Today I\u2019m delighted to feature Kirsten Mickelwait, who is a professional copywriter and editor by day and a writer of fiction\/creative nonfiction by night. Her latest novel The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty<\/em><\/strong> is set against a Jazz Age backdrop of 1920s Paris and Antibes and features the bohemian elite of the new century-including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Dorothy Parker. Definitely one for my reading list!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kirsten Mickelwait has been passionate about reading and writing for as long as she can remember, but her love of literature was really ignited as an English major at UC Berkeley, where she discovered James Joyce and the expatriate writers of 1920s Paris. Her historical novel, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty<\/em>, is being released in May 2025 and features many of these characters, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, and Dorothy Parker. Her memoir, The Ghost Marriage<\/em>, was published in 2021. Kirsten is an alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers Conference, and several other writers\u2019 workshops. She has another book in the pipeline\u2014a speculative novel\u2014and is currently at work on a collection of linked short stories about post-menopausal women.<\/p>\n Over to Kirsten <\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n California<\/strong> <\/em>by Joni Mitchell. Greek islands, crazy chefs, a bench in Paris, a party down a red dirt road\u2026 I was in high school and college when Mitchell was on the ascendancy, and she was such an icon for all of us hippie girls. This song contained so many images of what I hoped my adult life would look like.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jillsbookcafe.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/kirsten-mickelwait-author-photo-1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nWhich five pieces of music\/songs would you include in the soundtrack to your life and why?<\/strong><\/mark><\/h3>\n