Coffee with a canine: Ellen Emerson White & Patrick

Featured at Coffee with a Canine: Ellen Emerson White & Patrick.

The author, on how she and Patrick were united:

I adopted him from Arkansas, after requesting “a black dog” from the animal rescue group, since they are the least likely to be adopted. (What’s up with that, anyway?) His very kind foster owner sent him up on a pet transport truck, and we went to pick him up in Nyack, NY—where a stream of black dogs came out of the truck to meet their new owners. I had no idea which one was mine. I sat in the backseat with him on the way home to the city, and he apparently decided that I was the vet tech, and my sister (who was driving) was The New Owner. He was disconcerted—and possibly disappointed--when we got to Manhattan, and...[read on]

About Ellen Emerson White's A Season of Daring Greatly, from the publisher:

Eighteen-year-old Jill Cafferty just made history. Her high school’s star pitcher, she is now the first woman drafted by a major league baseball team. Only days after her high school graduation, she’ll join the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Class A Short Season team ... but not everyone is happy to have her there.

On top of the pressure heaped on every pitcher, Jill must deal with defying conventions and living up to impossible expectations, all while living away from home for the first time. She’ll go head-to-head against those who are determined to keep baseball an all-male sport. Despite the reassurance of coaches and managers alike, a few of her teammates are giving her trouble. The media presence following her at each game is inescapable. And to top it all off, Jill is struggling with the responsibilities of being a national hero and a role model for young women everywhere. How can she be a role model when she’s not even sure she made the right choice for herself? Didn’t baseball used to be fun?

This literary and engrossing story of a young woman trying to mark out a place for herself in a male-dominated world will captivate fans of Friday Night Lights, The Art of Fielding, John Corey Whaley, and Laurie Halse Anderson.

Visit Ellen Emerson White's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Ellen Emerson White & Patrick.

--Marshal Zeringue