Join us for an evening with Georgia-based author Melissa Pritchard to celebrate her new novel, Flight of the Wild Swan. Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. Registration requested.

This event will be in the Decatur Library Auditorium. Enter through the Ground Floor doors, or by either elevator. Doors and elevators will be unlocked at 6:30. There is a two-floor free parking deck behind the library.

About the Author: Melissa Pritchard was born in San Mateo, California. She has published eight award-winning books of fiction, a biography and collection of essays. Her most recent book is a fictionalized biography of Florence Nightingale titled Flight of the Wild Swan. Among other prizes, she has received the University of Georgia’s Flannery O’Connor Award, the University of Rochester’s Janet Heidinger Kafka Award and Chicago’s Carl Sandburg Literary Award. She also was awarded fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians. Melissa currently lives in Columbus, Georgia.

About the Flight of the Wild Swan: Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the fictionalized story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life’s calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art. In lush, lyrical detail, Pritchard reveals Nightingale as a rebel who wouldn’t relent–one whose extraordinary life offers a grand lesson in inspired will.

PRAISE FOR FLIGHT OF THE WILD SWAN

“Pritchard’s splendid latest illuminates the life of Florence Nightingale…Marvelous and moving.”— Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

“From country houses to city slums and distant war zones, Pritchard renders the people and places of Florence’s world in lush, richly detailed prose…A compelling story and satisfyingly human portrait of an extraordinary woman.”— Booklist (YA recommended)

“A fresh imagining of an icon (Florence Nightingale,)…in Pritchard’s portrayal, is an indomitable force.” — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“Melissa Pritchard makes Nightingale’s heroism even more intimate — and more interesting — by portraying her not as ‘some sweet, feminine savior’ but as a stubborn, tormented striver who spent her youth and early adulthood struggling to break free from the constraints of Victorian society.” — New York Times

“Exceptional…transformative and riveting…” — Midwest Book Review