Meet the Author! Carol Van Den Hende with Dear Orchid
July 3 @ 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Join us for a special afternoon with award-winning author Carol Van Den Hende as we celebrate the release of Dear Orchid, a moving collection of stories and letters exploring love, loss, resilience, and the moments that make us human.
Event Details
- Date: July 3
- Time: 3:00 PM
- Location: Main Street Reads, Downtown Summerville
- Admission: Free and open to all
Meet Carol, hear about the inspiration behind her work, and have your books signed following the presentation. Signed copies of Carol’s acclaimed Orchid Series—Goodbye, Orchid, Orchid Blooming, and Always Orchid—as well as her newest release, Dear Orchid, will be available for purchase.
About the Book
“Powerful, haunting, and precise. Each of the essays and stories in Van Den Hende’s collection—whether a three-page reverie of childhood’s joys and tragedies or a candid peek into the life of a wounded hero—land with a piercing clarity.” — Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Queen
Dear Orchid is a deeply personal collection of true stories and new fiction that opens the heart in unexpected ways. Written in a lyrical letter-style format, these stories explore loss and love, silence and recovery, grief and belonging, and the resilience that carries us through life’s hardest moments.
Inspired by Mary-Louise Parker’s Dear Mr. You, this collection includes letters to a girl newly freed from East Berlin, an aunt separated by Communist-era borders, Purple Heart-decorated heroes, and others whose lives reveal extraordinary courage in ordinary moments. Along the way, readers will encounter unforgettable characters, tender humor, hard-earned wisdom, and stories of people who refuse to be defined by what they have lost.
The collection concludes with a fictional reunion featuring beloved characters from the award-winning Goodbye Orchid trilogy, offering readers healing, closure, and second chances.
Both intimate and universal, Dear Orchid is a celebration of empathy, hope, and the emotional truths that connect us all.
About the Author
Carol Van Den Hende is an award-winning novelist, speaker, and advocate whose stories focus on resilience, hope, disability awareness, cultural diversity, and the healing power of human connection.
Drawing from her Chinese American heritage, Carol’s acclaimed Goodbye Orchid trilogy—Goodbye, Orchid, Orchid Blooming, and Always Orchid—has earned more than 40 literary awards, including the American Fiction Award, the IAN Outstanding Fiction First Novel Award, and Royal Dragonfly Awards for Disability Awareness and Cultural Diversity.
Her work has been recognized by BuzzFeed, Parade, Travel + Leisure, Glamour, and Woman’s World, while the International Pulpwood Queens selected the Goodbye Orchid series as a Book-of-the-Month three consecutive years.
Beyond writing, Carol is a sought-after speaker who has presented for Writers’ Digest, IBPA, Novelists, Inc., Rutgers Writers’ Conference, and numerous literary organizations. Through her fiction and true stories, she seeks to inspire hope, spark meaningful conversations, and remind readers that even in difficult times, love and resilience endure.
One secret to her good fortune? Her humorous husband and twins, who prove every day that love really does conquer all.