KIRSTEN MICKELWAIT at Books Inc. Palo Alto

Join local author Kirsten Michelwait at Books Inc. Palo Alto for a celebration of her new novel The Ashtrays are Full and the Glasses are Empty!

Kirsten will be in conversation with fellow writer Irena Smith.

Raised in New York’s Gilded Age, pampered heiress Sara Wiborg dreams of a more creative life than the rigid future prescribed for her. It’s only when she meets Gerald Murphy that she finds a man who shares her creative, aesthetic ideal and, after a friendship of eleven years, they marry despite the strong disapproval of her family. Against the sizzling Jazz Age backdrop of 1920s Paris and Antibes, Sara’s innate style and gift for friendship attract the bohemian elite of the new century—including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Dorothy Parker. But by the 1930s, her fortune is lost and tragedy strikes—not once, but twice. Sara’s strength and resilience allow her to find a new equilibrium over time, long after the parties have ended. A heartbreaking story of love and loss, The Ashtrays are Full and the Glasses Are Empty follows Sara through her very modern life to reveal how tragedy can be healed by faith, unconditional love, and a creative mind.

Kirsten Mickelwait is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a copywriter by day and a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction by night. She received a degree in English from UC Berkeley, where she expanded her love of James Joyce and the expatriate creatives of 1920s Paris-including Sara and Gerald Murphy. She is a repeat alumna of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference as well as the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Kauai Writers Conference, and the Paris Writers' Conference. Her memoir, The Ghost Marriage, was published in 2021; The Ashtrays are Full and the Glasses are Empty is her debut novel.

Irena Smith is a former Stanford admissions officer, writer, and public speaker.

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