Available here.
What readers are saying:
Callie Feyen has such a knack for telling personal stories that transcend her own life. In my years in publishing, I’ve seen how hard that is–but she makes it seem effortless, and her book Twirl is such a pleasure. It’s funny, it’s warm, it’s enlightening. Callie writes about two of the most important things in life–books and clothes–in utterly delightful and truly moving ways. I’m impressed by how non-gimmicky and fresh her writing is. I love this book.
—Sarah Smith, Executive Editor Prevention magazine; former Executive Editor Redbook magazine
—Melanie Dale, author of Women Are Scary, It’s Not Fair, and Infreakinfertility
Twirl gives language to the fierce concerns of an ordinary woman. It tracks small but defining moments, attesting to the joys of design and the pleasure of color we feel as we choose and joke and work and play in jeans, sandals, a coat, T-shirts. Start reading and you will be hooked.
—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of The Geography of Memory
Available here.
What readers are saying:
This is a book about being a teacher, and about being a mother, and, in its way, about being a writer. But it is most fully a depiction of living with a work of literature, about the conversations literature can spark and the memories literature can hold and reconfigure. The acknowledgments suggest that writing this book helped Callie Feyen remember why she loved teaching. Reading it made me remember why I love to read.
—Lauren Winner, bestselling author and Associate Professor, Duke Divinity School
Callie Feyen’s warm, funny, and deeply felt reflections on teaching Romeo and Juliet to eighth graders took me back to that moment where my own junior high teacher’s line-by-line slog through the play led to my conversion experience to the wonders of great literature. Here is a book that will not only encourage and inspire other teachers but thrill anyone who knows how profoundly literature can awaken and shape the soul.
—Gregory Wolfe, Editor, Image
Callie Feyen is not just a writer, she is a weaver. She seamlessly threads her past, her students’ experiences, and the timeless tale of Romeo and Juliet into a story of growth and remembrance. She brings the ache of early teenhood to life, and I was transported along with her students every step of the way. Honestly, 8th grade would have been better if she had been my guide.
—Stephanie Stearns Dulli, Director Listen To Your Mother Show DC
Callie Feyen’s students are blessed, as are the teachers who will read her book (and their own students, who will in turn benefit from it). But more than that, there’s the special excitement of reading the first memoir of a young writer with a compelling voice. Brava!
—John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture 1995-2016
Educators and parents alike are desperate for ways to engage students in meaningful ways, while also fulfilling their obligation to meet standards and produce outcomes. And this is why a book like this one matters.
Feyen weaves memoir with educational strategy, presenting it with humor, empathy, and an urgency that helps us see the relevance of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. Presented with love, kindness, and sympathy, the book is a valiant corrective for so many of the worst trends in contemporary educational policy.
If you are a teacher who wants to do more than teach to the test, Feyen will give you hope: there is a way to give yourself fully, to be creative in the classroom, and to honor the material as well as the outcomes.
—Cara Gabriel, Assistant Professor, Department of Performing Arts at American University
You can also read my essays in The Magic of Motherhood by Ashlee Gadd and the Coffee+Crumbs team. Available here.
