Amy Crider
Playwright and Novelist
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Literary event with my poet sister Joan Baranow! See here.
Welcome to the website of playwright and novelist Amy Crider.
Contact: crider@amycrider.com.
Novels:
Kells, a novel of the eighth century, is now available from your favorite book outlets, from the University of New Orleans Press.
The sweeping tale of a monk who longs to create the beautiful text that would become known as The Book of Kells, this book took years of research, including trips to the remote island of Iona, and a medieval ink-making session with members of the Society for Creative Anachronisms.
Though their stories have been lost to history, many of the named characters actually existed. The monks Connachtach and Cellach, the Abbot Bresal, Alcuin the tutor of Charlemagne, the merchant Isaac, and the wives of Charlemagne, all come to life in this epic novel.
Newcity gave it a wonderful review. One quote:
"(T)here are some books that drop you like a stone into a lake. They change your atmosphere and make the non-book world seem murky. After fifty or so pages of steady reading, it’s hard to readjust to reality. All you want to do is talk about the book, and you wish that the characters were real."
Third Coast Review had kind words.
The Historical Novel Society was also enthusiastic.
I had a lovely interview with Jack Duncan on the Celtic History Podcast.
Disorder, a murder mystery, won the University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize. It is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and can be ordered at your local bookstore. It is also available for Kindle, and the audio book is read by Obie award-winning actress Mia Barron.
Reviews for Disorder:
Publishers Weekly: "The ingenious plot will keep the reader guessing. Psychological thriller fans will want to check this out."
Foreword Reviews: "Tender and tortured in equal measure, Amy Crider's Disorder is a mystery that gradually reveals itself to be a perceptive character study." 5 stars
"Honest and riveting." Sara Paretsky, creator of V. I. Warshawski.
My YouTube interview for Speed City Sisters in Crime is here.
My newspaper interview with NOLA dot com is here.
Plays:
Please visit the plays page for a complete list of works.
Latest news: Wells and Welles was nominated for the American Theater Critics Association/Steinberg Award. It's now been published by TRW.
We're establishing a new identity for our stage productions, Lucid Theater.
Our drama podcast is still Continuous Dream, here: or if you prefer Apple Podcasts, here.
Our YouTube channel is here.
"The priest doesn't save you by his sermon. He saves you because water is turned into wine and wine is turned into blood. You are saved through wonder. Theater is that kind of wonder."
Born in Ohio in 1961 and raised in rural upstate New York, Amy Crider earned a BA in theater from Goddard College, then an MA in education, and didn't return to theater again until moving to Chicago in the 2000s, starting with the writing program at Second City. She spent ten years with Chicago Dramatists, capping her studies in their first Master Class.
One of the few writers who has won awards for both fiction and drama, her childhood during the trauma and violence of the 1960s launched her lifelong desire to inspire audiences toward redemption, courage, and compassion.
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