Friendly reminder: no outside books for signing at Stanza events.

ECSTASY

A deliciously dark horror reimagining of a Greek tragedy, by Ivy Pochoda, winner of the LA Times Book Prize.

Lena wants her life back. Her wealthy, controlling, humorless husband has just died, and now she contends with her controlling, humorless son, Drew. Lena lands in Naxos with her best friend in tow for the unveiling of her son's, pet project--the luxurious Agape Villas.

Years of marriage amongst the wealthy elite has whittled Lena's spirit into rope and sinew, smothered by tasteful cocktail dresses and unending small talk. On Naxos she yearns to rediscover her true nature, remember the exuberant dancer and party girl she once was, but Drew tightens his grip, keeping her cloistered inside the hotel, demanding that she fall in line.

Lena is intrigued by a group of women living in tents on the beach in front of the Agape. She can feel their drums at night, hear their seductive leader calling her to dance. Soon she'll find that an ancient God stirs on the beach, awakening dark desires of women across the island. The only questions left will be whether Lena will join them, and what it will cost her.

Ecstasy is a riveting, darkly poetic, one-sitting read about empowerment, desire, and what happens when women reject the roles set out for them.

Ivy Pochoda

Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, These  Women, and Sing Her Down which won the LA Times Book Prize. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy has led a creative writing workshop in Skid Row Los Angeles where she helped found Skid Row Zine. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.

in conversation with

Elizabeth Crane

Elizabeth Crane is the author of the memoir This Story Will Change (Counterpoint, 2022) and six works of fiction, including the story collection Turf (Soft Skull, 2017) and the novel The History of Great Things (Harper Perennial, 2016). Her stories have been translated into several languages and appear in numerous publications, including Guernica, Catapult, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Fairy Tale Review, Huffington Post, Chicago Reader, The Believer, and air/light, and the anthologies Love in the Time of Time’s Up (Tortoise, 2022), The Best of the Web (Dzanc, 2008 and 2010), and The Best Underground Fiction (Stolen Time, 2006). Her work is performed regularly as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts and has been adapted for film and stage, most notably with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. She teaches in the low-residency MFA program at UC Riverside–Palm Desert and is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award.