FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009
Contact: Dave Wellman, Director of Communications, 304-696-7153
 

Appalachian memoirist to read from her work at Marshall University

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Writer Linda Tate will read from her work at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9 in Room 2W16 of the Memorial Student Center on Marshall University’s Huntington campus.

Tate is the author of two books: A Southern Weave of Women: Fiction of the Contemporary South, and, most recently, Power in the Blood: A Family Narrative.

Author Lee Smith has called Power in the Blood “a remarkable memoir, honestly and beautifully written.”  A dramatic family history that reads like a novel, it traces Tate’s investigation of the Cherokee-Appalachian branch of her family and explores the poverty, discrimination, and violence that marked their lives. In a journey through her own past, Tate visited archives, libraries, and courthouses throughout Appalachia, the deep South, and the Midwest.  She toured cemeteries and combed through court records, local histories, maps, and photographs, eventually locating distant relatives, all linked to her great-great grandmother. In kitchens and living-room reunions, the family’s buried past slowly emerged, as each relative shared with Tate another memorable part of the tale.

Tate taught at Shepherd University in West Virginia for 15 years. She now lives in Boulder, Colo., and teaches at the University of Denver.

Her appearance is a part of the Visiting Writers Series sponsored by the Marshall English Department and the College of Liberal Arts.  It is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Art Stringer in the English Department at 304-696-2403.

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