2022 GOLD WINNER: NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS - FICTION/SMALL PRESS2022 FINALIST: NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS - REGIONAL FICTIONWhen Miriam—restless, and longing for something she cannot name—picks up a copy of Sister Bird's Guide to Small Birds she finds on the last page an invitation from the Sisters at St. Hildegard Monastery on Plover Point—"we gladly respond to questions about the life of birds and the life of faith."Debut novelist Lil Copan brings us a book for birdwatchers, coffee drinkers, baseball fans, bumper-sticker readers, animal lovers and all those who care about life's most piercing, unanswerable, tender, humanizing questions.One set of letters over the course of two years reveals deep internal conflicts, a small farm on the verge of going under, a nun with a gambling addiction, and another with a profound secret that might upend everything the community worked so hard for.When an innocent birding question begins this special correspondence, what emerges is a revelatory journey of the spirit.