Kathy Leonard Czepiel's short fiction has been published in numerous journals, including Indiana Review, CALYX, Confrontation, and The Pinch. She is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and teaches writing at Quinnipiac University. A native of New York State's mid-Hudson Valley, she now lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children.
"A Violet Season by Kathy Leonard Czepiel is a moving and detailed
look at the hopes and hardships women faced at the turn of the last
century. Czepiel centers her fascinating story on the world of
mass-market violet growers in the Hudson River Valley. Her
narrative is hopeful, painful and empowering. Rich in historical
detail, A Violet Season paints a delicate portrait of the ways
women could support and sustain each other and their painful
struggle for autonomy at a time when they had few explicit
rights."--Taylor Polites "author of The Rebel Wife"
"A Violet Season is the rare moment we hold history in our hands. A
hundred years ago we loved and feared and we worked and tired as
fiercely as we do today. A Violet Season is fully imagined and a
beautifully written book, the transport complete and unforgettable.
It's a wonderful and well-earned debut for a brand new writer and I
so look forward to her next book."--Robert Olmstead "author of Far
Bright Star"
"In this stunning debut, Kathy Leonard Czepiel illuminates the
sometimes heartbreaking choices women can face as they struggle to
preserve their families, their marriages, their very sense of self.
A Violet Season combines searing realism with propulsive suspense
to create a story that kept me up half the night."--Lauren Belfer
"bestselling author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance"
"The best historical fiction doesn't bring the past to the reader
but carries the reader into the past, to see it, touch it, smell
it, live it. In A Violet Season Kathy Leonard Czepiel transplants
her readers among the blooms at a turn-of-the-century violet farm
in New York State, a captivatingly unique time and place, and
teaches them how hardy a plant--and a woman--can be. Smell the
violets with Joe Jacobs, and with Joe you will 'hardly imagine
anything wrong with the world.' See Ida Fletcher's pain--'a great
room with a cold floor and a light so bright it hurt to look, ' and
you won't be able to leave Ida's side, through mistakes and
accomplishments large and small. As a writer I say, 'kudos.' As a
reader I say, 'more!'"--Sally Gunning "author of The Rebellion of
Jane Clarke"
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