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Maggie Kast

Goodreads Author

Born

Toronto, Canada

Website

http://www.maggiekast.com

Twitter

tweenworlds

Genre

Fiction, Memoir, Religion

Influences

J.M.Coetzee, David Grossman

Member Since

March 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/magdance

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My novel, A Free, Unsullied Land, was published by Fomite Press in 2015. Side by Side but Never Face to Face: a novella and stories, is forthcoming from Orison Books in June 2020. Everyone is invited to the launch at Women & Children First Books, 5233 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640 on June 4 at 7 pm. Refreshments will be served. A Southside reading will be held on June 7, 3 pm, at Seminary Co-op Books, where Maggie will be in conversation with S. L . Wisenberg, author of Holocaust Girls and Cancer Bitch.

Side by Side but Never Face to Face asks, Can new love be found in old age? Greta has been wrenched from a long and tightly-circled marriage to Manfred, an Austrian Holocaust survivor. Together they mourned the accidental death of a daughter My novel, A Free, Unsullied Land, was published by Fomite Press in 2015. Side by Side but Never Face to Face: a novella and stories, is forthcoming from Orison Books in June 2020. Everyone is invited to the launch at Women & Children First Books, 5233 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640 on June 4 at 7 pm. Refreshments will be served. A Southside reading will be held on June 7, 3 pm, at Seminary Co-op Books, where Maggie will be in conversation with S. L . Wisenberg, author of Holocaust Girls and Cancer Bitch.

Side by Side but Never Face to Face asks, Can new love be found in old age? Greta has been wrenched from a long and tightly-circled marriage to Manfred, an Austrian Holocaust survivor. Together they mourned the accidental death of a daughter and experienced a widening of spiritual horizons as they grieved. Shifting between Chicago, Austria, and rural Wisconsin, the present and decades past, these linked narratives unfold the story of Greta—daughter, wife, mother, widow, survivor, and seeker—with profound insight into the emotional conflicts, spiritual yearnings, and everyday experiences that link us to others of every time and place.

A Free Unsullied Land is set in Chicago, 1930. Nineteen-year-old Henriette Greenberg takes her first steps away from an abusive home on the dance floor of a jazz dive in prohibition-era Chicago and is enraptured by this new music. Struggling to escape a mother who doesn’t like girls and a father who likes young women all too well, she submerges herself in bad sex and political action. She meets and falls in love with Dilly Brannigan, a graduate student in anthropology. Ignoring his warnings, she travels to Scottsboro, Alabama to protest the unfair conviction of nine young black men accused of rape. She adopts Dilly’s work as her own. A powerful funeral ritual gives her hope of re-writing her family story but tempts her to violate an Apache taboo, endangering her life, her love, and her longed-for escape from home.

I'm the author of A Crack between the Worlds: a dancer's memoir of loss, faith and family, published by Wipf and Stock. After a lifetime career in dance, I received an MFA in fiction from Vermont College. I've published fiction in The Sun, Nimrod, Paper Street, Rosebud and others and essays in America, Image, Writer's Chronicle and elsewhere. ...more

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Maggie Kast’s books

Average rating: 4.28 · 25 ratings · 13 reviews · 6 distinct works

	A Free, Unsullied Land really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Crack Between the Worlds: A Dancer's Memoir of Loss, Faith, and Family 4.38 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2009 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Side by Side but Never Face to Face: A Novella & Stories 4.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	At Home with the Word® 2013 by Marielle Frigge, Timothy Milinovich, Mary Ellen Hynes it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	At Home with the Word 2011 by James L. Papandrea (Goodreads Author), Daniel J. Scholz, Maggie Kast (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	At Home with the Word 2012 by Marielle Frigge, Daniel J. Scholz, Maggie Kast (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Lincoln in the Bardo

by George Saunders

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Jun 29, 2025 10:40AM

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A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles (Goodreads Author)

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Aug 17, 2019 10:35AM

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Other People: Takes & Mistakes

by David Shields (Goodreads Author)

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May 22, 2017 02:45PM

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Maggie is currently reading Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 29, 2025 10:40AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Maggie rated a book it was amazing Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 21, 2024 05:02AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">