{"id":9729,"date":"2021-03-25T15:05:56","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=9729"},"modified":"2021-03-25T15:10:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T19:10:55","slug":"smiths-novel-named-to-kirkus-best-indie-books-of-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2021\/03\/25\/smiths-novel-named-to-kirkus-best-indie-books-of-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Smith\u2019s Novel Named to Kirkus\u2019 Best Indie Books of 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elizabethtown College Assistant Director of Academic Advising <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.etown.edu\/offices\/advising\/staff.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curtis Smith<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> recently had his novel, \u201cThe Magpie\u2019s Return\u201d named to the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/best-of\/2020\/indie\/books\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kirkus Review\u2019s Best Indie Books of 2020<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Released in August 2020, \u201cThe Magpie&#8217;s Return\u201d is his fifth novel and thirteenth book. The dystopian literary tale takes place in a futuristic, post-nuclear war America and follows Kayla, a middle school math prodigy who is seeking revenge, redemption, and survival.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBeing named to any best-of list is an honor &#8211; but it&#8217;s an especially satisfying honor to come from Kirkus, which might be the most highly-regarded reviewing publication in the industry,\u201d said Smith. \u201cOnce a book is published it no longer belongs to me &#8211; it belongs to the world &#8211; and I&#8217;m just happy The Magpie&#8217;s Return found its way to someone who enjoyed and appreciated it.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smith, who teaches creative writing at Etown in addition to his role in academic advising, has published over 125 stories and essays. He is also active in the literary community and has published over 100 book reviews and author interviews.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabethtown College Assistant Director of Academic Advising Curtis Smith recently had his novel, \u201cThe Magpie\u2019s Return\u201d named to the Kirkus Review\u2019s Best Indie Books of 2020. Released in August 2020, \u201cThe Magpie&#8217;s Return\u201d is his fifth novel and thirteenth book. The dystopian literary tale takes place in a futuristic, post-nuclear war America and follows Kayla, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":9730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[774],"tags":[197,1350,1378],"class_list":["post-9729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","tag-elizabethtown-college","tag-etown","tag-kirkus-reviews","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9732,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions\/9732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}