News & Events

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The filming of PBS NewsHour feature on GIRL IN GLASS

Recent News (Fall 2015-present):

  • The paperback of GIRL IN GLASS, with a new cover and reading group guide, was released on May 24, 2016. Order your copy now.
  • The International Examiner reviews GIRL IN GLASS: “A heartbreaking, honest look at human life."
  • Deanna has been named a winner of the 2015 Books for a Better Life Award for GIRL IN GLASS! The award was presented by Meredith Vieira at the Times Center on April 18, 2016. Fellow honorees included Sarah Hepola, Gloria Steinem, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. 
  • The New York Times gives GIRL IN GLASS a rave review! Writes NYT book critic Jennifer Senior: “The author has spun a profound work of philosophy and sewn it into the shell of an exquisite memoir … A dramatic, step-by-step examination of what it means to sustain a life... Enchanting.” 
  • GIRL IN GLASS is the Amherst Reads selection of January 2016. Listen to a conversation with New York Times columnist Ron Lieber on the intersection of parenthood, medicine, and economics that Deanna explores in the book. 
  • Largehearted Boy calls GIRL IN GLASS “one of 2015’s most moving and important books.” Check out the “Book Notes" feature on the music behind GIRL IN GLASS.
  • Public Books editor-in-chief Caitlin Zaloom selects GIRL IN GLASS as one of “2015 Favorites.” 
  • At The Millions “Year in Reading," Rebecca Carroll writes of GIRL IN GLASS, “This memoir is so starkly, poignantly written, so smart and wrenching, and I just had a truly visceral response to both the story and to Fei’s fierce, plain mother love throughout.” 
  • KBOO FM’s Intersections Radio (Portland, OR) interviews Deanna on medical privacy as a civil right.
  • Australia’s ABC Radio National features an author interview and discussion about the impact of having a premature baby: “When Your Baby Is Born Too Early: GIRL IN GLASS.”
  • The blog Writing Like an Asian features a Q&A with Deanna on her writing process, balancing the personal and the political, and issues of identity. 
  • BonBon Break calls GIRL IN GLASS “beautifully written” and features an author interview on premature births, female vulnerability, and learning to give up control. 


Spring-Summer 2015


2014

In February, Deanna wrote an essay, “My Baby and AOL’s Bottom Line,” in response to controversial comments about “distressed babies” made by the CEO of the company where her husband worked at the time. The essay, which originally appeared in Slate, went viral on social media and was syndicated in the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, the Toronto Star, and other publications worldwide. Below are links to some of the news coverage and Deanna’s interviews:



2012

  • A Thread of Sky will be taught in NYU’s “Novels with a Social Conscience” course this fall, along with novels by Carson McCullers, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Richard Wright.  
  • Deanna's commencement speech at Lower East Side Prep was covered by the World Journal
  • So no one won this year’s fiction Pulitzer—but A Thread of Sky has just been awarded the first annual “Debut-litzer Prize” for best work of fiction published in 2010-11. Check out the Late Night Library podcast and the other winners here.
  • The Late Night Library podcast selects A Thread of Sky as their July feature: “one of the best novels published in 2010... This is a novel that really should be read by everyone.”


2011

  • The final week of the April 2011 virtual book tour brought A Thread of Sky to these wonderful sites: boarding in my forties (“a perfect book for a book club”), good girl gone redneck (“incredibly intense... great writing”), book club classics (“I truly loved reading it”), books in the city “beautifully written... a very rich novel”), and reading through life (“It knocked my socks off and left me wishing it didn’t end”). 
  • Stops on Week 3 of the April 2011 virtual book tourhospitable pursuits (“a beautifully written novel that you will want to share with your mother or daughter”), booknaround (“[an] achingly lovely story of family dynamics and the search for connection”), reading on a rainy day (“This book was beautiful!... a wonderful window into modern-day China”), and peeking between the pages (“a novel that takes you away to another place while portraying complex family relationships... a great book club selection”).
  • Stops on Week 2 of the April 2011 virtual book tourrundpinne (“an excellent discussion group book”), bloggin’ ‘bout books (“a beautifully rendered portrait of a family struggling to keep itself together”), and english major’s junk food (“I occasionally had to set it down and just say out loud, ‘This book is so good.’”)
  • Fiction Writers Review selects A Thread of Sky as the Book of the Week and features a discussion with Deanna on “the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, and the reason she watches Jersey Shore.”
  • The first stops of the April 2011 virtual book touramy’s creative side (“a complex and well-crafted novel”), write meg (“a lyrical look at one complicated family”), and chick with books (“a wonderful novel... the words seeming to float across the page”).
  • A Thread of Sky is spotlighted in the new york times book review’s paperback row: “This graceful first novel takes three generations of women on a tour of self-discovery in their ancestral China.”
  • Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang praises A Thread of Sky: “Deanna Fei brilliantly captures the richness, confusion, and contradictions of both China and Asian American identity today in her intimate yet epic novel.”


2010

  • New York Times best-selling author Lauren Groff praises A Thread of Sky in Amherst magazine: "It is exhilarating to read a novel about the nature of female ambition; it is far more exhilarating to find that the novelist doing the exploration is as ambitious as they come."
  • The latest blog reviews of A Thread of Skylaughing stars says the book does “a magnificent job of seeing the world through the eyes of women in three different generations,” while mia herrera describes how she “fell in love with the way Fei reflectively portrayed the hybrid life of Asian American women.”
  • Canada’s zoomer magazine calls A Thread of Sky “required reading to pack in your beach bag,” while Toronto’s sidestreet review calls it “a beautifully written book” that “poignantly portrays what it means to search for a home.”
  • More blog reviews: book addiction “absolutely recommends” A Thread of Skythe book chick lauds the “beautiful scenery, detailed history, closely guarded secrets, and emotional journey,” daisy’s book journal says, “I really loved this book,” and catch star girl calls the novel “epic” and suggests playing “Which character are you?” 
  • Deanna’s essay, “A Different Species: A Chinese American Writer in China,” up at The Millions, is featured on The New Yorker’s Book Bench and Publishers Weekly’s Morning Report. 
  • Read a profile of Deanna in the Iowa Press-Citizen and watch her video interview with the University of Iowa’s International Accents.
  • The first blog reviews of A Thread of Skyjules’ book reviews praises it as “an excellent example of women’s fiction at its finest,” adoption. et cetera says, “Go read it,” my novel reviews calls it “a beautiful story about loss, family, and individual struggles,” a mom after god’s own heart calls it “a fantastic debut novel... HUGE thumbs up!” and the apopcalypse says, “it’s brillz!”
  • Deanna is featured on largehearted boy’s “Book Notes,” with an essay about the music that inspired her during the writing of A Thread of Sky.  



The Spring 2010 Book Tour for A Thread of Sky

4/7 - The Corner Bookstore - New York, NY

4/10 - Prairie Lights - Iowa City, IA

4/12 - Amherst Books - Amherst, MA

4/14 - Barnes & Noble, Park Slope - Brooklyn, NY

4/17 - Bethesda Literary Festival - Bethesda, MD

4/18 - Busboys and Poets, 5th & K - Washington, DC

4/29 - Asian American Writers' Workshop - New York, NY

5/16 - Words Bookstore - Maplewood, NJ

5/26 - Third Place Books - Lake Forest Park, WA

5/28 - Powell's Books - Portland, OR