columns that follow in the creative non-fiction tradition of Anna Quindlen and May Sarton. While it recounts the experiences and observations of a divorced, working mother, it expresses hopes and fears universal to all women. Steinbach focuses on the big and small things of life: the bond between lifelong friends, coming to grips with loss; the quiet, everyday moments between parents and child; the spiritual connection to nature; the realities of being a single parent. She writes of the people who have touched her own life: the influential teacher; the worldly aunt; the writer hero; the woman she sees regularly at the bus stop as both head to work. She offers us beautifully written lessons she has learned during a lifetime of changes and challenges.