Novelist Linda Cardillo coming to Storrs Library on Dec. 9

Date: 11/25/2014

LONGMEADOW – Resident Linda Cardillo, an award-winning author of half a dozen works of fiction, will be reading selections from her newest novel, “The Boat House Café,” at Storrs Library on Dec. 9 at 6:30 p.m.

Cardillo said “The Boat House Café” is the first book in a series called “First Light” and is set during the 1940s on Chappaquiddick Island, a smaller island off the eastern end of Martha’s Vineyard.

The story centers on the relationship between an Irish-American woman named Mae Keaney and a Wampanoag tribal member named Tobias Monroe, who both have secrets they are keeping from the world and come together during a moment of crisis.

“One of the things that was also a spark for this story was a conversation I overhead at a café in Oak Bluffs one summer,” she added. “A woman said to her companion, ‘You know what they say about this place; some people come here to hide and some people come here to heal.’ That’s what this story is all about; hiding and healing.”

Cardillo said she has taken trips to a remote cottage on Cape Page, located on the northern tip of Chappaquiddick, with her family for about a decade. The rich history and natural scenery of the area served as an inspiration for the novel.

Keaney returns to Chappaquiddick at the beginning of World War II and is determined to shed the demons of her past, Cardillo explained. Living in a weathered cottage above a dilapidated sea wall on the northern tip of the island, Keaney embraces her independence. 

Cardillo said Keaney defies traditional conventions of 1940s society and the stark temperament of the natural environment until a cataclysmic fire endangers her livelihood - The Boat House Café.

Keaney hesitantly accepts help from Monroe, forming an uneasy partnership that blossoms to an understanding of the “People of the First Light,” she added.

“The seed of the story is in the 1920s,” Cardillo noted. “There was this solitary woman who ran a café out on this point that could only be reached by boat and so she had a lot of fishermen and boaters who were her customers. I sort of became fascinated by the idea of a single woman alone in this wilderness making a living. She sort of became a seed for my main character.”

Cardillo, 66, said she has been a full-time novelist for more than a year and a half. Her previous job was as the director of development for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.

“I have to say when I was [in my 20s] I fantasized about [writing a novel] and I did not have the focus and the ability to be working full time and then also have the energy and the focus to really say, ‘What is it that I'm going to write and make myself write?’” she added. “It took me really a long time to do learn how to do that.”

Cardillo's first novel, “Dancing on Sunday Afternoons,” was published in 2007. The following year her novellas appeared in an anthology collection called “The Valentine Gift.” In 2013, an illustrated children’s book entitled “The Smallest Christmas Tree” was also published.

Besides her work as a writer, Cardillo is also co-founder of Bellastoria Press alongside fellow writer Ann DeFee. Bellastoria was incorporated about two months ago and is an independent press aimed at publishing books for an adult demographic of 35 years or older.

“Publishing’s gone through this sort of incredible upheaval with the advent of technology, the availability of books, and also print on demand services,” she added. “So, a lot of authors like myself are what we call hybrids.”

Cardillo said there are currently four books in the Bellastoria catalogue and company is actively seeking submissions from writers of fiction and nonfiction.

“There’s been a huge upsurge in book discussion clubs and we are producing the kinds of books that a book discussion club would read,” she added.

This will be Cardillo’s third author event at Storrs Library and she will be available for book signings following the reading.

For more information about Cardillo visit http://lindacardillo.com. You can also visit http://bellastoriapress.com for information about the publishing company.