Ava Finch

I write under two names. My real identity is Sarah Stonich, author of serious fiction, ie., 'Vacationland', 'The Ice Chorus' These Granite Islands', with my next coming out in 2018, 'Laurentian Divide' the follow-up to 'Vacationland in my far north trilogy.

I'm also Ava Finch. As Ava writes: 'I'm a woman, I fish. Deal with it.'

Ava, and her debut novel 'Fishing With RayAnne' are my response to what I see as an underwritten genre of women's fiction: feminist chick-lit, or FemLit, which, if it isn't already a thing, needs to become one. Given the current events in our culture and political arenas over equality and women's rights, we need to hear women's voices. Ava writes about serious issues with an undercurrent of humor because frankly, if we can't laugh we might cry.

After a decade dodging the misogyny in the realm of pro sport fishing, RayAnne Dahl's new position as the unwitting host of the first all-women's talk show on public TV cracks her armor. RayAnne's initially uneasy in her position of power until realizing she might use it to change the status quo. Her generation hasn't had much cause to get radical or active, til now.

RayAnne's story doesn't begin and end with 'Fishing With RayAnne' - Ava is working on the television pilot and sequels with the same strong female character's. Readers have been wildly responsive not only to RayAnne Dahl, but also her hippie-mum, Bernadette (the new-age aging coach to the menopausal rich) and her weirdly wise Gran, a Sinatra era chef, and RayAnne's life-line. As RayAnne muses, "Don't women crave the voices of their own tribe? Whether laughing or crying, rejoicing or lamenting - even shrieking. Women want to know they're not in it alone."

To watch a show segment from Twin Cities Live Fishing With RayAnne, visit http://www.twincitieslive.com/article/stories/s4112185.shtml?cat=10692