Tales From the Writing Life – Ashley Wurzbacher, Author of How to Care for a Human Girl

Join us as we welcome Ashley Wurzbacher, author of the novel How to Care for a Human Girl and the short story collection Happy Like This, which won the 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Birmingham and teaches at the University of Montevallo. Local bookseller and author Kristen Iskandrian called How to Care for a Human Girl "a courageous and triumphant debut" about Maddy and Jada Battle, "two sisters whose divergent paths lead them to a fraught, new togetherness. Wurzbacher's unflinching treatment of difficult topics—grief, class, pregnancy, ambition—is handled so brilliantly that you might not realize you're rethinking everything you thought you knew about freedom." Books will be on hand for purchase.