Ann Goethals is a retired high school English teacher who retired in 2020 and has since focused her energies on her own writing. She divides her time between Northern Michigan and Chicago and “The Doublewide,” is her first novel, published by Mission Point Press (2025). She has a sequel, “Sheltering in Place,” tentatively set for 2026 publication.
Author Interview
Bay Books Author Questions
On your nightstand now:
The Entire Sky: Joe Wilkins. A brilliant example of how characters, unflinchingly drawn, and setting, tightly written, make a masterpiece
Favorite book when you were a child:
Hands Down: Charlotte’s Web. Garth Williams filled my anxious little mind with pictures of a world that made sense and promised joy.
Your top five authors: Morrison, Steinbeck, Keegan, Erdrich, Kingsolver
Book you’ve faked reading: anything by Cormac McCarthy
Book you’re an evangelist for: too many to count: today? Jess Walters’ So Far Gone.
I was a high school English teacher and I mourn the passing of certain canonical works that have become politically incorrect: The Grapes of Wrath; The Fire Next Time; The Catcher in the Rye; anything by Toni Morrison.
Book you’ve bought for the cover: mine (j/k)
Book you hid from your parents: none
Book that changed your life: Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
Favorite line from a book: Sixo from Beloved “She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
The Things They Carried. “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.”
Five books you’ll never part with: The Grapes of Wrath; Beloved; The Things They Carried; Shelter Me (Juliette Fay; I read it once a year); The Great Gatsby; Charlotte’s Web (my mother bought the first edition)
Do you have any bookstore rituals? I browse the tables as quickly as I can and move to the shelves. I want to see the books that the publishers aren’t paying a front row seat for. I try to talk with an employee; see what they’re reading.
