Family secrets revealed by high profile novelists is the order of the day for the next installment of the Connecticut Authors Reading Series.

Georgia Hunter’s discovery of her family’s Holocaust past provided the basis for her debut novel, We Were the Lucky Ones, a finalist for the 2018 Connecticut Book Awards. In Husbands and Other Sharp Objects, Marilyn Simon Rothstein explores the minefield of secrets detonated over the course of a family wedding. And debut novelist Tom Seigel uses the space race to tell the story of an astronaut’s son whose father may have been murdered to cover up an appalling NASA secret in The Astronaut’s Son.

Newtown author Sophfronia Scott created the series to introduce to readers and writers the work of authors who live in the Nutmeg State.

“If your book club is looking for its next great read, don’t miss this event,” said Ms Scott. “I love the variety we’re presenting. These writers have collectively created work that is haunting, engaging, adventurous, and funny. There really will be something for everyone.”

The next current reading, a 2018 Newtown Arts Festival event, will take place Sunday, October 21, from 2 to 4 pm, in the main meeting room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street. The writers will read from published works with time in between each reading for discussion and Q&A with the audience about the craft of writing. Refreshments will be served, and books will be available for purchase.

This Month’s Authors

When Georgia Hunter was 15 years old, she learned that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. We Were the Lucky Ones was born of her quest to uncover her family’s staggering history.

Six years later, a family reunion lit the spark for her 2017 debut novel. Hosted at her parents’ home, the family gathering drew 30 relatives from North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. Speaking in Portuguese, French, and English, they told their family stories.

As Hunter described the experience in an interview with the Gordon School alumni magazine: “A baby born in a Siberian gulag. An escape from the Radom ghetto. A secret wedding in Lvov. A romance aboard a ship full of refugees bound for Brazil. Little by little, I began to piece together a part of my family’s past which, until that day, I had no idea existed.”

It took Hunter nearly a decade to begin the saga of her grandfather and his four siblings, whose descendants span the globe.

After creating a color-coded timeline to keep track of the many family branches, she turned to researching archives and museums and contacting ministries and magistrates. As she tells it, she “plotted an outline and chapter summaries and from there began the terrifying task of putting my story to paper!”

Avon resident Marilyn Simon Rothstein is the author of Lift and Separate, winner of the Star Award presented by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association for Outstanding Debut. Husbands And Other Sharp Objects is her second novel.

Ms Rothstein grew up in New York City, earned a degree in journalism from New York University, began her writing career at Seventeen magazine, married a man she met in an elevator, and owned an advertising agency for more than 25 years. She earned an MA in liberal studies from Wesleyan University and an MA in Judaic studies from the University of Connecticut.

Tom Seigel was born in St Louis, Missouri, just months before the Apollo 11 lunar landing. He grew up in rural Warren County, and during high school, he studied classical piano at St Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts.

He graduated from Washington University in St Louis with a degree in English Literature and Spanish, and after college, he attended the University of Michigan Law School.

Following a stint at a Manhattan law firm, Mr Seigel worked for eight years as an Assistant US Attorney in Brooklyn. There, he was Deputy Chief and Chief of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force. He prosecuted several high-ranking members of the Lucchese, Bonanno, and Colombo families. He also prosecuted heroin traffickers, corrupt NYPD detectives, and NBA referee Tim Donaghy.

After twenty years as a litigator, Mr Seigel earned an MFA in fiction writing from Fairfield University. The Astronaut’s Son is his debut novel. He is currently working on a second novel.

Sophfronia Scott grew up in Lorain, Ohio, a hometown she shares with author Toni Morrison. She earned a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

She began her career as an award-winning journalist for Time and People magazines. Her latest novel is Unforgivable Love (William Morrow). She is also the author of an essay collection, Love’s Long Line (Ohio State University Press’s Mad Creek Books) and a memoir, This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child in a Secular World, co-written with her son Tain (Paraclete Press).

Her essays, short stories, and articles have appeared in Killens Review of Arts & Letters; Saranac Review; Numéro Cinq; Ruminate; Barnstorm Literary Journal; Sleet Magazine; at newyorktimes.com; More; and O, The Oprah Magazine. Ms Scott teaches at Regis University’s Mile High MFA and Bay Path University’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction.

For additional information about the Connecticut Authors Reading Series, call 203-426-4533 or visit chboothlibrary.org.