Jaimee Wriston Colbert is the author of the novel, Shark Girls, from Livingston Press in November, 2009.  She is also the author of a linked stories collection, Dream Lives of Butterflies, which won the gold medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Awards; a novel in stories, Climbing the God Tree, winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Prize; and the story collection Sex, Salvation, and the Automobile, winner of the Zephyr Publishing Prize.  In Shark Girls, two women’s lives are transformed by a shark attack that amputates a child’s leg. It is alternately narrated by “Scat,” the older sister of the victim, now a reformed drunk and a “disaster photographer,” and “Gracie,” a casualty of a disfiguring accident, who becomes obsessed with “Shark Girl,” as Scat’s younger sister is known. In the media and popular belief, “Shark Girl” is rumored to have supernatural powers.

Jaimee teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Binghamton University.

Irish couple Fergal and Brídgeen Griffin get an intriguing wedding gift: the chance to manage a Finger Lakes winery. When they move to Keuka Lake from Queens, see the rundown winery and meet its surly winemaker, they realize it will be quite a challenge getting from grapevine to bottle.
Meanwhile their friends Maeve and Andy face a challenge of their own, separation as he pursues experimental therapy for his paraplegia.  As the two couples face the challenges ahead, will they be able to keep hope alive?

Mary Pat Hyland is an award-winning journalist whose columns on Web sites were carried by more than 90 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. She is fluent in Gaeilge, the Irish language, having studied in Connemara, County Galway. Hyland's work has been influenced by American writers such as Eudora Welty and Anne Tyler as well as Irish novelist Maeve Binchy.  This signing will also be accompanied by a special wine tasting where Mary Pat will share her knowledge and expertise of Finger Lakes wines.  Join us – we are so proud to be hosting Mary Pat once again at RiverRead Books!