10/12/2006

Amy Tan to Speak in Grass Valley, October 21

Literature Alive! brings best-selling novelist Amy Tan to Grass Valley for its annual literary event, Wordslingers. The inter-nationally famed writer will be reading from her latest novel, Saving Fish from Drowning, and giving a talk on writing and her life, on Saturday, October 21, beginning at 7:30 pm at the Veterans' Memorial Hall in Grass Valley. She will also be signing books.

Born in Oakland as the child of two Chinese immigrants, acclaimed San Francisco novelist Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, an international bestseller and winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Club Gold Award. The Joy Luck Club explores the relationships of Chinese women and their Chinese-American daughters. The book was the longest-running bestseller on the New York Times hardcover list in 1989. It has been translated into 25 languages and was made into a major motion picture. Ms. Tan is also the author of The Kitchen God's Wife, a New York Times bestseller, which was based on the harrowing early life of her mother, Daisy, with whom Tan had a conflicted relationship. Nonetheless, it was Tan's mother who encouraged her in the same book to tell her Grandmother' s shameful story of rape, concubinage and suicide?"tell the world, tell the world what happened to her." Tan is no stranger to tragedy herself, having lost her father and her oldest brother both to brain tumors when she was a young teen. Following on the success of her bestselling novel, The Hundred Secret Senses in 1995, Tan's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and her best friend was dying of cancer. Tan spent a painful five years caring for them and unable to write, and then came out with The Bonesetter's Daughter. In addition, she has written two children's books, and in 2003, Ms. Tan published a collection of non-fiction writing entitled The Opposite of Fate. In 2005 her fifth novel, Saving Fish from Drowning was released. In this latest novel, a group of American tourists head off to Burma accompanied in spirit by a friend who was mysteriously murdered just before the start of the trip. Soon the group is lost in the jungle, where they meet a tribe that is waiting for a mythical book of wisdom to save them. USA Today called it "a hilarious yet politically charged tale....[A] rollicking, adventure-filled story."


WHO: Literature Alive! presents internationally acclaimed writer Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and other books.

WHAT: Wordslingers 2006 featuring An Evening with Amy Tan

WHEN: Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 7:30 pm

WHERE: Veteran's Memorial Hall, Grass Valley, California

TICKETS: Main Auditorium?$25 in advance/ $30 at the door/ $22 for Literature Alive! members (with membership card); Bleacher Seats $15. Ticket outlets: Nevada City: Harmony Books, Keeping Still Mountain, words on paper; Grass Valley: The Book Seller, Booktown Books & Tomes; Auburn: Cherry Records; Sacramento: The Book Collector, the Avid Reader; Davis: The Avid Reader; Truckee: Bookshelf at Hooligan Rocks.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: (530) 272-5812 or
http://www.litalive.org.

Wordslingers 2006 is underwritten by Caseywood, Hansen Bros., Meyers Investment Group of Wachovia Securities,Q&Q Construction, and Back to Health Chiropractic.