The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of fiction! We’re joined by Thomas Calder to talk about his fantastic debut novel, The Wind Under the Door. Thomas will be in conversation with Zach Powers, novelist and Director of Communications at The Writer’s Center.
RSVP below, and you’ll receive an email on or before April 1 with instructions for joining the chat via our video conferencing platform, Zoom. FREE and open to the public, all times Eastern. Limited space.
We encourage you to order a copy of the book directly from the publisher or from your local, independent bookseller.
Thomas Calder earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Miracle Monocle, The Collagist and elsewhere. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, daughter and dog. The Wind Under the Door is his debut novel.
About the Book
Starting over is always easier among strangers. For Ford Carson, the process meant leaving behind the waves of South Florida in order to forge a new life as a visual artist in the mountains of North Carolina. At the peak of his reinvention, he meets Grace Burnett—a young, wealthy Texas transplant in the midst of her own transformation. A mutual infatuation develops. But when Grace’s estranged husband arrives complications ensue. Matters only worsen when Ford’s own estranged son announces plans to visit for his eighteenth birthday. Thomas Calder’s debut novel explores the lasting impact of broken bonds and the unanticipated ways the past haunts those on the run.
“The Wind Under the Door is a love letter to contemporary Asheville and the North Carolina mountains, but it’s also a love letter to our reckless hopeful moments and dangerous impulses. Thomas Calder writes as if James Salter and Gail Godwin had a literary child who grew up listening to Arcade Fire and Future Islands. This is a beautifully nuanced and resonant novel.” —Wiley Cash, New York Times-bestselling author of The Last Ballad and A Land More Kind Than Home
“This isn’t just a novel, but a whole world, alive and crackling with real characters. Calder gives his characters’ lives room to breathe and bend, and tends to both their wounds and their joy in careful, exquisite scenes. This is the journey of a man lost in his own life, with art to make and love to give, searching for somewhere to put it all. When it was over, I missed these characters as though they were my own extended family, living beautiful, messy, and very American lives.” —Aja Gabel, author of The Ensemble