Brenda Barker's Next Chapter

At sixty-four, Brenda Barker's life is anything but over-though someone should tell that to her butcher, who insists on calling her "ma'am" when the other customers are "miss." With her husband gone, her only child moving to Japan, and a literary "expert" telling her she has no business writing, Brenda does what any sensible woman would do: ignores the advice, packs her bags, and heads to a high-stakes writers' conference in the California wine country.

Armed with a manuscript, a bottle of p...