VALERIE STOLLER at Books Inc. Alameda

Meet author Valerie Stoller, author of the new novel, Shipyard Gals. Valerie Stoller in conversation with Author Lori Ostlund

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.

Author 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.

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.

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