Tuesday, April 11th - 7pm - Branching Out - Author Talks - Brett Ann Stanciu

Brett Ann Stanciu was a director at a one-room rural Vermont library when a stranger began breaking in after hours. The man was rumored to be an opioid user. After his tragic death, Stanciu began asking questions about addiction. Who struggles with addiction? Why? And what's path forward for individuals and communities? Stanciu tells this story in Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal (Steerforth Press, 2021). The book explores addiction in Vermont through the community's eyes — health care professionals, a local police chief, the former US attorney Christina Nolan, families, and people in recovery — winds in Stanciu's own struggle with addiction.

A recipient of a 2020 Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant, Stanciu's essays and fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Memoir Monday, Taproot, Vermont Literary Review, Heroin Chic, The Long Story, Hippocampus, Parent Co., and Green Mountains Review, among other publications. In addition to Unstitched, her novel Hidden View (Green Writers Press, 2015) portrays the challenges of a hardscrabble family farm. She lives in Hardwick with her family and blogs at stonysoilvermont.com.

May 12, 2024, 8 to 11 AM

May 18, 2024, 7 AM

May 19, 2024, 7:30 to 9:30 AM