The filming of PBS NewsHour feature on GIRL IN GLASS
Recent News (Fall 2015-present):
- The paperback of GIRL IN GLASS, with a new cover and reading group guide, was released on May 24, 2016. Order your copy now.
- The International Examiner reviews GIRL IN GLASS: “A heartbreaking, honest look at human life."
- Deanna has been named a winner of the 2015 Books for a Better Life Award for GIRL IN GLASS! The award was presented by Meredith Vieira at the Times Center on April 18, 2016. Fellow honorees included Sarah Hepola, Gloria Steinem, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
- The New York Times gives GIRL IN GLASS a rave review! Writes NYT book critic Jennifer Senior: “The author has spun a profound work of philosophy and sewn it into the shell of an exquisite memoir … A dramatic, step-by-step examination of what it means to sustain a life... Enchanting.”
- GIRL IN GLASS is the Amherst Reads selection of January 2016. Listen to a conversation with New York Times columnist Ron Lieber on the intersection of parenthood, medicine, and economics that Deanna explores in the book.
- Largehearted Boy calls GIRL IN GLASS “one of 2015’s most moving and important books.” Check out the “Book Notes" feature on the music behind GIRL IN GLASS.
- Public Books editor-in-chief Caitlin Zaloom selects GIRL IN GLASS as one of “2015 Favorites.”
- At The Millions “Year in Reading," Rebecca Carroll writes of GIRL IN GLASS, “This memoir is so starkly, poignantly written, so smart and wrenching, and I just had a truly visceral response to both the story and to Fei’s fierce, plain mother love throughout.”
- KBOO FM’s Intersections Radio (Portland, OR) interviews Deanna on medical privacy as a civil right.
- Australia’s ABC Radio National features an author interview and discussion about the impact of having a premature baby: “When Your Baby Is Born Too Early: GIRL IN GLASS.”
- The blog Writing Like an Asian features a Q&A with Deanna on her writing process, balancing the personal and the political, and issues of identity.
- BonBon Break calls GIRL IN GLASS “beautifully written” and features an author interview on premature births, female vulnerability, and learning to give up control.
Spring-Summer 2015
- GIRL IN GLASS is the Washington Post’s book club pick for August! Watch a video interview with Deanna and Book World editor Nora Krug in the WashPost newsroom.
- TIME features an essay by Deanna on the controversy surrounding Amazon’s workplace practices and how our culture of overwork has created a system where mothers are often punished for suffering health crises: “Amazon Isn’t the Problem. We Are."
- Mama One to Three calls GIRL IN GLASS a “beautiful memoir”: “every parent will relate to her fear and love, and all else which moves between the two.” Check out an author Q&A on “fear, love, family, and speaking out.”
- A Bookish Affair gives GIRL IN GLASS a rave review (“This book pulled me in hard”) and features a guest post by Deanna on “The Power of Telling Our Stories.”
- The Intercept features an article about GIRL IN GLASS and the growing threat to our medical privacy in the age of Big Data.
- MariaShriver.com features a post by Deanna on “distressed babies” and workplace reform.
- The "Campaign for the American Reader" features GIRL IN GLASS on its “Page 99 Test.”
- Real Simple features an interview with Deanna on learning to let go of the milestones, leaning on others, and living in each moment: “The Child We Almost Lost.”
- Bustle spotlights Deanna’s essay in Salon, “What You Never Expect When You’re Expecting,” as one of “Five Important Feminist Articles That Highlight Issues Women Face Beyond the Planned Parenthood Debate.”
- Salon features an essay by Deanna: “What You Never Expect When You’re Expecting.”
- The Boston Globe gives GIRL IN GLASS a rave review: “Fei, a novelist and essayist, writes with precision, grace, and a devastating honesty… Exquisite [and] necessary.”
- The Washington Post calls GIRL IN GLASS “an impassioned, important book… Yet this is not a fire-breathing polemic or a policy tract. It’s most effective, and affecting, as a mother’s memoir of how her life changed the day her daughter came into the world far too soon… [Fei] is an eloquent stylist who writes with immediacy and honesty… Moving and persuasive.” Read the full review here.
- Good Housekeeping calls GIRL IN GLASS “raw, unflinching, and beautifully written” and features an essay by Deanna on this seemingly unspeakable question: “What if my daughter shouldn’t have been saved?”
- Watch the PBS NewsHour segment on GIRL IN GLASS, plus a bonus clip of Deanna reading the first chapter aloud for the first time.
- Read Salon’s Q&A with Deanna about lessons in life and love that have transformed her as a parent and a writer.
- Melissa Harris-Perry says, “Everyone must read this book,” and interviews Deanna and her husband, Peter Goodman, about GIRL IN GLASS on MSNBC.
- WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show interviews Deanna about GIRL IN GLASS.
- Fortune has an exclusive excerpt of GIRL IN GLASS on the true cost of saving premature infants, plus an interview with Deanna about why women and children make easy targets for cost-cutting CEOs.
- Yahoo! calls GIRL IN GLASS “mesmerizing” and features an author interview: “What One Mom’s ‘Distressed Baby’ Taught the World.”
- WHYY’s Voices in the Family talks with Deanna about GIRL IN GLASS, “the nightmare of unknowns” for parents of premature infants, the value of human life, the question of shame and blame in medical benefits, and the mother-child bond.
- Reddit features an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A with Deanna Fei on the publication date of GIRL IN GLASS.
- The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column features an essay by Deanna’s husband, Peter S. Goodman, on how the premature birth of their daughter tested their marriage: “Superheroes, Just for Each Other.”
- NPR’s Arun Rath calls GIRL IN GLASS “extraordinarily beautiful” in this interview with Deanna on All Things Considered.
- Fatherly features an essay by Deanna’s husband, Peter S. Goodman, on his perspective as a father and former war correspondent witnessing the “catastrophic” birth of his daughter.
- Read the feature in Business Insider about Deanna’s story and medical privacy in the workplace: “This baby shamed a CEO. Here’s why her story should be a warning to any employee.”
- Read TIME’s exclusive excerpt of GIRL IN GLASS.
- Read the Guardian’s July 4th feature about GIRL IN GLASS and ”the complex and frightening intersection between health, privacy, and insurance” that Deanna explores in the book.
- Deanna is partnering with March of Dimes to help raise awareness of prematurity and the need for research and prevention. To learn more about March of Dimes’ Prematurity Campaign and prematurity research centers, click here.
- TIME has bought first serial rights to run an exclusive excerpt of GIRL IN GLASS on July 13.
- Deanna is partnering with Graham’s Foundation to help advocate for parents of premature babies.
- Deanna’s recent keynote at the International Health Privacy Summit in Washington, DC was filmed by PBS NewsHour for a forthcoming feature.
- Deanna has founded a site, OurDistressedBabies.org, where people can share their own stories to help bring more compassion and justice to our healthcare system. Read our stories, share your story, and get involved.
- Deanna was featured on the cover story of Amherst magazine, “Profit, Blame, and Her Baby.”
- Deanna’s memoir, GIRL IN GLASS, will be published by Bloomsbury on July 14. The book is now available for pre-ordering: Amazon - B&N - iBooks - IndieBound - Powell’s
2014
In February, Deanna wrote an essay, “My Baby and AOL’s Bottom Line,” in response to controversial comments about “distressed babies” made by the CEO of the company where her husband worked at the time. The essay, which originally appeared in Slate, went viral on social media and was syndicated in the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, the Toronto Star, and other publications worldwide. Below are links to some of the news coverage and Deanna’s interviews:
2012
- A Thread of Sky will be taught in NYU’s “Novels with a Social Conscience” course this fall, along with novels by Carson McCullers, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Richard Wright.
- Deanna's commencement speech at Lower East Side Prep was covered by the World Journal.
- So no one won this year’s fiction Pulitzer—but A Thread of Sky has just been awarded the first annual “Debut-litzer Prize” for best work of fiction published in 2010-11. Check out the Late Night Library podcast and the other winners here.
- The Late Night Library podcast selects A Thread of Sky as their July feature: “one of the best novels published in 2010... This is a novel that really should be read by everyone.”
2011
- The final week of the April 2011 virtual book tour brought A Thread of Sky to these wonderful sites: boarding in my forties (“a perfect book for a book club”), good girl gone redneck (“incredibly intense... great writing”), book club classics (“I truly loved reading it”), books in the city “beautifully written... a very rich novel”), and reading through life (“It knocked my socks off and left me wishing it didn’t end”).
- Stops on Week 3 of the April 2011 virtual book tour: hospitable pursuits (“a beautifully written novel that you will want to share with your mother or daughter”), booknaround (“[an] achingly lovely story of family dynamics and the search for connection”), reading on a rainy day (“This book was beautiful!... a wonderful window into modern-day China”), and peeking between the pages (“a novel that takes you away to another place while portraying complex family relationships... a great book club selection”).
- Stops on Week 2 of the April 2011 virtual book tour: rundpinne (“an excellent discussion group book”), bloggin’ ‘bout books (“a beautifully rendered portrait of a family struggling to keep itself together”), and english major’s junk food (“I occasionally had to set it down and just say out loud, ‘This book is so good.’”)
- Fiction Writers Review selects A Thread of Sky as the Book of the Week and features a discussion with Deanna on “the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, and the reason she watches Jersey Shore.”
- The first stops of the April 2011 virtual book tour: amy’s creative side (“a complex and well-crafted novel”), write meg (“a lyrical look at one complicated family”), and chick with books (“a wonderful novel... the words seeming to float across the page”).
- A Thread of Sky is spotlighted in the new york times book review’s paperback row: “This graceful first novel takes three generations of women on a tour of self-discovery in their ancestral China.”
- Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang praises A Thread of Sky: “Deanna Fei brilliantly captures the richness, confusion, and contradictions of both China and Asian American identity today in her intimate yet epic novel.”
2010
- New York Times best-selling author Lauren Groff praises A Thread of Sky in Amherst magazine: "It is exhilarating to read a novel about the nature of female ambition; it is far more exhilarating to find that the novelist doing the exploration is as ambitious as they come."
- The latest blog reviews of A Thread of Sky: laughing stars says the book does “a magnificent job of seeing the world through the eyes of women in three different generations,” while mia herrera describes how she “fell in love with the way Fei reflectively portrayed the hybrid life of Asian American women.”
- Canada’s zoomer magazine calls A Thread of Sky “required reading to pack in your beach bag,” while Toronto’s sidestreet review calls it “a beautifully written book” that “poignantly portrays what it means to search for a home.”
- More blog reviews: book addiction “absolutely recommends” A Thread of Sky, the book chick lauds the “beautiful scenery, detailed history, closely guarded secrets, and emotional journey,” daisy’s book journal says, “I really loved this book,” and catch star girl calls the novel “epic” and suggests playing “Which character are you?”
- Deanna’s essay, “A Different Species: A Chinese American Writer in China,” up at The Millions, is featured on The New Yorker’s Book Bench and Publishers Weekly’s Morning Report.
- Read a profile of Deanna in the Iowa Press-Citizen and watch her video interview with the University of Iowa’s International Accents.
- The first blog reviews of A Thread of Sky: jules’ book reviews praises it as “an excellent example of women’s fiction at its finest,” adoption. et cetera says, “Go read it,” my novel reviews calls it “a beautiful story about loss, family, and individual struggles,” a mom after god’s own heart calls it “a fantastic debut novel... HUGE thumbs up!” and the apopcalypse says, “it’s brillz!”
- Deanna is featured on largehearted boy’s “Book Notes,” with an essay about the music that inspired her during the writing of A Thread of Sky.
The Spring 2010 Book Tour for A Thread of Sky
4/7 - The Corner Bookstore - New York, NY
4/10 - Prairie Lights - Iowa City, IA
4/12 - Amherst Books - Amherst, MA
4/14 - Barnes & Noble, Park Slope - Brooklyn, NY
4/17 - Bethesda Literary Festival - Bethesda, MD
4/18 - Busboys and Poets, 5th & K - Washington, DC
4/29 - Asian American Writers' Workshop - New York, NY
5/16 - Words Bookstore - Maplewood, NJ
5/26 - Third Place Books - Lake Forest Park, WA
5/28 - Powell's Books - Portland, OR