Sonya Huber

Sonya Huber (CNF) | Stratford, CT

Booking Fee:

Negotiable

Will Travel:

Anywhere

Contact:

indigomission_at_gmail.com

Website:

http://www.sonyahuber.com

Sonya Huber is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir (2010), finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year, and Opa Nobody (2008), shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. She has also written a textbook, The Backwards Research Guide for Writers: Using Your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration (2011). Her work has been published in The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Fourth Genre, Crab Orchard Review, Hotel Amerika, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Washington Post Magazine, and other journals. She received the 2013 Creative Nonfiction Award from Terrain and her work appears in True Stories, Well Told: From the First 20 Years of Creative Nonfiction. She teaches in the Department of English at Fairfield University and directs the Fairfield Low-Residency MFA Program.

Books

The Backwards Research Guide for Writers: Using Your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration (Equinox Publications, 2011). Non-Fiction. Reference.
Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2010). CNF. Memoir.
Opa Nobody (University of Nebraska Press, 2008). CNF. Memoir.


Press & Reviews

“[S]harp human insights on the omnipresent moral complications of living in Nazi Germany make this a worthwhile read. . . . [A] unique, imaginative take on the family memoir.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Grounded in extensive research and enriched by family anecdotes. . . . The result is thoughtful discourse on political activism and the toll exacted from those dedicated to unpopular causes.”
—Deborah Donovan, Booklist

“In her first book, teacher and activist Huber reaches across time and space to find guidance and camaraderie in the reconstructed life of Heina Buschmann, the German grandfather she never met. . . . Family relationships and political situations are wrought finely enough to illustrate what’s at stake for Heina.”
Publishers Weekly

“In every chapter, [Huber] weaves stories of her activist life with richly imagined scenes of her grandfather, reconstructing his life from anecdotes and documentary evidence. . . . By connecting with history on such a personal level, she reveals how ordinary citizens can get swept up into movements of all kinds; allegiance is never as simple as a membership card. Most radically of all for a progressive activist, Huber embraces the past. Instead of tossing it all out in search of something new, she ties a firm knot between then and now.”
—Karrie Higgins, Los Angeles Times

“Writing family history is a notoriously fraught enterprise. . . . Sonya Huber’s book of creative nonfiction, Opa Nobody, tracks an innovative course through this thorny landscape. . . . [I]t is precisely Huber’s play with the imaginative possibilities in the gaps between historical fact and family memory that makes her project so poetic and moving. . . . Through her admirably candid writing, Huber makes visible the inability of political activism to manage failure and despair.”
—Valerie Weaver-Zercher, The Christian Century

“Huber’s tale resonates. Who hasn’t encountered obfuscating obstructions in even the best health plan, to say nothing of the millions of un- and underinsured who will read with head nodding (and maybe fist pounding). Amid her many joyless ironies—like working without benefits for a coalition advocating universal healthcare—Huber injects humor and wit, tinged with a humanity clearly honed by experience at every rung of the slippery healthcare ladder. The rest of the story—about love, friendships, motherhood and career—keeps the reader rooting for Huber, hoping she’ll find not just healthcare but a happier, healthier life.”
—Lisa Romero, ForeWard Reviews

Cover Me is a moving portrait of how access to healthcare determines who is a “have” and who a “have not” and in Huber’s hands, the issues surrounding healthcare reform become clear and relatable. Improbably, given the toll the struggles exact, the author is also very funny, telling her stressful tale with an irrepressible sense of humor.”
—T. Tamara Weinstein, Elevate Difference (formerly, Feminist Review)

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