Union Ave Books and Choice Health Network Harm Reduction welcome debut novelist Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle to present her book EVEN AS WE BREATHE. Annette will be joined in conversation by Silas House, author of SOUTHERNMOST. This free virtual event takes place on September 24TH @ 7pm on Zoom, send an RSVP to RSVP@unionavebooks.com to attend. Please include the the title of the book EVEN AS WE BREATHE in the subject line. We will send the zoom link the day of the event.
Purchase the book here: https://unionavebooks.indielite.org/book/9781950564064
To learn more about how Choice Health Network Harm Reduction provides compassionate care to empower, promote and inspire wellness, visit https://choicehealthnetwork.org/positively-living/.
This is a part of an ongoing series & partnership "APPALACHIAN STORYTELLING AS HARM REDUCTION"
Harm reduction is a social justice philosophy that is about meeting people where they are at and reducing the negative consequences of policies and cultural constructs as well as individual actions. While this philosophy was created by and for people who use drugs, it is applicable to broader social issues and populations who face discrimination. Storytelling through fiction and non-fiction creates spaces in which to reduce harms, especially those associated with stigma and antipathy. We see the immediate need of harm reduction and storytelling in Appalachia, and so we have brought together many writers, scholars, and activists working to meet people where they are in this region.
DESCRIPTION
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. The experience introduces him to the beautiful and enigmatic Essie Stamper -- a young Cherokee woman who is also working at the inn and dreaming of a better life. With World War II raging in Europe, the resort is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. A secret room becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world of the inn and imagine their futures free of the shadows of their families' pasts. Outside of this refuge, however, racism and prejudice are never far behind, and when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing, Cowney finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. Betrayed by the friends he trusted, he begins to unearth deeper mysteries as he works to prove his innocence and clear his name. This richly written debut novel explores the immutable nature of the human spirit and the idea that physical existence, with all its strife and injustice, will not be humanity's lasting legacy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (S)
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), holds degrees from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her work Going to Water won the Morning Star Award for Creative Writing from the Native American Literature Symposium and was a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. She is coeditor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies and serves on the board of trustees for the North Carolina Writers' Network. She resides in Qualla, North Carolina.
Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, one book of creative nonfiction, and three plays. His writing has appeared frequently in the New York Times and has been published in Time, Newsday, Garden and Gun, Oxford American, and many other places. House is the winner of an E.B. White Award, the Nautilus Award, the Intellectual Freedom Prize from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Storylines Prize from the New York Public Library/NAV Foundation, and many other honors, as well as being long listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. He teaches at Berea College and in the Spalding University School of Writing.
