Author Marcia Cebulska launches new memoir at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

Award-winning novelist, playwright and screenwriter, Marcia Cebulska is launching her memoir "Lovers, Dreamers & Thieves" with a talk and book signing at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library on Tuesday, May 2 at 7pm in Marvin Auditorium. Cebulska’s memoir is a coming-of-age tale set in a Polish neighborhood in Chicago. It’s the story of the community who made her into the writer she is today.

“'Lovers, Dreamers, & Thieves' is about the warm, rowdy, lovable, and sometimes criminal characters of my early life,” Cebulska said. “ This includes a grandfather who staged fake Polish weddings, a great-grandmother who was a blacksmith and a cousin who collects nun dolls. But also a father taken away in handcuffs, a mother in love with a priest and an uncle in the Mafia. The memoir is written in a series of vignettes, individual worlds in themselves. Woven together, these stories tell a larger tale, one of desire and struggle, passion and defeat, dancing and joy.”

"My favorite memoirs are insightful, uplifting and funny," said Librarian Miranda Ericsson. "Marcia Cebulska’s upcoming memoir Lovers, Dreamers & Thieves checks all of those boxes."

Cebulska grew up in Chicago and has spent most of her career writing for the stage and screen. Her critically acclaimed plays have been produced at thousands of venues worldwide and her screenwriting aired on PBS. Cebulska received the Jane Chambers International Award, the Dorothy Silver Award, several Master Artist Fellowships, and a National Endowment for the Arts commission. He guided journal "Skywriting" was released in 2019. Her novel "Watching Men Dance" was released in 2020. Cebulska lives in Topeka, Kansas, with her husband, historian Tom Prasch.