In collaboration with the History Book Festival, join us to talk with Ellen Marie Wiseman, author of The Orphan Collector: A Heroic Novel of Survival during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, one of the books featured at the 2020 virtual History Book Festival.

In the fall of 1918, Philadelphians are celebrating the end of World War I when an even more urgent threat arrives: an influenza pandemic. After her mother’s brutally sudden death, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange must leave their tenement apartment to find food for her two baby brothers. Then she herself falls ill and after a hospital stay is forced into an orphanage. Pia runs away to find her brothers, while a woman who is perhaps a greater threat than the virus itself plots to keep them separated.

Ellen Marie Wiseman is the bestselling author of several works of historical fiction, including What She Left Behind, The Plum Tree, and The Life She Was Given. Her novels have been translated into eighteen languages and published worldwide. Ellen will be interviewed by Vida Engstrand. Engstrand is the Director of Communications at Kensington Publishing, where she has worked with the company’s diverse list of books and authors since 2011.

We invite you to support the author by purchasing a copy of her book from the Festival's official bookseller, Browseabout Books, by clicking HERE. Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website. You also may purchase a copy at biblion in Lewes. Each copy purchased comes with a signed archival bookplate.

NOTE: this meeting is being conducted through Zoom. You MUST REGISTER to receive instructions for joining the meeting.

If you have need assistance with registration or getting your Zoom invitation, please email the History Book Festival.

Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here.