1. History, Culture, Author, Author’s Style
We the Animals by Justin Torres
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

2. Bildungsroman
a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education.

3. Justin Torres
Justin Torres Ted Talk on his writing

4. Justin Torres
Born: 1980
Heritage: Puerto Rican and of Irish and Italian descent
Now lives in LA
“So the hard facts mirror my own biography. I have two older brothers, my mother worked in a brewery, my folks are from Brooklyn, but the incidents are all fiction. These are very much characters, and what they do and say to each other are products of my imagination. It’s a difficult thing to describe. People always ask me why I didn’t write memoir, but I think that fiction frees you to get at emotional truth, because you’re not bogged down in fact-checking. Also, I think the characters I invented, who are so different from my real life family members, are more interesting–no, interesting in a different way—than my own kin.”

5. Barbara Kingsolver
“I have to be terrified”

6. Barbara Kingsolver Born: 1955
From rural Kentucky originally but has lived in England, France, and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to southwestern Virginia where she currently resides.
Received a degree in Biology
The places she’s lived, her scientific understandings, her experiences as a mother, and her political passions often influence her work