Dale M. Kushner will discuss the theme of yearning in her novel "The Conditions of Love." She will be joined by Therese Stanton.

A teenage girl endures fire, flood and the loss of her parents in this bracing, oddly uplifting debut novel.

In 1953, ten-year-old Eunice lives in the backwaters of Wisconsin with her outrageously narcissistic mother, a manicureeste and movie star worshipper. Abandoned by her father as an infant, Eunice worries that she will become a misfit like her mother. When her mother's lover, the devoted Sam, moves in, Eunice imagines her life will finally become normal.

But her hope dissolves when Sam gets kicked out, and she is again alone with her mother. A freak storm sends Eunice away from all things familiar. Rescued by the shaman-like Rose, Eunice's odyssey continues with a stay in a hermit's shack and ends with a passionate love affair with an older man. Through her capacity to redefine herself, reject bitterness and keep her heart open, she survives and flourishes. At once fable and realistic story, The Conditions of Love is a book about emotional and physical survival. Through sheer force of will, Eunice saves herself from a doomed life.

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Dale M. Kushner grew up in New Jersey and moved to the Midwest to study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work has been widely published in literary journals including IMAGE, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, Witness, Fifth Wednesday and elsewhere. She lives with her husband in Madison, Wisconsin. Her most recent poetry collection is More Alive Than Lions Roaring; The Conditions of Love is her first novel.

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Therese Stanton was awarded the 2014 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Award for her novel All Songs Singing. She is the recipient of the Avery Hopwood Award, The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writing Award,The Rackham Merit Followership and The Native American Writers Fellowship at the Vermont Writing Studio. Her work has been published in many journals and magazines including, A Public Space, Meridian, Carve, Ms. Magazine, On the

Issues, Changing Men, Emma, Off Our Backs, Lakota Times, and The Nation.Her short story, “All Songs Singing,” received Special Mention for the 2013 Pushcart Prize.