Whitney Scharer and The Age of Light

April in Columbia isn’t quite April in Paris, but we’ll be getting you close! We’re excited to present Whitney Scharer, whose gorgeous debut novel, The Age of Light, has been delighting readers since it was published last February. It was a Boston Globe and IndieNext bestseller, People Pick of the Week, Amazon Book of the Month selection, and Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. The novel tells the story of Vogue model turned renowned photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity as an artist after a life spent as a muse. Lee’s journey takes her from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from inventing radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents. Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it’s possible to stay true to herself while also fulfilling her artistic ambition — and what she will have to sacrifice to do so.

Whitney will be in conversation with Unbound director, Alex George, whose own novel set in the French capital in the early 20th Century, The Paris Hours, will be published this May.

Whitney holds a BA in English from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her short fiction, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous publications including Vogue, The Telegraph, and Tatler. She teaches fiction in the Boston area and is a co-founder and serves on the organizing committee for the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly reading series. She lives with her husband and daughter in Arlington, MA, where she is at work on her second novel. To find out more, visit www.whitneyscharer.com.