Folio

by Bobbie Calhoun

398 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2025

About the author

Bobbie Calhoun is a produced playwright, published essayist, poet, and novelist. Her debut novel FOLIO (Nouveau Literary, April 2025)—"an epic tale of passion, manipulation, and obsession" (New York Times bestselling author Whitney Otto)—is an expansive work of historical fiction following two rival photographers whose paths cross amid the chaos of war, one chasing the truth and the Pulitzer, the other shooting for illusion and propaganda.

Calhoun brings a poet's eye and a dramatist's instinct for tension to her prose. She is the author of the poetry collection Mise-en-Scène (Belgrave House, 2022), which explores our presence as an audience transfixed yet separate from the stage play of life. Her essay "Rewiring the Wormhole" was recognized by Talking Writing Magazine as one of their Top Twenty Most-Read Essays in 2021, and her writing also appears in Storied Stuff: Show and Tell for Grownups (Vol 1, April 2025), an anthology of essays exploring the meaningful connections we develop with heirlooms.

A member of the Dramatists Guild and Authors Guild, Calhoun is a graduate of The Attic Institute fiction workshop and has been engaged with Literary Arts and The Center for Fiction. She has served on the Board of Willamette Writers and is available for speaking engagements on topics including the use of propaganda in past and present wartime media and her ten-year journey researching and writing FOLIO.

Bobbie Calhoun writes regularly on Substack and at BobbieCalhoun.com. Readers who enjoy Kate Quinn, Kristin Hannah, Anthony Doerr, and Jess Walter will find similar immersive storytelling in her work.

Reviews

[Lisa Ard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not just another WWII historical fiction novel. It’s a broader story following the career of an ambitious war photographer as he finds love and loss while trying to win the coveted Pulitzer Prize for photography. The author has done extensive research into the evolution of photography and the role war photographers played in shaping Americans views of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Told thru two points of view, the author conveys complex characters, as we see the photographer, Tusley, from the pov of his eldest child, Katie, and vice versa. Themes of home, love, family, and ambition are ripe for exploring with this novel. However the portrayal of truth struck me as the most interesting to ponder. What is truth? And can one person’s truth be different from another’s? The art of photography lends itself the perfect medium for this topic within Folio by Bobbie Calhoun.

[Joni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a captivating story and not your typical "war" story. It's told through the eyes of a photographer who has a desperate need to capture the truth in his photos and a desire to win that ever elusive award, the Pulitzer and his daughter who never really got the chance to be the kid and how it ultimately changed the course of her life. The plot moves at a steady pace and is filled with intrigue, war, and espionage, but it's so much more. The story is really about the toll war takes on everyone in their sphere at home and in the field. There's plenty of action. The relationships between Tusley and fellow war photographer and his kids and wife (a fascinating character that's not your typical mother) are well drawn and brings to surface what it's like to be present and absent in all his relationships. It look me so long to read because it was one of those books that I didn't want to end.