Michelle Collins Anderson Book Launch: The Flower Sisters

Michelle Collins Anderson’s family roots go back over a century in her small hometown of West

Plains, Missouri. She grew up showing their livestock at county fairs and her grandfather was the

backroom manager at the West Plains Daily Quill, the local newspaper where Anderson herself would

intern one summer while pursuing a journalism degree at the University of Missouri. Yet secret

sorrows are held close in small towns, and until recently, even she had never heard of the Bond

Dance Hall Explosion, a tragedy that still haunted the community it had devastated decades before.

As soon as she did, she knew she had to tell the story.

The mystery surrounding that real-life event remains, but in THE FLOWER SISTERS, Michelle Collins

Anderson imagines one path, picking up in 1978 – fifty years after the explosion – and populating the

town (here named Possum Flats) with characters who epitomize its humor, pain, and occasionally

maddening humanity. With her intimate knowledge of the setting, she brings a unique texture and

authenticity to the beautiful but hard-scrabble Missouri Ozarks and a folksy humor to the page in this

endearingly nostalgic, character-driven portrayal of small town ghosts, split-second decisions,

coming of age in the silent aftermath of an unspoken tragedy, and the life-affirming redemption that

comes from finding where you belong.