Valerie Stoller in Conversation with Author Lori Ostlund at Books Inc. in Alameda, CA
Join Valerie Stoller at Books Inc. in Alameda, CA on November 6th at 5:30pm to celebrate the release of her new historical fiction novel Shipyard Gals. She will be in conversation with Lori Ostlund, author of Are You Happy?: Stories.
Books will be available for purchase and to be signed at the event.
For more information, please visit Book Inc.’s event page here.
About Shipyard Gals:
In 1944, three stateside women had a job to do, but a California wartime shipyard is a dangerous place. When a nearby US Naval base, Port Chicago, explodes, killing 200 Black sailors, Elena risks arrest and deportation if she reports the truth of the disaster and subsequent mutiny trial. Rachel can’t sleep after treating the horrific injuries of the wounded sailors. Ruby Mae may be fired for calling out harassment on the job. Each woman must lean on her friends and summon the courage to speak out against injustice in this historical novel encompassing the Rosie the Riveter era and one of the worst incidents in Naval history, the Port Chicago Disaster.
About Author Valerie Stoller:
Valerie Stoller, author of Shipyard Gals: A Novel, grew up in New Jersey, went to college in Ohio and kept heading west until she landed in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she worked as a nurse practitioner. She lives in Oakland. Shipyard Gals is her first novel.
About Are You Happy?:
Nine exquisite stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence that looms daily over women and the LGBTQ+ community.
An aspiring veterinarian survives a plane crash and starts life over in California. A woman mourns the loss of her childhood friend’s innocence and rethinks justice. A queer teacher’s sense of safety in the classroom is destroyed. With settings ranging from small-town Minnesota to New Mexico, from bars and bedrooms to a furniture store and a community college, Are You Happy? casts a spotlight on people who try—and often fail—to make peace with their pasts while navigating their present relationships and notions of self. In prose that is evocative and restrained, unpredictable and masterful, Lori Ostlund offers a darkly humorous and compassionate examination of America’s preoccupation with loneliness, happiness, guns, and violence.
About Author Lori Ostlund:
Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade (Scribner 2015) was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Ferro-Grumley Award. Her story collection, The Bigness of the World, won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the California Book Award for First Fiction, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and was a Lambda Finalist. Her third book, entitled Are You Happy?, was published by Astra House in May 2025.
