The End of Tennessee Author Talk with Rachel M. Hanson (Richmond, VA)

Oct 8, 2024 @ 6pm | Location: Book People, 10464 Ridgefield Parkway - Henrico, VA 23233

Oct 8, 2024 @ 6pm
Location: Book People, 10464 Ridgefield Parkway - Henrico, VA 23233
Hosted by: Book People

Join us for an author talk with Rachel M. Hanson in conversation with Diamond Forde, poet and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. In her new memoir, The End of Tennessee, Rachel shares how she fled her violent childhood home to build a new life, in spite of her trauma.

"Not a year before I ran away from home at seventeen, I stepped out of the house at dusk, still able to see shrub oaks thinned out for winter, fame flower, too, and dun clay so wet the smell of it seemed settled in my skin." So begins Rachel M. Hanson's debut memoir about growing up impoverished, uneducated, and surrounded by violence. In lyrical, fragmented prose, she lays bare the impossible choice between self-preservation and her love for five younger siblings for whom she had become a second mother. As the years pass, Hanson struggles with guilt for leaving her siblings as she slowly realizes she could not save them. The End of Tennessee is a testament to a sister's love, resilience, and determination, a book for anyone who has left one life to create another.

Rachel M. Hanson's writing has appeared in literary journals, including Creative Nonfiction, The Iowa Review, and Joyland Magazine. She is assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina Asheville.

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