Events
Author Event at Bear Pond Books with Jill Coupe
Join Bear Pond Books in Stowe, Vermont for an author event on June 30th from 1pm to 3pm celebrating Jill Coupe's latest book, Gemma Somerset.
About the Book:
As a teenager in the 1950s attending summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Gemma Sommerset, from Lynchburg, Virginia, is given a glimpse of her future self-a woman capable of accomplishing just about anything. But when her parents nix her plans for graduate study in Paris, she ends up marrying her college boyfriend. With her father's help, she publishes a few local travel articles, but an ambitious trip to Carmel, California, changes her life in ways she'd never anticipated.
A literary fiction about a resilient woman, Gemma Sommerset-the third novel from IPPY-award-winning novelist Jill McCroskey Coupe-shows it's never too late to follow your dreams.
About the Author:
Born in Spokane, WA, during World War II, Jill grew up in Knoxville, TN. A decade after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Virginia’s College of William and Mary with a BA in Psychology, she was fulfilling the roles of wife and mother in Reston, VA, when she realized she was aching to go back to school. Unsure of what, exactly, she wanted to study, she discovered that the masters program in Library Science at the University of Maryland would give her credit for courses taken in other departments. Having enrolled, she thoroughly enjoyed a graduate psychology course in comparative neuroanatomy as well as her first ever class in creative writing. Armed with an MLS degree, Jill soon moved to Baltimore, where she became Head of the Reference Department in John Hopkins University’s Eisenhower Library. While continuing to work full time, she completed an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC. Decades later, Jill attended one of John Dufresne’s novel workshops at the Taos Summer Writers Conference. Returning for Dufresne’s subsequent workshops was a life-changer. Having published two novels, Jill recently moved to Vermont to be near her son and his family. Vermont is where her third novel, Gemma Sommerset, was published in 2025.
With Knoxville known as the Gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and Swannanoa located in the midst of the Blue Ridge, Jill was thrilled to realize that the Appalachian Trail passes through Vermont. So where was her author photo for Gemma Sommerset taken? On the AT, of course, with Jill wishing she could hike all the way to Tennessee.
