Jeri Theriault’s chapbook, In the Museum of Surrender, won the 2013 Encircle contest. Her full collection Radost, My Red was released in 2016. Her poems have appeared in publications including Beloit Poetry Review, Rhino, The Paterson Literary Review, and the American Journal of Poetry. Her reviews have appeared in Connotation Press and The Collagist. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Fulbright recipient, Theriault holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Maine.
The story of how I wrote my second novel begins in 1999, when my four-year-old daughter Anna had a minor accident that caused massive intercranial bleeding.
One night, she burst into my room, handed me a battered paperback and said, “This is the best book on earth and it’s about us,” and dashed back out again.
1. When NYU’s Liberal Studies Program—where I teach writing—announced that it would be sponsoring a symposium on the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, four somewhat peculiar words sprang into my…