Literary Sewing Circle: Fall 2024!

 

Our Fall 2024 session of the Literary Sewing Circle starts today! There is one notable change to the LSC this time around: we are moving to a 5 week schedule rather than a 6 week, with book discussion encouraged all the way along, and a wrap up book discussion on the final post. 

I'm pleased to announce that our group read this time around is:

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

Summary: 

A sweeping, evocative debut novel following three generations of Vietnamese American women reeling from the death of their matriarch, revealing the family's inherited burdens and buried secrets.

When Ann Tran gets the call that her beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. Ann has built a seemingly perfect life, but it all crumbles away with one positive pregnancy test.

With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Hu'o'ng. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past.

Running parallel to this is Minh's story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House's attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life and her family.

Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.

(from publisher)

Photo by Caroline Lohrey

About the Author: 

Thao Thai is a writer based out of Ohio, where she lives with her husband and daughter. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, WIRED, Real Simple, Catapult, The Sunday Long Read, Cup of Jo, and other publications. Banyan Moon is her debut novel.

Both h’s in her name are silent.

(from publisher)

This book is available for purchase in multiple formats.

You can find this title at all of these locations:

IndieBound

Chapters Indigo

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Barnes and Noble

Powell's Books

ABE Books

Biblio.com

Or, of course, check your local library!

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How does the Literary Sewing Circle work? We read a book together, discuss it, and then make something inspired by our reading. As long as you can point out what inspired you from your reading, even if just a sentence, you can share your makes in our final roundup!

Anyone can join, and you can sew, knit, crochet, quilt or embroider - any textile art that you like doing - to participate. This is a reading/sewing circle, very low-key; no competitions here, just reading and sewing for fun. 

There is no official sign-up to worry about; just start reading along if you wish, and leave your thoughts on the book or your project on any of the Literary Sewing Circle posts. We do have a dedicated book discussion post at the end, but leave your thoughts anytime. And you can follow along on Instagram too if you like: look for @sewmelwyk and the hashtag #LiterarySewingCircle and you'll find us.

And when the final post goes up on week 5, so does the project linkup -- you can leave a link to your finished project there, whether it is on your blog, a pattern site, or even Instagram. It's easy :)

So, join in, and share!

Literary Sewing Circle Schedule

Sept 27 - Announcement & Introduction

Oct 4 - Inspiration post 

Oct 11  - Author feature

Oct 18 - Inspiration post

Oct 25 - Final Post: book discussion wrap up & posting of project linkup

We will have our project linkup live for two weeks after the final post to allow you to finish up and post your projects, which takes us to November 8, when the linkup will close.