Author Linda Kass

About the author:

Linda Kass began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her forthcoming novel, World News from Waverley High, she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa's Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Linda lives in Columbus with her husband, Frank; they have four children, six grandchildren, and a labradoodle named Wally.

Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.

1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion. When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests—while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper's editor.

As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena's own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace—and to hope for a better world.

Linda Kass will be in conversation with Fran Belkin, the author of Rock This Town! Backstage in Cleveland: Stories You Never Heard & Swag You Never Saw. Books will be available for purchase courtesy of Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry.

This event is presented in partnership with Mandel JCC.