A Writer's Lust for Life -- And Death
Up for a Literary Prize, M. Sindy Felin's First Novel Is a Brutally Honest Portrait
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page C01
"I always thought I was destined to be either a serial killer or a mystery writer," says M. Sindy Felin.
Pregnant with triplets, she doesn't look like a serial killer.
The Kensington author's "Touching Snow" was influenced by her life in an abusive family. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)
Felin, who lives in Kensington, is the author of "Touching Snow," a young-adult novel of suffering and survival that has been nominated for a 2007 National Book Award. The winners will be announced tomorrow night at a black-tie to-do in New York.
In the cafeteria of the National Geographic Society, where she works as a paralegal, Felin -- tall and bookish in cream blouse, black slacks, silver-rimmed glasses -- talks about the similarities and differences between the life of her main character, Karina Lamond, and her own life. "Nobody was killed," she says of her upbringing.
The same cannot be said for Karina's story.
"Touching Snow" is a cringe-inducing novel about domestic abuse within a Haitian American family in the suburbs of New York. Here is the first line: "The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone."
Read the rest of the story.
Up for a Literary Prize, M. Sindy Felin's First Novel Is a Brutally Honest Portrait
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; Page C01
"I always thought I was destined to be either a serial killer or a mystery writer," says M. Sindy Felin.
Pregnant with triplets, she doesn't look like a serial killer.
The Kensington author's "Touching Snow" was influenced by her life in an abusive family. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)
Felin, who lives in Kensington, is the author of "Touching Snow," a young-adult novel of suffering and survival that has been nominated for a 2007 National Book Award. The winners will be announced tomorrow night at a black-tie to-do in New York.
In the cafeteria of the National Geographic Society, where she works as a paralegal, Felin -- tall and bookish in cream blouse, black slacks, silver-rimmed glasses -- talks about the similarities and differences between the life of her main character, Karina Lamond, and her own life. "Nobody was killed," she says of her upbringing.
The same cannot be said for Karina's story.
"Touching Snow" is a cringe-inducing novel about domestic abuse within a Haitian American family in the suburbs of New York. Here is the first line: "The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone."
Read the rest of the story.
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