~JOANNA CATHERINE SCOTT~ "In the Dawn Valley evokes a special memorial place in a voice both slightly formal in its deliberate movement and slightly conversational. This is spoken poetry of a lovely musicality, in a movement appropriate to the subject. The details are clear, moving, authentic, the syntax natural, unforced, elegant, all neither over- nor understated." —Jim Applewhite, Professor, American Literature, Duke University "Night Huntress—I've never seen anything quite like it before. It stand beautifully apart and alone. A very handsome book too." —Eileen Malone, President, PEN/Nob Hill "In this collection FAINTING AT THE UFFIZI
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PRAISE FROM CRITICS
Novels
THE ROAD FROM CHAPEL HILL
Penguin/Berkley, 2006
A Southern Independent Literary Bestseller
“Joanna Catherine Scott demonstrates great ambition in her new novel The Road from Chapel Hill. Here she tackles the dual subjects any writer on the American South must eventually face: the region’s history of race relations and the legacy of the Civil War. Each is tangled with the other in a web of pain, misunderstanding, heartache, loss, and occasionally, redemptive love. And so they are in Scott’s novel... She is to be commended for her adept skill with language (especially in her creation of mood), for her ability to enter fully into another historic era and into the minds of three dissimilar characters facing heart-rending circumstances. To quote Joseph Conrad, Scott displays 'the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel ... before all, to make you see.'" —Raleigh News & Observer
“Once I began this book, I could not put it down. I ate and slept, of course, but in between I read . . . The Road from Chapel Hill chronicles with marvelous historical accuracy the lives of displaced people in a culture obsessed with placeness—by race, by class, and by sex.” —Joel Williamson, Lineberger Emeritus Professor of the Humanities in Southern History, UNC-Chapel Hill, author of The Crucible of Race
“When you first read The Road from Chapel Hill, you might think of Cold Mountain...but Joanna Catherine Scott's novel is different in many ways, not the least of which is that one of her primary characters is an escaping slave.” —Fred Hobson, Lineberger Professor of the Humanities in Southern Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill
“Scott’s writing is gripping and taut, her eye for historical detail sharp and her characters individual and memorable. Her vivid language and naturally rendered dialogue is as skillfully employed as it is sensitive to race and class. But it is her gorgeous descriptions of North Carolina’s landscape that make this novel not just a fictional account of the Civil War, but a living, intricately detailed portrait of a vanished time and place.
When Scott writes about the smell of the forest during a rainstorm, the slip of mud underfoot, or the call of an owl, one feels transported. This is also true of her writing when she describes less pleasant things, such as the stench of hospital rooms or the disease, degradation and human mess
of a Confederate prison. These incredible details, along with Scott’s appreciation for history and her obvious love for the time period, make The Road from Chapel Hill truly soar.” —Pedestal Magazine
“Deepens and enriches our understanding of the two great tragedies of American history—human slavery and the Civil War needed to end it. A book that will be read—then read again—with appreciation and admiration. —Robert Anthony, Curator, North Carolina Collection, UNC- Chapel Hill
"A rich and rewarding journey into the Civil War era, full of historical detail, surprising characters and all the complexity of the time." —Thomas Dyja
"... at once heart wrenching and heart warming . . . a fascinating tale of love, war, valor, wickedness, and the cost we all must pay for what we believe in and hold most dear." —Roxboro Times-Courier
“Joanna Catherine Scott was born in England and raised in Australia, and that makes this book all the more remarkable. It is a Civil War story, based entirely in North Carolina, and Scott writes in Black dialect and White Tar Heel dialect with ease and skill”. —Fayetteville Observer
“On the dedication page of The Road From Chapel Hill are the words, ‘For Tom.’ With those two words, Joanna Catherine Scott gave life to a slave whose story is lost to history.” —The Pilot, Southern Pines
“A unique perspective of those in the South who did not support the Confederacy. All the details are historically accurate.” —Herald Sun, Durham
“In sparse clean prose, Scott weaves together the tangled threads of three lives. She concentrates less on the history of the Civil War and more on the changes in her characters’ lives as disenfranchised people in a world ruled by social class and race. Scott asks readers to think and question not only the world of her novel but our world as well.” —RT Book Reviews
“The Road From Chapel Hill is one very fine book! After reading it I see why it is getting such well deserved attention. Scott is a master storyteller who writes like the poet she is. As a former journalist who always enjoyed the research as much as the writing (if not more than), I'm impressed with her attention to detail. I can hardly wait to read the sequel.” —Pat Riviere-Seel, President, North Carolina Poetry Society
CASSANDRA, LOST
St. Martin’s Press, 2004
“Scott weaves a spellbinding tale based on the true story of one woman’s incredible odyssey from a prosperous Maryland farm to the devastation of Revolution-era Paris and back again . . . Brimming with romance, intrigue, and adventure, this spirited love story is firmly grounded in historical detail.” —Booklist, American Library Association
“A good sweep of history . . . Scott traces the uneven course of a real-life nineteenth-century Maryland heiress's love affair with the French pirate Jean Lafitte.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This finely wrought love story is filled with adventure, intrigue, and rich historical detail. Cassandra is a woman of her time, but relevant enough to appeal to readers of our time a s she gets caught up with the famous and infamous personages of American and French history . . . A great read.” —Sandra Dallas, author of The Persian Pickle Club
“The story of Cassandra is touching and will have readers captured from the beginning to the end. The history is excellent and even the smallest detail is not overlooked . . . a remarkable woman who sacrificed all for love and lived through so much in her life.” —Book Review Café
“Now and then, an author is able to write a story in such a way that the reader gets to know the characters so well he or she feels every emotion along with them . . . [Scott] puts the reader in the scenes and in the minds of the characters so deeply that, when the book is finished, we feel a sense of loss over having to depart.” —Roxboro Courier-Times
“Cassandra’s story is compelling. The story begins at an invigorating pace, and provides rich details of 18th-century plantation life. Cassandra’s life could well be a fiery soap opera.” —Boston Globe
“Cassandra, Lost is such a fascinating historical novel, taking the reader to Paris during the French Revolution and to New Orleans in the early years after the Louisiana Purchase; and because it's such an intense (though sad) love story.” —Katherine Johnson, Durham, NC
THE LUCKY GOURD SHOP
MacAdam Cage/Washington Square Press, 2000
Book Sense Top Ten Titles pick, Book Sense 76 pick, nominee for Book Sense Book-of-the-Year
“Scott can really write. Her sentences are lean and move with authority.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Exquisitely written . . . A brutal tale becomes beautiful and moving through Scott’s poetic language and eye for detail . . . Spare and elegant.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Beautiful . . . Scott writes simply and lyrically and creates a convincing world in which poverty tries hard to kill love and often, but not always, succeeds.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“A riveting, compelling, and disturbing novel . . . Scott’s descriptive talent is enormous.” — Library Journal
“Scott’s descriptions are right on target and never overstated . . . a moving story that leaves lasting impressions.” —Korean Quarterly
“An engrossing tale.” —Publishers Weekly
“Heartfelt . . . fascinating.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Captivating and enchanting . . . Rarely do I come across a book that I become so enraptured by from its very first page . . . a masterfully written, poignant tale.” —Adoption TODAY Magazine
“A fresh and compelling author.” —BookPage
“Beautifully woven prose . . . Scott paints an astoundingly accurate picture of Confucian love, marriage, and family . . . history and culture brought to life with literary genius.” —Mona Rim’s Public Reviews
“This gripping tale takes hold like a long forgotten, but often told, family fable.” —ForeWord
“A powerful combination of sorrow and compassion.” —Reader’s Edge
“A moving novel . . . an excellent read.” —BookList
“A sensually striking and emotionally reserved narrative of post-war South Korea.” —Baltimore Magazine
“Scott has shaped an old-fashioned love story involving mother and children that will ring through your heart for many moons after you close the last page.” —Bookreporter
“. . . ensnares the reader in a net that is difficult to break away from.” —Potomac Review
“A tragic, heartbreaking tale.” —aOnline
“. . . meticulous descriptions of superstition, custom and atmosphere . . . Scott makes us think seriously about the culture of a faraway nation and our relationship to it.” —The Denver Post
"A highly textured tale of social roles and changing norms, individual psychologies, and the influence of Americans. The poverty of Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as its traditional riches of spicy foods and beautifully crafted ornaments, are brought to life vividly. —Kliatt Book Reviews
CHARLIE
Black Heron, 1997 and 2008
Vietnam Veterans Association Book-of-the-Month
(First published as Charlie and the Children)
“Unlike other authors with no military background who attempt to write about war, Scott is believable . . . a prodigious feat, and a reflection of her enormous talent.” —VVA Veteran
"A poetic but brilliantly clear style . . . a beautiful story with a gentleness and compassion all its own." —Kirkus Reviews
“The soldier talk and military faceoffs are only too real.” —Baltimore Sun
"Charlie is a page-turner. I read the entire book in one sitting, couldn't put it down ... wonderful writing, incredible pace." —Eileen Malone, President, PEN/Nob Hill
“Individual responsibility is the central theme.” —Publisher’s Weekly
“Powerful descriptions of pain and injury and suffering . . . Scott is especially good at describing odors . . . a strong novel, very strong.” —Star Democrat
“Scenes that leap from the page. This book ranks with William Manchester’s Goodbye Darkness.” —Poetry Australia
“Scott is an exceptional writer . . . this novel deserves the attention of the reading world. The prose is nearly flawless, clear and lyrical, mythic in some way . . . and believable at the same time. It is a moving experience to find such fine writing about such a complex subject.” —Calyx Books
“Riveting, a heart stopper, yet more than just another story about war. In taking on the issue of the children soldiers leave behind, Charlie transforms itself into a fable for our time. I was surprised to find myself in tears." —Lieutenant General Lavern E. Weber, Chief, National Guard Bureau
Non-Fiction
INDOCHINA’S REFUGEES: ORAL HISTORIES FROM LAOS, CAMBODIA AND VIETNAM
McFarland, 1989
“A rare book . . . of the countless number of books containing interviews with refugees, this is by far the most balanced, best written, and most istorically accurate.” —Journal of Refugee Studies
“A perspective which is totally new . . . Scott has succeeded in providing some original historical research on a group of people who might otherwise have been forgotten.” —VOYA
“. . . unique perspectives and details about the political situations of these countries.” —South East Asian Refugee Studies Newsletter
“Offers a wealth of information about traditional Vietnamese culture and society . . . essential reading.” —CHOICE
“Stories that Americans have been reluctant to listen to — non-American participants’ stories of the horrors of the Vietnam war.” —Oral History Review
Poetry
NIGHT HUNTRESS
Main Street Rag, 2008
(Includes Rain, Blue Ridge Mountains, winner of the 2006 Rita Dove Poetry Award,
and In the Dawn Valley, winner of the 2008 Randall Jarrell Prize)
"Stunning. One of the finest manuscripts I’ve ever read. Compelling from beginning to end, these prose poems—each alive in heart-pulsing language—tell a story of grief, madness, agony. How is it possible, the Night Huntress asks, that the pain born of a tragic loss
can culminate into a peace that passes understanding? Read this collection, and you will know that you are in the hands
of a masterful writer whose prose poems are so lyrically controlled you won’t want to miss a single step, image, metaphor.
Scott spins various points of view into a journey —a mystery of the heart so profound you will feel transported
into myth and parable." —Irene Blair Honeycutt, Waiting for the Trout to Speak
Joanna Catherine Scott’s new book is a poignant, finely crafted read. Ideal for those who enjoy contemporary poetry and flash fiction alike, Night Huntress pairs engaging prose with evocative images, a combination that proves thought-provoking throughout. —The Pedestal
“Every one of us has known a young man or woman who has gone out and got drunk and killed themselves. In telling the story of one young woman, Night Huntress tells that story for them all. In it we follow the arc of shock, grief, mourning and gradual recovery. And yet there is no preaching or hyperbole. The story is told simply, in language so controlled and elegant that what was in fact an ugly tragedy becomes transformed into a thing of melancholic beauty.
Night Huntress is a sobering and at the same time comforting and healing book.” —Tony Abbott, author of The Search for Wonder in the Cradle of the World
—Roy Jacobstein, author of A Form of Optimism
Frith Press, 2005
Winner of the Brockman Campbell Book Award
(Includes A Theory of Transcendence, winner of the Ekphrasis Prize for Poetry)
“The poems in Fainting at the Uffizi are ostensibly about observing artworks in Florence, a city that is itself a work of art. But the poet’s concerns go far beyond descriptions of visual objects. She meditates on ideas such as partnership in marriage, motherhood, and the mystery of life in this world versus life in “a new world, strangely off and yet identical.” The music of the lines and the probing quality of thought gave me much pleasure. At times, I stopped in my tracks to savor a line or phrase.” —Thaddeus Rutkowski, judge, Brockman Campbell Book Award
"If you can’t travel to Florence, read Joanna Catherine Scott’s Fainting at the Uffizi for a delicious—not dizzying—travelogue. In fact, even if you can take a trip to Florence, read Joanna’s poems and let their insights enrich your visit. These poems not only convey a precise sense of place, they explore issues of life and death, history, philosophy—and visual art, of course. Like the best ekphrastic poems, these transcend their triggering subjects, creating a vitality all their own." —Natasha Sajé, author of Red Under the Skin and Bend
"Fainting at the Uffizi is fine work, imbued with a classic, timeless quality and full of revelations. There is a richness, a brilliance in the details, the rhythms, the hues, the metaphors, the symbols that transcend century and country, canvas and canto. The verse, like the art, like the country
and its culture, is elegant, sensuous, muscular, vital. And we are left sated, yet not quite sated, breathless with excess, and sighing, still wanting more." —Mary Golding Hogya
"In Fainting at the Uffizi, Scott steps through the wall that separates body from spirit, blackness from color, the work of art from the viewer. Her lush poems explore the space between formlessness and creation, dying and rebirth, the place where art and humanity intersect and a dizzy, luminous beauty takes over." —Geraldine Connolly, author of Province of Fire and Food for the Winter
"Scott’s Ekphrastic treatments are mystical and transcendent, with a sure and compelling personal touch." —Carol Frith, editor, Ekphrasis Magazine
BREAKFAST AT THE SHANGRI-LA
California Institute of Arts and Letters, 2004
Winner of the Black Zinnias Poetry Book Award
(Includes An End to Dreaming, winner of the Americas Review Prize for Poetry,
and An Adopted Child Leaving for College, winner of the PEN/Nob Hill Janice Farrell Poetry Award)
Judge’s Comments: "What makes judging especially difficult is that so often, as in this case, after reluctantly setting aside submissions with lovely but unsustained moments, I end up with an impossible number of publishable manuscripts. Choosing one can feel a bit like preferring one of my children to another. Over the years I’ve developed a method, which works for me. Here’s what I do: I read the last three or four manuscripts every day for several days. And the one I wake up thinking about most often is the one I pick. Now almost every time I’d go through the pile of the submissions to this contest, Breakfast at the Shangri-La would come up as the most authentically sustained. It’s the personal journey of a Western woman who adopts three Korean children. This is a dangerous subject, one which could be easily sentimentalized, but Ms. Scott avoids those rapids. She handles her subject with restraint, honesty and love. And because she uses such simple words, their resonance as a whole makes the book subtle, like a brush painting. I very much admire this effort, both for its skill and, in the end more importantly, for its soul." —Lola Haskins, author of Desire Lines: New and Selected Poems, The Rim Benders, Extranjera
“The immediate impact of this book is visual, with great color of place, of happenings, and of people. Though it is a compact whole, each poem stands on its own, but together they have added strength. The poet’s experience reaches out and involves the reader—there are no loose ends. Some very clever rhyming, of varying kinds, all unobtrusive. It is beautifully written. She takes the reader with her everywhere. There are lovely vignettes of people threaded through. She gives so clear a picture of the Philippines when she was there, not as a cold observer on the sideline, but from a poet’s eye and deep feeling for those people who touched her living, involving her as the reader is involved. —Anne Lewis-Smith, author of Feathers Fancies and Feelings, In the Dawn, and Flesh and Flowers
"Scott is not only a born storyteller but a poet’s poet. In terms of setting up and executing a dramatic scene, she is as deft as we’d expect of any first-rate novelist. But when she crosses genres (as she does with great skill and dexterity) and wears her poet’s rather than her fiction writer’s hat, the language of her work becomes heightened, freighted, utterly memorable. Her voice is at once confident and authoritative, her style glittering yet perfectly modulated. She is able to create landscapes and worlds that the reader can live in. —Pedestal Magazine
“Read these lucid and elegant poems for their compelling story.” —Natasha Sajé, author of Red Under the Skin and Bend
“Scott sets the landscape of the anguished human heart against a backdrop of poverty, revolution, and necessity . . . poems of acute insight, deep feeling and impressive poetic skill. A collection alive with power and tragedy.” —Geraldine Connolly, author of Province of Fire and Food for the Winter