It’s Meet the Author Monday! Each week we meet a new author and get to know a little about them, their writing process, publishing experience, and tips for other writers. Today we’re talking to Grace Sammon, author of The Eves.
About Grace Sammon:
Grace Sammon is a well-known educator, school reformer, consultant, “coach,” speaker, entrepreneur, and author of educational books and articles. With her fourth book and debut novel, The Eves, she adds spellbinding storyteller to her credentials.
Grace spent over 20 years working in one of the United States’ toughest institutions, the American high school. During that time, she inspired change and fostered improvements in schools, districts, and government organizations through her upbeat advice and sound, practical recommendations. Each step of the way, she remembered that each of the organizations and individuals were distinct, and distinctly valuable. Each had a story to be listened to and goals to achieve. She brings that same understanding to the richly drawn characters and places you meet in The Eves.
Few individuals have her experiences of successfully working in the United States’ urban, suburban, rural, and tribal land high schools. Fewer still have working experience at the federal, state, district, school, and classroom levels. Grace and her team worked in over 30 states applying research-based approaches, strategic planning, hands-on coaching, and a considerable sense of humor, as they supported schools transitioning to a culture not of “reform” but of continuous improvement.
She is also an entrepreneur, starting two non-profits and her own consulting company, GMS Partners, Inc. Grace has been recognized in Who’s Who in American Education and by the Secretary of Defense as a member of the Joint Civilian Orientation Counsel.
With her debut novel, The Eves, she invites you to travel to The Grange, just a stone’s throw from the Nation’s Capital; and to Washington, DC, Norway, and Africa. Come. Experience how coming to The Grange means leaving your mark on the land and on this earth, even for the dog named Pavarotti and the eternal presence of a mule named Oliver. Read The Eves and experience that when our stories are told everything changes.
About The Eves:
The Eves is a multi-generational novel portraying lives lived well and lives in transition. Filled with poignancy and humor, The Eves captures the conversations we wish we had had with our parents, if we had taken the opportunity, and the lessons we would want to impart to our children, if they were ready to listen. Told through the voice of the psychologically complex Jessica Barnet, this is her story. As the primary witness in a messy trial she has been torn from the foundation of her existence–her connection to her children. With a partially finished doctoral degree, and incomplete renovations on her Washington, DC row house, she has let go of her ambitions and her appearance, but not her vodka or her sense of loss and guilt. When Jessica meets five diverse, determined, and sometimes ditzy old women living in a sustainable community everything and everybody changes. Through plot twists and turns that cover three continents, we learn the truth of Jessica’s life and lies just as we fall in love with the vividly drawn characters and the vibrantly described settings.