Book news!! My second novel, DUET FOR ONE, will be out in early 2025. Can't wait! I am so excited that THREE MUSES was shortlisted for the Gotham Book Prize! https://www.ptknitwear.com/lists/4T59... And thanks to NPR for including THREE MUSES in "2022 Was a Big Year for Dance Books!" https://www.npr.org/2022/12/24/114532... And thanks Goodreads, for listing THREE MUSES in 51 Brand New & Upcoming Historical Fiction Novels! https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2... Martha Anne Toll writes fiction, essays, and book reviews, and reads anything that’s not nailed down. Her debut novel, Three Muses, won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction and is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on September 20, 2022. Toll brings a long career in social justice to her work covering BIPOC and women writers. She is a book reviewer and author interviewer at NPR Books, the Washington Post, Pointe Magazine, The Millions, and elsewhere. She also publishes short fiction and essays in a wide variety of outlets. In her own words: Fiction is the air I breathe. My fiction is about the emotional power of music and dance, the interplay of time and memory, the meaning of discipline, and love—always love—and death. I grew up passionate about ballet, classical music, and education. My parents embodied the Jewish adoration of the written word by immersing the family in books. I’ve been a voracious reader since I can remember, and it’s not a surprise that libraries and bookstores are some of my favorite places. I’m from Philadelphia and was lucky to study at the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet when I was young. What I lacked in talent, I made up for in enthusiasm. I will never forget the joy and fascination I felt as I watched professional dancers rehearse. At age fourteen, I fell in love with the viola when I met my beloved teacher and mentor Max Aronoff, a founding member of the Curtis String Quartet. Max taught me three life lessons: (1) The music is in the rests; (2) if you break things into component parts, you’ll figure out how to put together the whole; and (3) practice, practice, practice. I performed as a semi-professional orchestra and chamber music player in college and beyond. I’m a lifelong advocate for racial and social justice. I spent twenty-six years as the founding Executive Director of the Butler Family Fund. Under my leadership, the Fund developed and expanded two major programs with a deep commitment to racial equity: (2) preventing and ending homelessness and (2) fighting injustice in the criminal “justice” system, with particular focus on abolishing the death penalty and ending the sentence of juvenile life without parole. I led the formation of a long-term partnership with the Geneva-based Oak Foundation, spurring national work to help employ people experiencing homelessness, end the connection between criminal justice involvement and homelessness, and de-fund the criminal justice system. I continue to work as a consultant in social justice philanthropy. Social justice permeates my life as a book critic as well. It is my fervent belief that literary citizenship means doing everything possible to get amazing books into readers’ hands. I have been thrilled to review dozens of books by BIPOC and women writers. I love interviewing authors as well. My essays and book reviews appear regularly in NPR, the Washington Post, The Millions, the Los Angeles Review of Book, as well as in The Lily, the Rumpus, Bloom, Scoundrel Time, Music & Literature, Words Without Borders, After the Art, Narrative Magazine, [PANK], Cargo Literary, Tin House blog, The Nervous Breakdown, Heck Magazine, and the Washington Independent Review of Books. My personal essay "Dayenu" was selected for an anthology featuring a range of well-known writers. I’ve been a nominator and critic for NPR's annual book