Writing Female Characters: A Conversation with Charlie Quimby & Barbara K. Richardson

Novelists Charlie Quimby and Barbara K. Richardson discuss the complexities of writing female characters in a conversation moderated by their editor, Kirsten Johanna Allen of Torrey House Press. Part of the Utah Humanities Book Festival, this event is free and open to the public.

Charlie Quimby

Charlie Quimby is the author of Monument Road, an Indie Next pick and Booklist Editors’ Choice in 2013. He began his writing career as playwright and arts journalist, veered into corporate communications and then founded a marketing agency that now purrs along without him. Along the way, he collected awards and developed the notion he had a few good novels in him. A native Coloradan and adopted Minnesotan, he is at home in both places.

Charlie Quimby’s novel Inhabited introduces readers to Meg Mogrin, who sells pricey houses, belongs to the mayor’s inner circle, and knows more than she’s letting on about her sister’s death. When their hometown attracts a game-changing development, Meg must decide between maintaining her ordered world and facing hard truths about her profession and past.

“Charlie Quimby is a writer with a big talent, big heart, and big social conscience. I was staggered by the authenticity of these people and their dilemmas.”
—Faith Sullivan, author of Goodnight, Mr. Wodehouse and The Cape Ann

Barbara K. Richardson
Aside from writing, Barbara K. Richardson has renovated four houses, enjoyed Argentine tango, fallen in love with tai chi, helped can the West’s finest plum jam, adored conifers, and planted thousands of trees and shrubs for others. In Tributary, Richardson claims the land of her Mormon ancestors who settled the northern Salt Lake Valley. Richardson earned an MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University. She lives in Kamas, Utah.

In Barbara Richardson’s Utah Book Award-winning novel Tributary, Clair Martin struggles with her role in the early Mormon Church. Her stubborn search for identity takes Clair from the confines of the Utah Territory, with its polygamy and rigorous conformity, to the chaos of Reconstruction Dixie and back again.

“Beautifully written and engaging, this is a story of one woman and her refusal to cave into societal norms in order to seek her own difficult and inspired path.”
—Laura Pritchett, author of Stars Go Blue

Kirsten Johanna Allen
As Publisher and Editorial Director at Torrey House Press, Kirsten Johanna Allen oversees marketing, production, and editorial concerns for Utah’s independent nonprofit literary publisher. Kirsten lives with her husband, Mark Bailey, and two cats in Salt Lake City and Torrey, Utah.