Two local authors join us in celebration of their first novels! Autumn Konopka’s Pheidippides Didn’t Die is a novel about love, depression, and running — if you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you took Jane Eyre and Ted Lasso, asked them to run a marathon, and gave them a 90s-era soundtrack, then this is the story for you. Elizabeth Lukács Chesla’s You Cannot Forbid the Flower is a tale of love, revolution, and the power of story that weaves together fact and fiction, myth and memory to chronicle the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and its brutal suppression by the Soviet Union. Together, Autumn and Elizabeth will discuss the ways they've used fiction to transform trauma into stories of healing, growth, and love.
Autumn is a writer, runner, trauma-informed teacher, and coffee lover. She teaches, parents, and tries to make the world a better place in and around Philadelphia. In 2016, she was poet laureate of Montgomery County, PA; her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Coal Hill Review, Main Street Rag, Apiary, Literary Mama, and Crab Orchard Review, among others, and she blogs regularly for the Mad Poets Society. Her chapbook, a chain of paper dolls, was published by the Head & the Hand Press in 2014. In her debut novel, Pheidippides Didn’t Die, Libby is struggling with severe depression when she meets Mac, an awkward, beguiling stranger, who convinces her to help him run a marathon in less than 12 weeks. Their training will be fast, hard, and full of obstacles -- and it might just change both of their lives.
Elizabeth writes, edits, and teaches from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She has authored more than a dozen books on reading, writing, and critical thinking skills and serves on the board of the Transformative Language Arts Network. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Quarter After Eight, The Tattooed Buddha, Another Chicago Magazine, and Flare, a flash fiction anthology. You Cannot Forbid the Flower is her first book of fiction. Narrated by the daughter of an upriser, the story unfolds in flashes and fragments, stitching together past, present, and possibilities as she explores her father’s life as both revolutionary and refugee. An ode to a distant father, language, and homeland, You Cannot Forbid the Flower is a profound meditation on love, loss, and identity.