Virtual Author Talk: Sandell Morse and L. Annette Binder

York resident Sandell Morse will discuss her acclaimed book of THE SPIRAL SHELL, A French Village Reveals its Secrets of Jewish Resistance in World War II. She will be in conversation with L. Annette Binder, award-winning short story writer and author of The Vanishing Sky, inspired by her family’s experiences living in Germany during the Second World War.

This is a virtual event. To register for this event, click here.  

SANDELL MORSE is the author of THE SPIRAL SHELL, A French village Reveals its Secrets of Jewish Resistance in World War II. She has published widely in literary magazines including Ploughshares, the New England Review, ASCENT, Fourth Genre, Solstice, and Brevity. Morse has won awards from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and for Best of the Net. She has been an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and been awarded residencies from Wildacres and Hewnoaks. She lives in Maine.

THE SPIRAL SHELL: In this haunting memoir, Morse uncovers long silenced stories of bravery and resistance among the civilians of a small town in France during WWII, and in turn finds deeper meaning and understanding of her own Jewish heritage. After the war, as the author describes, “truth went underground” and the stories of those who resisted and escaped were left buried and unheard. Morse gradually befriended and gained the trust of several individuals who shared their stories of bravery and resistance during that harrowing time. In a narrative that unfolds and overlaps both past and present, the author in turn discovers truths about her own life and Jewish history, denied her in childhood, and that she now more fully comprehends in light of the brave and selfless actions of those who chose to fight against bigotry, oppression, and genocide.

ANNETTE BINDER was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States as a small child. The Vanishing Sky, her first novel, is inspired by events from her family history. Her father was required to serve in the Hitler Youth. Family lore has it he ran away from his post near the end of the war. Annette’s father died when she was sixteen, and writing The Vanishing Sky gave her the chance to imagine the stories he didn’t get to tell her. Annette holds degrees from Harvard, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. She has an MFA from the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Her story collection Rise (Sarabande 2012) received the Mary McCarthy Prize and her stories have appeared in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the O. Henry Prize Anthology and Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. She lives in New England with her husband and daughter.

THE VANISHING SKY: In 1945, as the war in Germany nears its violent end, the Huber family remains in its grip. Etta, a mother from a small town, struggles to keep her family together. Etta’s older son Max has come home from the front suffering from a mental breakdown. Etta strives to hide Max’s condition from the authorities, even as her husband Josef becomes more nationalistic and intent on protecting Germany from invasion.