Alice Martin presents WESTWARD WOMEN with Tessa Fontaine
Schedule
Sat, 28 Mar, 2026 at 03:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
3 East Jackson Street, Sylva, NC, United States, North Carolina 28779 | Sylva, NC
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Alice Martin will visit City Lights on Saturday, March 28th at 3:00pm to share her debut novel WESTWARD WOMEN in conversation with Tessa Fontaine. For fans of Emma Cline and Emily St. John Mandel, Westward Women is a hypnotic and hopeful debut—part fever dream, part dystopian road trip that claws its way towards a jaw-dropping finale.
"An audacious first novel to set beside Margaret Atwood." - Joyce Carol Oates
It starts with an itch.
In homes across the country, women ages eighteen to thirty-five begin to slow down.
Tired. Blank. Restless.
Drawn to the Pacific Ocean like it’s calling them home. They abandon their lives—jobs, families, their very selves. And once they reach the West, they vanish forever.
At the center of the story are three young women caught in the pull of something unstoppable.
Aimee follows the trail of her missing best friend to a man called the Piper—known for leading infected women West.
Teenie, afflicted and unraveling, clings to a single memory as she looks out the window of the Piper’s van.
And Eve, a former journalist, is chasing the story that might just consume her.
Each on the edge of transformation. Drawn toward the unknown. In search of a way forward.
ALICE MARTIN holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University. She is an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters. Westward Women is her debut novel.
TESSA FONTAINE is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers choice, and a best book of the year by Southern Living, Amazon, Refinery29, and the New York Post. Her writing can be found in Outside, Glamour, AGNI, and The Believer. She has been a sideshow performer, a shoe saleswoman, and a professor, and she taught for years in jails and prisons. She cofounded and runs the Accountability Workshop with the writer Annie Hartnett. Raised among the redwoods of Northern California, she now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband, daughter, goofy dog, and sassy cat.
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Where is it happening?
3 East Jackson Street, Sylva, NC, United States, North Carolina 28779Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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