Contemporary Authors

• Every Other Weekend Little, Brown and Co. (New York, NY), 2018

1. Every other weekend LCCN 2017946211 Type of material Book Personal name Summerfield, Zulema Renee. Main title Every other weekend / Zulema Renee Summerfield. Published/Produced New York, NY : Little, Brown and Co., 2018. Projected pub date 1804 Description pages cm ISBN 9780316434775 (hardcover) 0316434779 (hardcover)

• Zulema Summerfield - https://www.zulemasummerfield.net/bio.html

  ​I hold an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and my work has appeared in a number of literary journals. My first novel, Every Other Weekend, will be published by Little, Brown in spring 2018. My book of flash fiction, Everything Faces All Ways At Once, is available from Fourteen Hills Press.

  In addition to my writing practice, I am also an educator and creative coach. I am deeply committed to the act of writing as a process of healing/liberation, and believe that everyone should have access to the transformative power of writing. I have extensive experience teaching and coaching, and have worked in a number of settings, from non-profits to classrooms to private homes. I enjoy the process of teaching and sharing, whether in front of a classroom, online, or across the kitchen table. I dedicate a part of my practice to supporting people on their writing journey.

  I am also a devoted auntie and, I've been told, a pretty good dancer. I currently live in Portland, Oregon, where I am at work on a collection of short stories and a new novel.

• Guernica Mag - https://www.guernicamag.com/author/zulema-renee-summerfield/

  Zulema Renee Summerfield
  Zulema Renee Summerfield is the author of Everything Faces All Ways at Once (Fourteen Hills Press, 2010), and her short fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Heavy Feather Review and The Threepenny Review. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where she is at work on a novel and a collection of stories.

• Fourteen Hills - http://fourteenhills.blogspot.com/2010/11/10-questions-for-zulema-renee.html

  QUOTED: "The teacher was handing out Spanish names and I said: 'What do you have that starts with a "Z"?' I used it as a nickname for a long time and after a while it just kind of stuck."
  "Everything Faces All Ways at Once: Fictions and Dreams came in fits and starts over the past two or three years. I took a flash fiction course with Barbara Tomash as an undergrad at SF State and it changed my life. (If it's being offered and you can take it, do so! I promise you will love it.) The fiction pieces span back to the start of my graduate career and range in tone and theme."

  11.01.2010
  10 Questions for Zulema Renee Summerfield, the 2010 Michael Rubin Book Award Winner
  Although she recently moved to Vancouver, author Zulema Renee Summerfield will be back in San Francisco this Thursday Nov. 4 to celebrate the release of her debut collection, Everything Faces All Ways at Once. Join us at 7 pm at the Space Gallery on Polk Street to pick up a copy of her book and hear selections from this new work from Fourteen Hills Press.

  To prepare for the big event, we asked Zulema a few questions about her past, her dreams, and the realities of being a Canadian. Enjoy.

  1. How did you get your fantastic name?

  Ninth-grade Spanish class, baby! The teacher was handing out Spanish names and I said "What do you have that starts with a 'Z'?" I used it as a nickname for a long time and after a while it just kind of stuck. I actually prefer it over my legal name now.

  2. Where did you grow up?

  I grew up in good ol' Redlands, California. A nice little town. My parents split up when I was young, and I quickly gained a whole slew of new family members -- step-folk and siblings. I wrote my first story when I was fourteen, about a girl who lives on a planet with no rain. Her only recourse in this dry land is to listen to her rainstick. Pretty lame. I think I stole the idea from Ray Bradbury. So thank you, Ray Bradbury. Thank you.

  3. Tell us about your manuscript, the 2010 Michael Rubin Book Award winner.

  Everything Faces All Ways at Once: Fictions and Dreams came in fits and starts over the past two or three years. I took a flash fiction course with Barbara Tomash as an undergrad at SF State and it changed my life. (If it's being offered and you can take it, do so! I promise you will love it.) The fiction pieces span back to the start of my graduate career and range in tone and theme.

  In terms of the dreams, a few years back I read a story by Roberto Bolano in the New Yorker. It was the first time I had read a dream sequence that was written as a dream -- the syntax and tone and shifts in narrative precisely matched the experience of dreaming, and I wanted to try that. So many dream stories read as flat and boring. I wanted to try to write my dreams as I had dreamt them. I hope I succeeded. Now that my book is being published, I feel honored, humbled, and completely stoked out of my mind. It's a lovely feeling.

  4. What’s the difference between fictions and dreams?

  The difference is everything, and nothing at all.

  5. If you had to describe your book in four words, what would those words be and why?

  "Yoko Ono blurbed it!" I'm trying to get Yoko Ono to call and offer to blurb my book. (Read more about it here.)

  6. Tell me about Rene Magritte and your relationship to him.

  Rene Magritte and I went to prom together. He tried to get in my pants.

  That's a total lie.

  I've always been fascinated, intrigued, and completely floored by Magritte's work. Those paintings where the figure is facing away from the viewer? Freakin' brilliant. His "Perspective" coffin paintings are hilarious and poignant. I love stuff like that -- art that is clever in a not-irritating way, stuff that makes you laugh and think. (I'm looking at you here, Yoko.)

  Here's a true story: Years ago, I had a dream that I was at an outdoor wedding party. There was a pond in the yard, and in the pond were a group of birds made entirely of leaves. Live birds, made of leaves. At the time, I'd never seen Magritte's The Natural Graces, but a few weeks later I went to a showing of his work at the SF MOMA, and guess what was hanging on the wall? Cheesey as it is to say, there's been a connection for me to his work for a long time, a connection I can't always explain. And I would have gone to prom with him, if only he'd asked.

  7. Did you have any of the dreams you write about? Was it scary? (I’m thinking of “Rattlesnakes!” here.) What is your favorite dream and why?

  All of the dreams are real dreams I had. Most of them were narratives; some (like "dream of when we were the same") were sentences that I dreamt. The rattlesnakes dream was scary (thank you for asking) while I was dreaming it -- but then, as often happens, you wake up and you realize that scary equals hilarious, so the goal was to try to get that down.

  My favorite one is "dream of change we can believe in." I'm going to send a copy to Barack Obama and hope he writes back. That kid in the dream, Ricky Ramos, he's a real guy, my first "true love" -- I dream about him all the time. I'm still trying to figure out a way to write to him without sounding creepy: "Hey, remember me? I dream about you all the time." Of course, it's not really him, just the idea of him. He's just a metaphor for something else floating around in my head. Poor guy...

  8. What are you working on now?

  I'm writing a YA novel about grief (fun for all ages!), and also working on revising/editing a whole slew of short fiction and creative non-fiction pieces. I'm also trying to get Yoko Ono to call. Did I say that? I want Yoko Ono to call.

  9. Do you feel like a Canadian yet? When will you know you’re a real Canadian?

  When I'm nicer and own hockey equipment.

  10. Imagine: Yoko Ono is calling you right now, but you’re on the other line and can’t answer her call. How does it feel?

  There's no way in hell I would not answer Yoko Ono's call. This question is ridiculous.

  11. Bonus question! Terese Svoboda says your work "has a point and it's fixed like this in space, but also it's shifting … to pierce right through your skeptical, unbelieving, tender human heart." How did you achieve this feat? As fellow writers and fans, any tips or hints you can give would be much appreciated.

  Gosh, tips? Write, write, write, write, write, and then write some more. Read anything and everything. Read it slow. Read it again. Also, if you're a student at SF State, take full advantage of your time there. The halls are swarming with inspired, brilliant, incredibly talented people. They will change your life if you let them.

  Thanks, Zulema. We’re counting down the hours until Thursday.
  -Leanne Milway, managing editor, Fourteen Hills

QUOTED: "Heartbreaking and witty, this first novel portrays the lows and triumphs of family life."

Print Marked Items
Family Dramas
David Miller
Library Journal.
143.5 (Mar. 15, 2018): p90.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text: 
Goodman, Joanna. The Home for Unwanted Girls. Harper. Apr. 2018. 384p. ISBN 9780062834089. $26.99;
pap. ISBN 9780062684226. $16.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062684240. F
Goodman (The Finishing School) was inspired in part by her mother's story for this novel set in 1950s
Quebec. At 15, Maggie becomes pregnant, though she's unsure if the child is her boyfriend Gabriel's or from
being raped by her uncle. Her English-speaking family separates her from the French Gabriel, refusing to
believe her story of abuse. After giving birth, Maggie is forced to give up daughter Elodie for adoption, and
the baby is immediately taken to one of many church-run orphanages in Quebec. Shortly after, owing to a
new law providing more funds for psychiatric hospitals, the province's orphanages are remade as mental
wards, its residents declared unfit for society, eliminating the need for education or adoption. Growing up,
Elodie endures this cruel policy until she is released at age 17. Maggie marries an English businessman in
Montreal, trying to live quietly while not forgetting her daughter. And then Gabriel comes back into her life.
VERDICT Goodman's solid historical novel highlights social conditions in Quebec from the 1950s to
1970s, with complex characters and the conflict between the French and English handled realistically. While
the main story line focuses on Maggie and Elodie's search for each other, subplots add extra interest. For
those who appreciated Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith's My Secret Sister or the film Philomena.--
Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
* Regan, Katy. Little Big Love. Berkley. Jun. 2018. 368p. ISBN 9780451490346. $26; ebk. ISBN
9780451490360. F
DEBUT The narrative of this first novel shifts from the perspective of ten-year-old Zac, who likes to cook
and collect facts, to that of his single mother, Juliet, and her father, Mick. Juliet and Zac live on Harlequin
Estate in the northern English seaside town of Grimsby. Zac's father, Liam, left ten years ago under
mysterious circumstances after the tragic death of Juliet's brother. Only Mick, a recovering alcoholic and
retired fisherman, knows the truth, but he hides behind grief, guilt, and his opinionated wife. Juliet drowns
her sorrow in alcohol and food, and she and Zac have become overweight, resulting in Zac being bullied at
school. When the attacks escalate, Juliet is determined to get Zac healthy and happy. In turn, Zac, convinced
it will please his mom, embarks on a secret mission with his best friend Teagan to find Liam. But when the
truth is revealed, there's no going back, no matter the pain it brings. VERDICT Fans of Jane Green and
Susan Wiggs will enjoy British journalist Regan's modern family drama that explores the age-old question
of "what if" and the aftermath of one poor decision.--Laura Jones, Argos Community Schools, IN
Summerfield, Zulema Renee. Every Other Weekend. Little, Brown. Apr. 2018. 288p. ISBN 9780316434775.
$26; ebk. ISBN 9780316434768. F
DEBUT Summerfield, author of the short story collection Everything Faces All Ways at Once, presents a
coming-of-age story set in 1988 Southern California. Eight-year-old Nenny's mother makes the earthshattering
decision to get a divorce, which means Nenny and her two brothers can only see their father every
other weekend. As Nenny comes to terms with her parents' split, her mother forms a relationship with
divorced Rick, who has two children of his own, forcing Nenny to adapt to a new home with new siblings
who are also having trouble adjusting. When Rick's ex-wife is found murdered, the household is turned
upside down and Nenny and her brothers are sent to live with their father, while Rick and his family try to
make sense of this tragedy. Once again, Nenny and her brothers have to learn to live in an unfamiliar
environment while making weekend visits to their mother and the house they were beginning to call home,
although clearly things are not the same as when they left. VERDICT Heartbreaking and witty, this first
novel portrays the lows and triumphs of family life. Highly recommended.--David Miller, Farmville P.L.,
NC
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Miller, David. "Family Dramas." Library Journal, 15 Mar. 2018, p. 90. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637886/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6b9f0fa7.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530637886

QUOTED: "Summerfield creates a sense of time and of place so vivid the specifics of the plot hardly matter."
"moving but not precious, a gently hopeful novel steeped in late '80s atmosphere."

Summerfield, Zulema Renee: EVERY
OTHER WEEKEND
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Summerfield, Zulema Renee EVERY OTHER WEEKEND Little, Brown (Adult Fiction) $26.00 4, 17
ISBN: 978-0-316-43477-5
A young girl haunted by an impending sense of doom navigates the year after her parents' divorce in 1980s
suburbia.
"It is 1988 and America is full of broken homes," begins Summerfield's domestic period piece. "America's
time is measured in every-other-weekend-and-sometimes-once-a-week....Her children have bags that're
always packed and waiting at the door." And so it is for 8-year-old Nenny and her brothers, who split their
time between their mother's house--where they live with her new husband, Rick, and his two kids from his
first marriage--and their father's grim apartment. But Nenny is anxious by nature, with "a natural
predilection for alarm " and a deep-seated belief that "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong," although for
most of her life--divorce excepted--it hasn't. Still, she is haunted by catastrophic scenarios inspired by the
news and just real enough to be devastating: They all succumb to drought because her brother left the water
running. There is a home invasion or an earthquake. Mikhail Gorbachev storms the Sacred Heart Catholic
School and recruits Nenny's third-grade class into the Red Army. Mostly, though, Nenny's day-to-day life is
ordinary for a precocious kid growing up in the '80s, trying to make sense of her new family setup. She
"draws fashions" with her new best friend, Boots, who lives down the hall from her dad; eats fast food; goes
to Disneyland. And then something catastrophic does happen, something horrible and gruesome, something
Nenny never even thought to anticipate, and Nenny and her family are left to move forward, together. The
details feel perhaps just a touch too familiar--the wise child, the distant dad, the mom doing the best she can-
-but Summerfield creates a sense of time and of place so vivid the specifics of the plot hardly matter.
Moving but not precious, a gently hopeful novel steeped in late '80s atmosphere.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Summerfield, Zulema Renee: EVERY OTHER WEEKEND." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248253/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ee3ea809. Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248253

QUOTED: "It's the beautifully tender story of an eight-year-old's broken heart and her journey toward mending it."

Every Other Weekend
Cortney Ophoff
Booklist.
114.13 (Mar. 1, 2018): p20.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text: 
Every Other Weekend. By Zulema Renee Summerfield. Apr. 2018. 288p. Little, Brown, $26
(9780316434775); e-book, $13.99 (9780316434768).
It is the late 1980s when Nenny's parents divorce, adding hers to the growing statistic of broken homes.
When her mom remarries, Nenny and her two brothers gain not only a stepfather but a stepsister and
brother, as well. The stress of so many changes ignites eight-year-old Nenny's tendency to worry. Always an
anxious child, Nenny's fears span a broad range of things, from germs to earthquakes, robbers, even the
Russians. But when tragedy actually does come to her new family, it's not in any of the ways she expects.
Then, as Nenny's anxiety spirals out of control, she finds help in the most surprising places--in a friend at a
new apartment, in the sudden replacement of her old teacher--proving that change can bring about good
things. Summerfield's first novel is many things--a nod to late 1980s news and culture, a case study of
divided and blended homes, and an imaginative exploration of childhood fears. Mostly, though, it's the
beautifully tender story of an eight-year-old's broken heart and her journey toward mending it.--Cortney
Ophoff
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Ophoff, Cortney. "Every Other Weekend." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2018, p. 20. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532250817/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d52d5261.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532250817

QUOTED: "The conclusion is unsettling and realistic, and fits the way
the story evolves. ... though not heavy on plot, [the narrative] moves clearly and confidently."

Every Other Weekend
Publishers Weekly.
265.9 (Feb. 26, 2018): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
Every Other Weekend
Zulema Renee Summerfield. Little, Brown, $26 (288p) ISBN 978-0-316-43477-5
An eight-year-old girl named Nenny with a "natural predilection for alarm" is at the center of Summerfield's
perceptive novel (following Everything Faces All Ways at Once) about growing up in a fractured family at
the end of the Cold War. The anxious third-grader lives in Southern California with her brothers, mother,
and two stepsiblings at her new stepfather's house and spends every other weekend with her beat-down dad
in his sad apartment. Her mother no longer has time enough to soothe her fears, her stepdad doesn't relate
well to kids, and her new siblings resent the intrusion, so a new Brady Bunch they are not. The episodic
story flows along through Nenny's upbringing and includes vignettes like a family trip to the trailer park to
see if Nenny's stepdad's ex-wife is safe from her new husband. The author occasionally puts adult thoughts
in Nenny's head, but mostly the girl's voice is just right and features an authentically childlike logic.
Interspersed with the narrative are chapters that spin out Nenny's various fears and obsessions--home
invasions, Gorbachev, whether her stepdad killed people in Vietnam--effectively revealing a sensitive child
too young to make sense of her changing world. Summerfield goes overboard foreshadowing a tragedy,
deflating the dramatic tension a bit. Nonetheless, the conclusion is unsettling and realistic, and fits the way
the story evolves--this slice-of-life story; though not heavy on plot, moves clearly and confidently. (Apr.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Every Other Weekend." Publishers Weekly, 26 Feb. 2018, p. 60. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637395/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=37459b36.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530637395

Miller, David. "Family Dramas." Library Journal, 15 Mar. 2018, p. 90. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637886/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "Summerfield, Zulema Renee: EVERY OTHER WEEKEND." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248253/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Ophoff, Cortney. "Every Other Weekend." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2018, p. 20. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532250817/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "Every Other Weekend." Publishers Weekly, 26 Feb. 2018, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637395/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018.

• The New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/books/review/every-other-weekend-zulema-renee-summerfield.html
  Word count: 923

  QUOTED: "8-year-old, third-person present tense is a difficult point of view to pull off in a sentimental novel about a family’s dissolution, though Summerfield mostly nails it. “Every Other Weekend” manages to be both funny and fierce as it reminds the reader, through Nenny’s charming narration, that children are always paying attention. It reminds us that the world’s fierceness ... is almost always heavier on their minds than we, the train wrecks they depend on, want to believe."

  FICTION

  A Debut Novel Sees Divorce Through the Eyes of a Child
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  By Dean Bakopoulos

  May 11, 2018
  EVERY OTHER WEEKEND
  By Zulema Renee Summerfield
  282 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $26.

  Most divorce literature focuses on getting through the process itself. Few books chronicle the exhausting aftermath — custody calendars and copying your ex on emails and the physical schlep of duffels and laundry baskets. “So long, kiddo, see you next week,” is a fairly awful sentence to add to your parenting vocabulary. I spent most of 2014 reading books — both fiction and self-help — about separation. Now, when friends ask me what advice I have for them as they careen toward their own marital devastation, I tell them to start training. Get strong. Build your endurance. Prepare to hurt.

  Image
  CreditCécile Gariépy
  Zulema Renee Summerfield’s “Every Other Weekend” comes as close as any novel I’ve read to capturing post-divorce depletion, and she does so from a child’s perspective, which is exactly as gut-wrenching as it sounds. Almost nothing is as sad to witness as a child burnt out by life — and it is this sensation that lends Summerfield’s impressive debut its weight. Eight-year-old Nenny is observant enough to understand the inevitability of her parents’ divorce; rather than pining for a parental reunion, she pines for a clear way through the split and into a new life. What she wants, in her precocious way, is not a return to normalcy, but a modicum of predictability.

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  Some of this yearning can be attributed to the period: Summerfield’s novel is set in the 1980s, a time when co-parenting wasn’t yet really a concept. Nenny’s mother automatically becomes the primary parent in her life. She remarries quickly, to a haunted Vietnam veteran, and brings two detached stepsiblings into the family, so that Nenny’s home feels full of strangers. Meanwhile, her father takes the proverbial sad-divorced-dad apartment, where many of the novel’s most poignant moments occur. Nenny views him with a mix of respect and pity. He extols the wonders of nature during a foul-weathered camping trip, suggests they see multiple movies in one day, encourages Nenny and her two brothers to try all 31 flavors at a local ice cream shop. From all this Nenny determines there is “a mania about Dad that’s hard to explain. It was like watching someone lose their mind.” But her brother Bubbles comments, “He’s just trying to be a dad,” as if somehow divorce has stripped him of the title.

  Image

  Divorce can, in fact, cause adults to lose both their places in the world and their minds; adults forcing optimism amid sad upheaval is a complicated kind of madness that often imposes on kids a constant, low-grade anxiety, and the novel is at its smartest and most convincing when chronicling this phenomenon. Summerfield devotes whole chapters to Nenny’s imagined worst-case scenarios, which are fueled by the nightly news. Her mind races more and more as the novel progresses, and a more fragmented version of her psyche takes over in the second half after a tragedy blindsides the already shaky family.

  Maybe this is why Nenny is so attuned to the instability of the 1980s geopolitical landscape. She ruminates on many of the most famous headlines from the decade, so much so that the news events can feel like unnecessary add-ins, clumsily filtered into a child’s day. The novel also traffics in ’80s nostalgia, which can sound jarring for a kid who’s supposed to be experiencing the era in real time.

  In short, 8-year-old, third-person present tense is a difficult point of view to pull off in a sentimental novel about a family’s dissolution, though Summerfield mostly nails it. “Every Other Weekend” manages to be both funny and fierce as it reminds the reader, through Nenny’s charming narration, that children are always paying attention. It reminds us that the world’s fierceness, whether in the form of dueling parents or current events, is almost always heavier on their minds than we, the train wrecks they depend on, want to believe.

  EDITORS’ PICKS

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  The Bicultural Blackness of the Royal Wedding
  Dean Bakopoulos is the author, most recently, of “Summerlong.”

  Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast.

  A version of this article appears in print on May 12, 2018, on Page 21 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Caught in the Middle. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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