A repeal of Roe v. Wade has unanticipated consequences that take a surprising turn from one generation to the next.

“Kris Tsetsi’s The Age of the Child illuminates the hypocrisies of our time without flinching. It’s good stuff. Read it.”

– Alan Davis, Fulbright recipient and author of (among others) So Bravely Vegetative (Winner of Prize Americana for Fiction) and the forthcoming Clouds are the Mountains of the World

“This book is timely. It presents a dark foreign world, but one that may not be unexpected the way things are going.”

Philip B. Persinger, author of Tools of the Trade and Do the Math

“Something interesting and endlessly thought-provoking that The Age of the Child captures are the multiple sides of pregnancy – wanting to be pregnant, not wanting to be pregnant, and what right the government has in controlling pregnancy. This isn’t the first piece of dystopian fiction to consider these questions. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Farm, to name a couple, have opened the dystopian genre to questions about reproduction; however, The Age of the Child is one of the first I’ve read to really consider the issue of reproductive rights and attitudes so deeply.”Rebecca Maye Holiday, author of The Beaches

Listen to the discussion on NPR’s “The Colin McEnroe Show.”

Signed copies: VJ Books and Curiosity Store

I spent years reporting from military bases where young families and lovers were being separated by the decisions of old men. I had never had a better understanding of the agony of military separation until I read Kristen Tsetsi’s haunting and lyrical debut novel.” –James C. Moore, New York Times best-selling author of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential and Give Back the Light: A Doctor’s Relentless Struggle to End Blindness

Tsetsi’s talents shine throughout the novel, and she reveals herself to be the rare sort of writer who can satisfy both emotionally and intellectually. … Its intelligent, honest treatment of war is not the only thing that Pretty Much True has going for it. In many ways, it is an example of the kind of highbrow style that makes small presses so essential to the continued health of our literary landscape. ” –Small Press Reviews

From the powerful emotion of the break-up of Dan and Nina’s relationship in the opening pages to the completely unexpected ending, this book really is a stunning must-read.”—Indie Bookworm Reviews

The Year of Dan Palace is honest, original, and impossible to put down. With a wholly distinctive narrative voice, Kristen Tsetsi is a 21st Century Bukowski.”—Joseph Dilworth Jr., Pop Culture Zoo

* This novel, originally published under the pen name Chris Jane, has been re-released as an e-book under the author’s real name. Paperback and audio versions are still Chris Jane titles.

childfree conversation

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from the blog

A Teacher Kissed Me in High School

..but please don’t call me a victim. ♦ “That’s where Mr. X kissed me,” I almost said. My husband Ian and I were watching the Hallmark movie A Heidelberg Holiday. It had been filmed in the German town where we’d met as teenagers while students at an American school. In our short time together (he’d transferred there

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Right, Like a Man: On the Power of Gender in an Author’s Name

I prefer the way I write when, while writing, I imagine being read as a man. There’s an immediate freedom to not be apologetic. To do as we were taught in high school English and eliminate the self-conscious “I think…” from the writing. I’m not sure when it happened, the shift into having to pretend.

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I Am More than My Looks! (But still, I’m beautiful, right?)

In an episode of Burn Notice, which I used to watch while exercising before I became a Caroline Girvan devotee, a man hires Mike (or, in our house, Burn Notice) to find the guy who beat up his sister and put her in the hospital. The guy and Burn Notice stand at the sister’s hospital bed.

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kristen j. tsetsi