The University of Minnesota Duluth will host author, GennaRose Nethercott on November 8 and 9 for a series of workshops and events. Nethercott visited UMD in 2018 for her poetry collection, The Lumberjacks Dove. Nethercott's readings verge on performance as she tells her stories through the use of a shadow-style puppet show - and this time she'll be bringing a house on chicken legs to tell us the story of Thistlefoot!
This series of events is co-sponsored by the UMD Distinguished Visiting Speakers Series Endowment; The Department of English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies; The Julie & Joseph Maiolo Fund for Creative Endeavors; UMD Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Committee; The Kathryn A. Martin Library; and the UMD Literary Guild.
November 8, 2022
Creative Writing Workshop with GennaRose Nethercott
Kathryn A. Martin Library, Room 260- Second Floor Rotunda) from 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
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GennaRose Nethercott Reading from Her New Novel, Thistlefoot
An evening keynote with the author, GennaRose Nethercott, where she will read from her debut novel, Thistlefoot. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
Kathryn A. Martin Library, 4th Floor Rotunda at 6:00 pm
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November 9, 2022
Meet & Greet GennaRose Nethercott with the UMD Literary Guild
ELWS Reading Room, Humanities 420E from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
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Creativity & Collaboration Workshop with GennaRose Nethercott
Bringing a Reading to Life - Making and Using Props to Enhance your Creative Process and Communicate your Work
Kathryn A. Martin Library, Room 260 - Second Floor Rotunda from 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
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About
In the tradition of modern fairy tales like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver comes a sweeping epic rich in Eastern European folklore—a debut novel about the ancestral hauntings that stalk us, and the uncanny power of story. The Yaga siblings—Bellatine, a young woodworker, and Isaac, a wayfaring street performer and con artist—have been estranged since childhood, separated both by resentment and by wide miles of American highway. But when they learn that they are to receive a mysterious inheritance, the siblings are reunited—only to discover that their bequest isn’t land or money, but something far stranger: a sentient house on chicken legs.
Thistlefoot, as the house is called, has arrived from the Yagas’ ancestral home in Russia—but not alone. A sinister figure known only as the Longshadow Man has tracked it to American shores, bearing with him violent secrets from the past: fiery memories that have hidden in Isaac and Bellatine’s blood for generations. As the Yaga siblings embark with Thistlefoot on a final cross-country tour of their family’s traveling theater show, the Longshadow Man follows in relentless pursuit, seeding destruction in his wake. Ultimately, time, magic, and legacy must collide—erupting in a powerful conflagration to determine who gets to remember the
past and craft a new future.
An enchanted adventure illuminated by Jewish myth and adorned with lyrical prose as tantalizing and sweet as briar berries, Thistlefoot is an immersive modern fantasy saga by a bold new talent.
GENNAROSE NETHERCOTT is a writer and folklorist. Her first book, The Lumberjack’s Dove, was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series, and whether authoring novels, poems, ballads, or even fold-up paper cootie catchers, her projects are all rooted in myth—and what our stories reveal about who we are. She tours nationally and internationally performing strange tales (sometimes with puppets in tow) and composing poems-to-order for strangers on an antique typewriter with her team, the Traveling Poetry Emporium. She lives in the woodlands of Vermont, beside an old cemetery. Thistlefoot is her debut novel.