Join two acclaimed fiction writers, Ann Packer and Rebecca Makkai as they discuss Ann's long-awaited new novel, The Children’s Crusade. Following the lives of one California family over the course of five decades, The Children’s Crusade maps how a
troubled marriage impacts the adult children attempts to create successful families—and identities—of their own. Packer is the bestselling author of Songs Without Words and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, which
received the Kate Chopin Literary Award, among other prizes and honors. She lives in San Carlos, CA. Rebecca Makkai is the author of the acclaimed novels The Hundred-Year House and The Borrower. Her work has frequently appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Harper's,McSweeney's, Tin House, Ploughshares, and the Iowa Review, and has aired on "This
American Life." She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters. Her forthcoming novel Music for Wartime will publish this summer. Women & Children First will be
hosting a reading of Rebecca’s new novel in August.