Graced Land

Sacred to the Memory of Elvis,” proclaims a homely, front porch memorial in a shabby neighborhood. Even years after his death, Joyce Jackson keeps the Christmas lights twinkling, and the flowers fresh. She keeps the faith as she builds a life for her two daughters, Priscilla and Lisa Marie. Joyce’s benevolence is inspired by Elvis, but her vision is entirely her own. Her generosity of spirit resonates among a cast of memorable characters: holy rollers, rock and rollers, cops and robbers, refugees and social workers-one of whom inadvertently reawakens Joyce’s old nemesis, Marge.

Marge Mason believes that Joyce is a welfare cheat with bad taste in men and music and too much spunk for a woman on public assistance. In this contest Joyce will need every bit of her strength and spiritual largesse.Rippling with rhythm and the blues, Graced Land celebrates the power of music and love connecting the iconic King with a struggling single mother.

Graced Land by Laura Kalpakian

“[Memory into Memoirs] chapters each focus on a different element of craft in creative nonfiction and are an effective mix of context, prompts, and illuminating excerpts with follow-up analysis. While that formula has been used in other texts. . . none were so engaging to me as Kalpakian’s. In the middle of chapters I wanted to pause and work on drafts or record new ideas she’d provoked.”

~Whitney Jacobson, Split Rock Review

“An exceptionally comprehensive and thoroughly ‘user friendly’ in style, organization and presentation, “Memory into Memoir:  A Writer’s Handbook” is an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to community library, college and university library Writing/Publishing collections.  For aspiring and experienced writers alike.”

~The Midwest Book Review

“Kalpakian encourages writers to trust their instincts and embrace ‘not just the way things happened, but the way the writer thinks they happened.’ “

~Poets & Writers

“She’s so entertaining a writer that it takes a while to realize how smart she is.”

~The New Yorker

“She’s so entertaining a writer that it takes a while to realize how smart she is.”

~The New Yorker

“Her characters change and grow, and the story, instead of being reduced to a central issue, develops out of one.”

~Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Kalpakian can make 70 lines just as enduring as their equal in pages. And her writing is clearly inspired by a fire in the belly.”

~Bloomsbury Review

“Here we have a novel of great strength and scope with the impact and exhaustive character studies of the work of Henry James or Saul Bellow.”

~West Coast Review of Books

“In this step-by-step guide, the award-winning novelist and memoirist walks experienced and new writers alike through the challenges of writing a memoir”

~Poets & Writers

Also By Laura

laura kalpakian at book signing

About Laura

Laura Kalpakian was nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for American Cookery. She won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award (twice), the Anahid Award for an American writer of Armenian descent, the PEN West Award, and the Stand International Short Fiction Competition. She has had residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Montalvo Center for the Arts, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. She is the author of sixteen novels, and four collections, and over a hundred stories published in collections, anthologies, literary journals and magazines in the USA and the UK.

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