Two Books on woman who broke barriers, changed women’s rights

“My book began with a voice in my head.”   ….E.J. Levy
“I was a lifelong strong locker for secrets.” ….Erika Krouse

INTRODUCTION: Colorado Press Women put on an “Author’s Talk and Lunch” each year, highlighting award-winning Colorado authors. This article briefly summarizes two of the authors with books out in 2022.
====Erika Krouse’s talk took the audience on a fascinating journey on how her ability to relax people when she interviewed them got her recruited to be a private eye in investigating the sexual scandals among CU football players.
====E. J. Levy read an equally fascinating passage from her book about how a woman in 1809 maneuvered her way into the all-male medical college, through altering her voice, clothing, and movements to be accepted as a man.

======SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Erika Krouse‘s latest book, “Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation,” was recently featured on Colorado Public Radio’s Turn the Page series. “Tell Me Everything” has been optioned for TV adaptation. She earned her M.A. in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also taught creative writing classes. She teaches and mentors for the Lighthouse Book Project at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and is a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence. Her stories have been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize.
E.J. Levy holds a degree in History from Yale and an MFA from Ohio State University, and taught in the MFA Program at Colorado State University for ten years. She resigned in June 2022 to write full time. She has her articles published in prestigious magazines, and winning the Pushcart prize. Her story collection, “Love, In Theory” won the Flannery O’Connor Award.

They talked about the creation of their current book, and defining what drives their calling to write, and the ideas they pursue.
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The first woman doctor, via a male persona

E. J. Levy’s debut novel, “The Cape Doctor,” was inspired by the life of Dr. James Miranda Barry, a notable nineteenth-century army surgeon who was born Margaret Anne Bulkley but took on a male persona in 1809 to obtain an education and practice medicine, 40 years before Elizabeth Blackwell would receive her medical degree in 1849. 

As the voice in Levy’s head prompted her about this story, she wandered around Cape Town taking notes and moving back and forth between research and writing. She began composing the historical fiction novel in 2012. Along with her meticulous research, Levy used her own experience as a tall lesbian who was sometimes mistaken as a male, to inform her character’s experience.

The Investigation that Changed how Title 9 in sports handled sexual abuse

Erika Krouse’s novel “Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation” is part memoir and part literary true crime, which began with a chance encounter at a bookstore that resulted in her being offered a job as a private investigator for a lawyer representing a student who was suing the University of Colorado for sexual assault. 

In speaking to CPW members and guests, Krouse laced her story with humor, a gift she used in interviewing football players as she investigated the culture of rape on a university campus. As she talked to victims and accessories Krouse realized she must also face her own trauma from childhood abuse. 

The case became a national scandal, and resulted in major changes in how Title 9 is implemented at colleges and universities nationwide.

………Book summaries by Sharon Almirall (CPW Newsletter, January 2023)

More women writers of Colorado…

Rachel King, Claire Boyles, Wendy J. Fox, and Jenny Shank will speak about and sign their short story collections set in Colorado, Thursday, February 9th at 6:30pm, at Boulder Bookstore.  For more information about Boulder event click HERE. (It is also at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver). The stories take place in Boulder County, American West, and Denver. Cost $5. Register online.