Julia Park Tracey, author of The Bereaved returns to home county for book launch event at Copperfield’s Books
Julia Park Tracey is the author of the new historical fiction novel, The Bereaved (August 8, 2023). Julia’s ancestors and their stories have given her a trail to follow from New York andNew England to the deep south and the Pacific Coast. In this, her first historical fiction for Sibylline Press. The Bereaved
is the story of a destitute widow who leaves her children with an aid society on the eve of the Civil War, and finds that the society has sent her four children out on the Orphan Train. She must pursue them through three states to gather her children home again. The story is based on the true story of her great-grandfather and his siblings, who were all Orphan Train children, and her several years of research and writing.
Park Tracey, born in California, has worked as a journalist, editor, and publisher for decades in the Bay Area. She left full-time news coverage for freelance magazine work in 2010. She is the author of six books, including two women’s history, three novels and a collection of poetry. She has strong local roots. Julia went to Penngrove Elementary, Rohnert Park Jr High, Petaluma High School and was a journalism student at SRJC before heading to SFSU to finish her BA. She was the recipient of the Press Democrat’s High School Journalism awards two years in a row. Julia grew up in Penngrove and her parents still live on the same land. She has written for the Press Democrat, winning a SF-Peninsula Press Club award for her freelance feature about the local quilters after the Tubbs Fire. She has also written for Sonoma County publications such as the North Bay Bohemian, Argus Courier (as early as 1981), and Made Local magazine. Julia went on to a successful career in Bay Area journalism as editor of five magazines and serving as the Poet Laureate for Alameda for three years. She currently resides in Grass Valley. She is the author or editor of six books with more historical fiction on the way. She has written for Redbook, HuffPost, The Sun, Salon, and Babble.
She is also a partner and the Executive Editor at Sibylline Press, based in Sonoma County. Sibylline Press is a new press dedicated to publishing the brilliant work of women over 50.
Here’s what Lynn Cullen, author of Mrs. Poe and The Woman with the Cure had to say about The Bereaved:
“I worried about, admired, and grieved with the indominable Martha Lozier, the heroine of Julia Park Tracey’s exquisite novel. With a sharp eye for just the right details, Tracey brings Martha’s harrowing, astonishing, and ultimately heartrending journey to life. This “everyday” mid-19th century American woman is anything but. How right for her story to be told.”
And Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms and the newly released The Heart of it All, said:
“In The Bereaved, Julia Park Tracey reopens America’s wounds in prose that is propulsive and resonant. Martha’s struggles are the stuff of classic literature. Theodore Dreiser comes to mind, but so, too, the fine contemporary novels of Jo Baker and Maggie O’Farrell.”
Copperfield’s Books, 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma
Friday, August 18, 7 pm
To reserve a spot or learn more, click here!
https://www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/julia-park-tracey-0
