Kip Greenthal Book Launch “Shoal Water”

On Thursday, November 4th at 5:30pm, join local author Kip Robinson Greenthal for a Zoom book launch of her debut novel, Shoal Water, which won the 2020 Landmark Prize for Fiction sponsored by Homebound Publications. The story takes place in Nova Scotia, where Kip lived for twelve years, and has been called “a haunting, lyrical, and startling debut…. Shoal Water is a revelation of the changeling characters of sea and self–a poignant reminder that survival is not ever as predictable as the tides.”
The program will include a Q&A with local author Iris Graville.Shoal Water is available to check-out at the Library.

Kip Robinson Greenthal has dedicated her career to the written word, storytelling, and literary endeavors. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied with Grace Paley. For eighteen years, she worked as a librarian in schools and public libraries. In 1993, she became the Education Director for Seattle Arts & Lectures, and founded and directed the Writers in the Schools program (WITS). Believing literacy empowers a person’s life, Kip collaborated with a vast number of authors—Tim O’Brien, Frank McCourt, and Marilynne Robinson among them— to work with teachers and students in the classroom. Under her guidance, WITS received the prestigious Golden Apple Award, which honors education, programs and schools in making a difference in Washington state education.

Throughout her working years, Kip always wrote, studying with numerous authors, including Brenda Peterson, Rebecca Brown, James Welch, and Jane Hamilton. She was selected for the Jack Straw Writers Program, and awarded a Hedgebrook residency. Her short story, “Tattoo Emporium,” was published in Secret Histories: Stories of Courage, Risk, and Revelation, edited by Brenda Peterson, Laura Foreman, and Meredith Bailey in 2013, and has appeared in Currents, an anthology published by the Lopez Writers Guild in 2004. In January 2007, Washington state Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen selected her short story, “Stealing,” to air on KUOW’s On the Beat.

Learn more about Kip’s book and other work at her website.