BREAKING BREAD: New England Writers on Food, Hunger, and Family
Two renowned New England authors - Stephanie Cotsirilos and Bill Roorbach - gather round the table to talk food and how it sustains us, mind, body, and soul. They'll be joined by Ed Crowley, Director of Hunger Services at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center. A share of the proceeds from all sales of Breaking Bread will benefit the MLK Center and its mission to nourish, educate, and support Newport County residents to improve their economic, social, and physical well-being.
A collection of essays by top literary talents and food writers, Breaking Bread celebrates local foods, family, and community, while exploring how what’s on our plates engages with what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, ethics, race, and class.
Here, you’ll find Lily King on chocolate chip cookies, Richard Russo on beans, Jennifer Finney Boylan on homemade pizza, Susan Minot on the non-food food of her youth, and Richard Ford on why food doesn’t much interest him. Nancy Harmon Jenkins talks scallops, and Sandy Oliver the pleasures of being a locavore. Other essays address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, the urge to bake pot brownies for an ill friend, and the pleasure of buying a prized chocolate egg for a child.
Profits from this collection will benefit Blue Angel, a nonprofit combating food insecurity by delivering healthy food from local farmers to those in need.
Stephanie Cotsirilos writes about humor, injustice, and resilience. Tapping a multiracial family and her prior careers on Broadway and as a lawyer, she’s author of the novella My Xanthi, short stories, and essays. Her songs and scripts were produced in New York. She was the inaugural Krant Fellow at the Storyknife Writers Retreat in Alaska.
Bill Roorbach teaches in the Newport MFA writing program out of Salve Regina University. His newest novel is Lucky Turtle, just published in April. The New York Times says: “Fans of Roorbach’s prolific work will appreciate his signature lyricism and sense of place, his sweeping narrative, humor and romance.” He’s a gardener and unabashed foodie, too, and the issue of food security is close to his heart. He lives in Maine with his family.
8 Broadway
Newport, RI 02840-2938
United States