January 24, 2020, 2:00 PM.

Join us for a virtual conversation with author Elizabeth Wetmore.

After 14 years of writing and rewriting, Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel, Valentine, was released this year to critical acclaim. An unexpected bestseller in the time of Covid, Valentine tells the story of 1970’s Odessa, Texas through the voices of seven women and girls as the town comes to terms with a violent assault committed by a man drawn to Odessa by it’s historic oil boom.

Elizabeth Wetmore is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in Epoch, Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, Baltimore Review, Crab Orchard Review, Iowa Review, and other literary journals. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council, as well as a grant from the Barbara Deming Foundation. She was also a Rona Jaffe Scholar in Fiction at Bread Loaf, a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, and one of six Writers in Residence at Hedgebrook. A native of West Texas, she lives and works in Chicago.

Valentine is her debut novel. With its searing and original voice, unforgettable characters, and vivid depiction of 1970s Texas, Valentine is one of the strongest debuts to emerge in years.