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Mondays @ The Marble: Elise Schiller

Mondays @ The Marble

a curated series of the best of our neighborhood authors

Elise Schiller

WATERMARK: The Broken Bell Series Book Launch

7pm on Zoom

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The oldest child in a barely functioning family, Angel Ferente struggles to care for her three sisters while pursuing her goal of attending college on a swimming scholarship.  She has a problematic relationship with her mother, Pic, whose troubled past has resulted in self-destructive behavior, and an outright hostile relationship with her stepfather.  Angel is the center of stability in the household—making sure that the younger girls get to school, ensuring that holidays are observed, doing the family’s laundry at her part-time job at a laundromat, and even taking care of Pic when she is sick or depressed.  It’s the early 1990s in Philadelphia, and in addition to their battles at home, Angel and her sisters witness everyday events of lie beset by poverty and drugs: dealers and sex workers on the corner, shoot-outs that result in dead bystanders, and more.

 

Then Angel vanishes after leaving her swim team’s New Year’s Eve party, leaving her sisters to fend for themselves and her friends terrified of what might have happened to her. In the wake of her disappearance, her teammates, her coach’s church, and her family search the city for her.  The result changes their lives forever.

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Elise Schiller has been writing fiction, memoir, and nonfiction and actively participating in writing groups since adolescence. She has published several short stories and a number of articles and essays. In August of 2019, SparkPress published her memoir, Even If Your Heart Would Listen: Losing My Daughter to Heroin. She is now working on the second book of her Broken Bell series. Schiller also blogs about the opioid epidemic, books, and family history on her website. After a thirty-year career in education and family services in Philadelphia, Schiller retired in 2015 to write full time. She is an active volunteer and served on the Philadelphia Mayor’s Task Force to Combat the Opioid Epidemic. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and disAbility Services and is an active member of the Friends of Safehouse. When not writing, reading, or volunteering, Schiller enjoys visiting museums and historical sites, often with one of her seven grandchildren or various nieces and nephews in tow.