‘Nightbitch’ author headlines Writers Read on Feb. 28

Her novel, about a mom who turns canine, is now a feature film starring Amy Adams

Writers Read Author Series with Rachel Yoder Date: Friday, Feb. 28 Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Martin Chapel, EMU Seminary Building (1181 Smith Ave., Harrisonburg, VA) Cost: Free (no registration required)

For Mennonite-raised Nightbitch author Rachel Yoder, what excites her most about speaking at EMU is learning how Mennonites will react to her book. “Will they be offended? Will they relate? Will they see it as productive or worthless?” — all questions she’s pondered in an email to EMU News.

“Now that I’m more outside the Mennonite tradition than in, it feels important to me to remain in conversation with the community regardless, not only as a means to understand the tradition better, but as a means to understand my own story, why I make art, why I have to write things that are ‘dark’ or ‘evil’ or ‘unpleasant,’” said Yoder, who will present at EMU’s Writers Read Author Series on Friday, Feb. 28.

Yoder grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio before studying English literature as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. Currently, she serves as assistant professor of screenwriting and cinema arts at the University of Iowa. 

Her debut novel Nightbitch, published in 2021, is a “strange and unforgettable story about a sleep-deprived stay-at-home mother who, after apparently growing extra nipples, sharper canine teeth and a tail, develops an ‘exhilarating and magical’ ability to literally become a powerful bitch. (The Guardian)

“It became a cult hit, was named one of the best books of the year by Esquire, got shortlisted for a PEN/Hemingway award — and has now been made into a film starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller.”

EMU Professor Kevin Seidel said the Language and Literature Department tends to invite authors for its Writers Read series who have some connection to the Mennonite tradition or who can “help us see past the edges of that tradition.” Yoder, he said, meets both of those conditions.

Seidel credited fellow EMU English Professor Kirsten Beachy with introducing him to Nightbitch a couple years ago. 

“She handed me the book with a smile that, looking back, probably meant I dare you to read this,” he recalled. “The first paragraph was so brilliant, so affectionately self-deprecating, and so off-kilter funny that I had to read the rest.”