Ruth McClintock is obsessed with Annie Oakley. For nearly a decade, she has been studying the legendary sharpshooter, convinced that a scarring childhood event was the impetus for her crusade to arm every woman in America. This search has cost Ruth her doctorate, a book deal, and her fiancé--but finally it has borne fruit. She has managed to hunt down what may be a journal of Oakley's midlife struggles, including secret visits to a psychoanalyst and the desire for vengeance against the "Wolves," or those who have wronged her.

With the help of Reece, a tech-savvy senior at the local high school, Ruth attempts to establish the journal's provenance, but she's begun to have jarring out-of-body episodes parallel to Annie's own lived experiences. As she solves Annie's mysteries, Ruth confronts her own truths, including the link between her teenage sister's suicide and an impending tragedy in her Minnesota town that Ruth can still prevent. (Soho Press)

Andromeda Romano-Lax is the author of The Spanish Bow, a New York Times Editors’ Choice that has been translated into 11 languages; The Detour; Behave; and Plum Rains, which won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, as well as numerous works of nonfiction. She is a co-founder of 49 Writers, a statewide literary organization in Alaska, and lives on a small island in British Columbia.

Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write and the novels The Book of Dead Birds, which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement (judged by Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, and contest founder Barbara Kingsolver), Self Storage, Delta Girls and My Life with the Lincolns, which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a Read on Wisconsin pick, as well as a collection of poetry, The Selfless Bliss of the Body.

Her essays, poems and short fiction have been widely published and have received numerous honors, including a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award, and a Notable mention in The Best American Essays 2016. She teaches in the low residency MFA programs at Antioch University, Los Angeles and Sierra Nevada College, where she was named Distinguished Visiting Professor/Writer in Residence. Gayle served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014 and was called a Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine.

Andromeda Romano-Lax and Gayle Brandeis discuss "Annie and the Wolves"