"The Fifth Avenue Artists Society"

Joy Callaway’s love of storytelling is a direct result of her parents’ insistence that she read books or write stories instead of watching TV. Her interest in family history was fostered by her relatives’ habit of recounting tales of ancestors’ lives. Callaway is a full-time mom and writer. She formerly served as a marketing director for a wealth management company. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from Marshall University and an M.M.C. in Mass Communication from the University of South Carolina.

Callaway applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, and reported the following:

Surprisingly enough, Page 69 of The Fifth Avenue Artists Society is quite representative of the rest of the story. My novel is both about family and Gilded Age women striving for artistic recognition at a time when it was unfashionable for women to pursue professional work, particularly in the male-dominated arts. Page 69 sees my main character, Ginny Loftin, at her first Artists Society meeting having a conversation with John Hopper—the wealthy, charming host of the Society. Ginny’s brother, Franklin, has convinced her to come despite self-conscious reservations, and John and Ginny are discussing writing. They’re both authors, though he has already been published, and the reader is able to see her determination to accomplish the same. The reader also gets a bit of a glimpse into some of the norms of the time—John offers Ginny a drink and she’s quite shocked by the suggestion, and also frets about her mother waking and realizing that her children are still out at eleven at night.

Visit Joy Callaway's website.

My Book, the Movie: The Fifth Avenue Artists Society.

--Marshal Zeringue