Where There's Smoke, There's Dinner ― Stories of a Seared Childhood

Family: comfort food or a recipe for disaster? Award-winning storyteller and performer Regi Carpenter brings her humor and honesty to print inWhere There’s Smoke, There’s Dinner.

Regi is the youngest daughter in a family that pulsates with contradictions: religious and raucous, tender but terrible, unfortunate yet irrepressible. These honest tales—some hilarious, some heartbreaking—celebrate the glorious and gut-wrenching lives of four generations of Carpenters raised on the Saint Lawrence River in Clayton, New York. From teenagers struggling to find their identity to disabled veterans grappling with the aftermath of war and change to the complications and sweetness of love between family members, this collection of linked short stories holds the universal message that life’s difficulties are softened by love and fortitude . . . and family.

Regi Carpenter is a solo performance artist, writer, teacher, and performance coach. An award-winning performer, Regi has toured her solo shows and workshops in theaters, festivals, and schools both nationally and internationally. Her writings and blogs about storytelling, ancestry, and identity have been published in various print and online publications. Regi holds a BFA from Ithaca College where she currently teaches storytelling. Regi is the recipient of the JJ Reneaux Emerging Artist Award, a Leonard Bernstein Teaching Fellowship Award, the Parent’s Choice Gold Award, the Parents’ Guide to Children’s Media Award, and the Storytelling World Award. Her performance piece “Snap!” won the 2012 Boston StorySlam. “Snap!” is a featured listen story on The Moth website. In addition, she recently raised the funds from fans across the country to make a CD and DVD of “Snap!” Along with her work as a performer, coach, and writer, Regi is also the founder of Stories with Spirit, a creative initiative dedicated to bringing songs of joy and stories of hope to grieving children and the people who love and care for them in homes, hospices, and hospitals. Her high school storytelling curriculum, “Teens Talking,” has been awarded grants from the New York State Council of the Arts. She lives in Ithaca, New York. -