Kratz Center for Creative Writing Presents Jessica Anya Blau

Release date: April 23, 2009 |

Jessica Anya Blau—whose first novel, “The Summer of Naked Swim Parties,” was a fixture on summer reading lists last year—will read from her works on Thursday, April 23, at 8 p.m. in Goucher College’s Haebler Memorial Chapel.

Presented by Goucher’s Kratz Center for Creative Writing, this reading is free and open to the public. Tickets must be reserved in advance, however, by calling 410-337-6333 or e-mailing boxoffice@goucher.edu.

Part memoir, part fiction, Blau’s début novel is set in Santa Barbara, California, in 1976 and chronicles the coming of age of a 14-year-old girl whose eccentric, pot-smoking parents throw naked swim parties in their backyard pool. As the main character, Jamie, comes to grip with her own changing body and sexual awakening, she is mortified by her parents’ casual lifestyle, which eventually turns the family into pariahs in their middle-class neighborhood. Regardless of the tragedy, the summer changes the way Jamie sees the things that matter: family, friendship, love, and herself.

“The Summer of Naked Swim Parties” was chosen as a “Top Summer Read” by “The Today Show,” the New York Post, and New York magazine.

Goucher’s Madison Smartt Bell said of the book, “You may think you’ve heard this story before, but no one tells it as wittily, winningly, wisely and well as Jessica Anya Blau.”

Blau is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the Johns Hopkins University, where she received her master’s in fiction and where she lectures and teaches creative writing. In 2005, she was chosen as the Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Her stories have appeared in The Sun Magazine, The First Line, Washington Square Magazine, and Santa Barbara Independent.

She says her next novel—tentatively called “Home for the Heart Attack”—is a grittier, long-spanning continuation of  “The Summer of Naked Swimming Parties.”

Established in 1999, the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College brings nationally recognized authors to campus for lectures and readings as well as semester-long residencies. These authors work closely with students and provide them with a stimulating environment in which the highest quality of writing is encouraged. The Kratz Center functions cooperatively with the undergraduate creative writing program, enhancing and expanding the curriculum with distinguished guest writers and new course offerings.