Please join us for a reading from The Penultima by Elaine Klaassen. From the author:

“…La Penultima (With A Rose In Its Eye), [is] a pointillistic picture of my 80 years so far: swaddled in a Mennonite cradle, comforted by friendship with Bach, molded by a sojourn in Spain, pierced through with a passion for justice,  always longing and willing to walk through the mountains and the valleys of love. “

Elaine Klaassen has been writing for the Minneapolis community newspaper Southside Pride for many years. The more personal, particular lens through which she writes in La Penultima is that of a heartbroken human who wears the mantle of a heroic Mennonite upbringing; a semi-professional pianist who grappled with the perfectionism of classical music; someone blessed with a soulmate's brief companionship; a U.S. resident/citizen who lived in Spain during the '70s; and a poetic soul who is excessively curious about what other people do, say, think and feel. Her writer/editor friend Sara Taber (author of Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy's Daughter) says Elaine's view is "passionate, thoughtful, kooky, open to this tumbling world, unsettling, vulnerable, practical, haphazard and zigzaggy, full of despair, wonder, resignation and beauty—a crazy quilt."