Book launch party April 8 for McCabe’s latest book

Another year means another novel for Dr. Nancy McCabe, director of the creative and professional writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

McCabe’s newest book, “Fires Burning Underground,” is written for children in grades 4-7, a group she has not written for before.

A book launch will be held at 7:30 p.m. April 8 in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. The event, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Friends of Hanley Library, the Bradford Area Public Library, the Spectrum Arts series and the Pitt-Bradford Division of Communication and the Arts.

McCabe will read excerpts from the book, which tells the story of a girl, Anny, who is starting middle school after being homeschooled. She’s also dealing with the tragic death of a friend and meeting new peers who introduce her to new ideas that challenge her family’s beliefs.

In addition to the short talk, local middle- and high-school students Erica Everetts, Lorelai Thomas and Emily Webb will perform scenes from the book. Pitt-Bradford students Randy Mong, an English major from Russel, Adriana Herrera, an interdisciplinary arts major from Leasburg, N.C., and Mara Martinec, an English education 7-12 major from Oil City, have mentored the younger students as they worked on the performance. Attendees can enjoy refreshments and have books signed.

This is the third book in as many years for McCabe, who published “The Pamela Papers: A Largely E-Pistolary Story of Academic Pandemic Pandemonium” in 2024 and “Vaulting Through Time,” a young adult book about a time-traveling gymnast, in 2023. It is her fourth novel after more than a decade of specializing in memoirs.

“I wrote fiction for many years – often very autobiographical stories,” she said last year. “Then, I started writing nonfiction because I realized that those stories were already dramatic enough and gained power from the fact that they were true. But there’s also something feeing about telling stories in which you can make things up, too, and some essential truths that are easier to get at in fiction, so I’ve gradually come back to fiction, too.”

McCabe told the Littsburgh blog that she had started “Fires Burning Underground” as a coming-of-age memoir. “But I needed to free myself to make things up and update the story rather than adhering to my own experience, and the themes that emerged as I wrote felt particularly appropriate to middle grade readers…. I wanted to write a story that addressed the universal struggle of bridging the gap between childhood and adolescence.”

McCabe said she drew inspiration from events in her own life, including the death in a house fire in 6th grade of a child she’d known her own life and a middle school friend with whom she explored the supernatural.

McCabe said her biggest challenge was capturing the voice of her 12-year-old protagonist, which she did by reading middle-grade novels, re-reading her own childhood diaries and eavesdropping.

Independent Book Review gave “Fires Burning Underground” a starred review, saying, “It’s a tale of empowerment with emotion that runs deep, rendered with grace, empathy and a brave little girl that will haunt readers long after they leave her on the final page.”