Recent Spotlights

The Penmen Profile: Award-Winning Author and Columnist Vanessa Hua

By Rebecca LeBoeuf Much of Vanessa Hua’s factual and fictional writing focuses on Asia and the diaspora. Her debut novel, “A River of Stars,” which follows a pregnant Chinese immigrant, is due out in August and available for preorder now. The novel already appears in multiple booklists for 2018, including…

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The Penmen Profile: New York Times Best Seller Elinor Lipman

By Rebecca LeBoeuf Satirist Elinor Lipman, who grew up in Lowell, Mass., is approaching the one-year anniversary of her latest romantic comedy, “On Turpentine Lane.” Reviews written by Oprah.com and the Washington Post praise the novel and compare Lipman’s stories with those of Jane Austen. “Then She Found Me,” one…

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The Penmen Profile: New Novelist Siobhan Fallon

by Kristin Duckworth Siobhan Fallon’s debut novel, “The Confusion of Languages,” takes place in the American embassy community in Jordan during the Arab Spring – a setting Fallon knows well, having been stationed there with her husband. Fallon drew on her own experiences and observations to tell the story of…

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