My Xanthi

2nd Edition

A Greek immigrant woman’s wartime secrets teach a criminal defense lawyer about love's triumph over injustice.

My Xanthi brings together the clashing worlds of cantankerous, loveable criminal defense lawyer Nick Milonas: southern California where he lives with his Korean-American wife and twin daughters, the suburban Midwest where his proudly assimilating family raised him during the 1950s and 60s, and the bloody Greek history his forebears and his second-most-beloved maternal presence fled. Heard through her posthumous letters, Xanthi’s loving, cynical, heroic voice triggers Nick’s slide into memory and long-held secrets – driving him to embrace the laughter and collapse of innocence among his lost loved ones, his clients, his conscience, and the daughters he hopes will greet their future with clarity and stubborn humanism.

My Xanthi takes an unflinching look at the human heart in upheaval – and at what endures.

My Xanthi, A Novella 
by Stephanie Cotsirilos
Trade Paperback 
Published by Stephanie Cotsirilos
Pub Date: June 1, 2023
ISBN: 979-8-218-17694-5
$18.00

Cover art by Valerie Deas 
Cover design by Jesse Sanchez
Production by Vivian Monseratte Cotte

Breaking Bread

Essays from New England on food, hunger, and family

Stephanie’s essay, “Nourishment,” joins those of Richard Russo, Bill Roorbach, Roxana Robinson, Lily King and others in the anthology, Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family -- winner in the 7th Annual Readable Feast 2022, Food Writing/Memoir/Novel category.

“A collection of essays by top literary talents and food writers, Breaking Bread celebrates local foods, family, and community, while exploring how what’s on our plates engages with what’s off: grief, pleasure, love, ethics, race, and class.

Here, you’ll find Lily King on chocolate chip cookies, Richard Russo on beans, Jennifer Finney Boylan on homemade pizza, Susan Minot on the non-food food of her youth, and Richard Ford on why food doesn’t much interest him. Nancy Harmon Jenkins talks scallops, and Sandy Oliver the pleasures of being a locavore. Other essays address a beloved childhood food from Iran, the horror of starving in a prison camp, the urge to bake pot brownies for an ill friend, and the pleasure of buying a prized chocolate egg for a child.

Profits from this collection will benefit Blue Angel, a nonprofit combating food insecurity by delivering healthy food from local farmers to those in need.”

Breaking Bread
Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family
ed. by Deborah Joy Corey and Debra Spark

Hardcover 
Published by Beacon Press
May 24, 2022 
320 Pages 
ISBN: 978-0807010860

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