Book Club Evening with Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

EVENT: A Book Club Evening featuring Heidi Durrow, author of the novel The Girl Who Fell From The Sky. Heidi will be joined by Craig Popelars, director of marketing for Algonquin Books. Attendees will be entered in drawings for books, tote bags, tickets to upcoming events and much more! Light refreshments will be served,

HEIDI DURROW is a graduate of Stanford, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Law School. She is the recipient of a Fellowship in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Writers, a Jentel Foundation Residency, and won top honors in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and the Chapter One Fiction Contest. She has received grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Roth Endowment and the American Antiquarian Society. She has also received Fellowships to the Norman Mailer Writers' Colony and the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, Heidi has worked as a corporate litigator at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and as a Life Skills trainer to professional athletes of the National Football League and National Basketball Association. She is the co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat; and the co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, an annual free public event, that celebrates stories of the Mixed experience.

Durrow's writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Callaloo, Poem/Memoir/Story, the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, Essence magazine, and Newsday. She is an occasional essay contributor to National Public Radio. She received writer Barbara Kingsolver's 2008 Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change for The Girl Who Fell From the Sky (Algonquin Books), her first novel, which has been hailed as one of the Best Novels of 2010 by the Washington Post, a Top 10 Buzz Book of 2010 by the Boston Herald and named a Top 10 Debut of 2010 by Booklist. Ebony Magazine recently named Heidi as one of its Power 100 Leaders of 2010 along with writers Edwidge Danticat, Malcolm Gladwell and Ntozake Shange.

DATE/TIME: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 7:00 PM.

LOCATION: Rainy Day Books in The Fairway Shops, 2706 W. 53rd Street, Fairway, KS 66205.

ADMISSION PACKAGE: Tickets are required. $13.95 + tax admits one person, includes one trade paperback copy of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky. Seating is limited. Light refreshments will be served. Patrons will register for various giveaways as they arrive.

EVENT FORMAT: Heidi will present and discuss the creation of her novel, accompanied by a question & answer session with the audience. Craig will discuss Algonquin's role in publishing Heidi's novel, highlight other suggestions for book clubs, and answer questions about the publishing process.

Book List

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (Paperback)

By Heidi W. Durrow

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9781616200152
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1/2011

Other Editions of this Title

A timely and moving bicultural coming-of-age tale about the daughter of a Danish immigrant and a black G.I. A beauty with light brown skin and blue eyes, she attracts much attention in her new home. The world wants to see her as either black or white, but that's not how she sees herself.

Meanwhile, a mystery unfolds, revealing the terrible truth about Rachel's last morning on a Chicago rooftop. Interwoven with her voice are those of Jamie, a neighborhood boy who witnessed the events, and Laronne, a friend of Rachel's mother.

Inspired by a true story of a mother's twisted love, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking "Must race confine us and define us?"

Winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Fiction

The Bellwether Prize, established by Barbara Kingsolver and awarded in even-numbered years, is the only major North American prize that specifically advocates literary fiction addressing issues of social justice.

The prize is awarded to a previously unpublished novel representing excellence in this genre.

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