In Starry and Restless, Julia Cooke has written a triple biography that illuminates the lives and legacies of three trailblazing women reporters who changed the face of journalism: Martha Gellhorn stowed away in the bathroom of a Red Cross hospital boat to report from Omaha Beach on D-Day. Emily "Mickey" Hahn published pieces for The New Yorker covering the wartime life of a modern Chinese family. Rebecca West interviewed the sister of Franz Ferdinand's would-be assassin and covered the Nuremberg trials.

Julia follows these women's progress as they report from Yugoslavia on the brink of WWII to Hong Kong at its outbreak, from the shot-marked streets of the Spanish Civil War to McCarthy-era Mexico, from Congo to Cuba, to the American South and beyond.

In their lifetimes, Cooke's subjects were major public figures—the authors of bestselling books, celebrated contributors to major national magazines, targets of near-continuous criticism, gossip, and scrutiny. Join us to hear fascinating behind-the-scenes details about how Cooke became interested in these women and how her book came about.

Julia is the author of Come Fly the World, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist, and her essays have appeared in Salon, The Threepenny Review, Smithsonian, and Tin House among other publications. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives in Woodstock, Vermont.