Essayist, memoirist, and food writer Sarah McColl comes to Market Street Wine Shop on Thursday, January 17 at 7pm to read from her new book, Joy Enough, which Library Journal called "an unforgettable debut." Market Street and McColl will share wine pairings to go with the prose. The event will also feature short appearances by McColl's colleagues from the UVA Young Writers Workshop, Nell Boeschenstein (writer) and Wes Swing (musician), as well as Kelley Libby (audio producer and musician).


About Joy Enough:
From a bracing new voice comes this life-affirming memoir of a daughter making and remaking her life in her mother’s image.

 Sifting gingerly through memories of her late mother, brilliant newcomer Sarah McColl has penned an indelible tribute to the joy and pain of loving well. Even as her own marriage splinters, McColl drops everything when her mother is diagnosed with cancer, returning to the family farmhouse and laboring over elaborate meals in the hopes of nourishing her back to health. In a series of vibrant vignettes—lipstick applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked—McColl reveals a woman of endless charm and infinite love for her unruly brood of children.

​Mining the dual losses of both her young marriage and her beloved mother, McColl confronts her identity as a woman, walking lightly in the footsteps of the woman who came before her and clinging fast to the joy she left behind. With candor reminiscent of classics like C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, Joy Enough offers a story that blooms with life.

About Sarah McColl:
Sarah McColl is the author of the debut memoir, JOY ENOUGH(Liveright Publishing/Norton, 2019).

 Her essays have appeared in Paris Review, McSweeney's, StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, where she was named the 2017 Mary Carswell Fellow, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wrangell Mountains Center. 

 Before receiving her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, she was the founding editor in chief of Yahoo Food. Her food writing has been featured in print and online for Bon Appétit, House Beautiful, The Guardian, Modern Farmer, Extra Crispy and others. She teaches creative writing and is based in Los Angeles, California.