Tuesday, April 16, 11 AM-1 PM ~ Heather Frese (The Saddest Girl on the Beach) at 21 Main, NMB
719 North Beach Boulevard, North Myrtle Beach 29582
Grieving after her father’s death, a young woman seeks solace in an Outer Banks beach town of North Carolina where her best friend’s family runs a small inn. The family welcomes Charlotte with chowder dinners and a cozy room, but her friend Evie has a looming life change of her own, and soon Charlotte seeks other attractions to navigate her grief. Will she, like in some television movie, find her way back through a romance, or are there larger forces at play?
Winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize for her debut novel The Baddest Girl on the Planet, Frese sets Charlotte on a beautifully rendered course through human frailty, unrelenting science, and the awesome forces of the Carolina coast.
In addition to the coveted Lee Smith Novel Prize, Frese was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was named one of the Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group Reads of 2021.
She attended Ohio University for her M.A. followed by an M.F.A. in fiction from West Virginia University. A freelance writer, Heather worked with Outer Banks publications as well as publishing short fiction, essays, poetry, and interviews in various literary journals, including Michigan Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, Front Porch, Barely South Review, Switchback, and elsewhere.
Coastal North Carolina is her longtime love and source of inspiration, her writing deeply influenced by the wild magic and history of the Outer Banks. She currently writes, edits, and teaches in Raleigh, North Carolina.