Gingher’s unabashed account is chock-full of side-splitting observations of her literary education, from a Freudian analysis of her juvenile rabbit story to descriptions of a school principal more concerned about the proper use of Venetian blinds than pedagogy or discipline. She invites us along on a raucous tour of soul-sucking jobs, marriage, and a teaching career, with accompanying disquisitions on blasphemous reading preferences, ’60s pop culture, writing workshops, and other amusing detours and distractions on the way to publication. She also shares her keen insights into the role of a southern writer in American literary culture, the experience of writing as a mother, and the process of novel-writing as compared to a lengthy family car-trip.

Featuring guest appearances by other writers such as Fred Chappell, Max Steele, and Annie Dillard plus cameos by the likes of Patty Hearst, Richard Nixon, and Bon Jovi, Adventures in Pen Land celebrates writing as a form of play that Gingher has never outgrown. The lighthearted illustrations by novelist Daniel Wallace (author of Big Fish) serve to reinforce this refreshing message as they depict one writer and her imagination growing up together.

Adventures in Pen Land conveys a writer’s sheer doggedness, with a few bones of advice tossed in along the way. Candid and irreverent, but always humane, this memoir is must reading for fans of southern literature, students of creative writing, and anyone who can’t resist the treat of reading about a writer’s resilience and dedication to her craft.

About the Author
            Marianne Gingher is author of four previous books, including Bobby Rex’s Greatest Hit and, most recently, A Girl’s Life: Horses, Boys, Weddings & Luck. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, and is Associate Professor of English in the Creative Writing Program at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.