Jeannine Ouellette: The Part That Burns

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In her fiercely beautiful memoir, Jeannine Ouellette recollects fragments of her life and arranges them elliptically to witness each piece as torn and whole, as something more than itself. Caught between the dramatic landscapes of Lake Superior and Casper Mountain, between her stepfather’s groping and her mother’s erratic behavior, she lives for the day she can become a mother, herself, and create her own sheltering family. The Part That Burns is a story about the tenacity of family roots, the formidable undertow of trauma, and the rebellious and persistent yearning of human beings for love from each other.

“At turns tender and devastating, these essays are finely carved vignettes that, laid together, form a powerful portrait of one woman’s path from hard girlhood to motherhood, the grace and mettle it takes not only to survive but to flourish.” —Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me and Girlhood

Jeannine Ouellette will be in conversation with Gina Frangello

Gina Frangello is the author of four books of fiction in addition to the memoir, Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint 2021). Her most recent novel, Every Kind of Wanting (Counterpoint 2016) was included on several “best of” lists for 2016, including Chicago Magazine’s and The Chicago Review of Books’.

Jeannine Ouellette‘s work has appeared widely in journals, including North American Review, Narrative, Calyx, Writer’s Chronicle, and december; and in the anthologies Ms. Aligned: Women Writing About Men, Nowhere Print Annual, Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, and Feminist Parenting. Her stories and essays have won recognition from the Narrative Story contest, Masters Review fiction contest, Calyx‘s Margarita Donnelly Award for Prose, and december‘s Curt Johnson Prose Award. She teaches at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop; University of Minnesota; and Elephant Rock, the independent writing program she founded in 2012.

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Jeannine Ouellette:
The Part That Burns

Gina Frangello:
Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
Every Kind of Wanting

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