Sue+Hallgarth



** Take a Midwinter Mystery Break: Meet Author Sue Hallgarth **

 //**On the Rocks**// is the inaugural title for independent publisher Arbor Farm Press. By Corrales, New Mexico author Sue Hallgarth, //On the Rocks// is the first in a literary mystery series featuring Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Willa Cather and her life partner Edith Lewis.

The year is 1929. Cather and Lewis are summering on Grand Manan, an island in the Bay of Fundy. In their cottage’s attic room, Cather is at work writing // Shadows on the Rock //. Edith is painting watercolors from the cliffs above Whale Cove. Out of the corner of her eye, Edith sees a body plunge to the rocks below…. Village politics and the goings-on of two women’s communities long lost to history make a suspenseful and surprising crime novel.

From John Murphy, Willa Cather Foundation Board of Governors member: “Sue Hallgarth incorporates the spectacular setting of Grand Manan into a mystery set among summer colonies of feminist artists, colorful island types, and suspicious visitors. Cather readers will detect her pronouncements on writing and life, and the island rock itself, a Cather symbol of survival, becomes here a solid contrast to the human foibles that play out on its surface.”

ALA's //Booklist// says "Cather fans will enjoy the atmosphere, and Hallgarth captures the local color well, providing a look at the eccentric island residents, the small-town politics, and the life of the women’s communities.”

Author Sue Hallgarth is a novelist and Willa Cather and Edith Lewis scholar. A former faculty member and administrator at Empire State College/State University of New York and William Woods University, she held a fellowship (1994-1996) from the American Council of Learned Societies to work on a biography of Willa Cather, and she was a visiting fellow at Princeton University and Rutgers University. From 1987-1996 she also served as a writing consultant and editor for the National Council for Research on Women.


 * Meet the author at Midwinter 2013, Washington State Convention Center - Exhibit Hall, Booth #341: **
 * Saturday, January 26, 3:00-4:00pm
 * Sunday, January 27, 2:00-3:00pm
 * Monday, January 28, 9:00-11:00am