Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
Session 1.03 Literature
Presentation #1 Title
HIDING EZRA-WWI and the Dilemma for Appalachian Families
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Reading/Discussion-HIDING EZRA by Rita Sims Quillen-I would like to read from my recently published novel, which is historical fiction based on true events in the life of my husband's grandfather in Scott County, VA. He was one of over 170,000 men from across the south who went AWOL during WWI, most of them for economic reasons, not because they were pacifists or conscientious objectors. The extensive research that went into writing this book revealed a story of unbelievable hardship and trial here in the mountains that I had heard nothing about during my education! Citizens endured a the great flu pandemic, the coldest winter in a generation, and a coal strike, among other things, in addition to the first-ever draft, which called every available young man! Protagonist Ezra Teague "hides in plain sight" in the hills he loves while the Army looks for him and the two women he loves-his sister and his future wife--try to figure out how to get him out of the predicament he's in. The novel details the reasons for the terrible choice faced by its protagonist: should he fulfill his duty to his country or to his family?
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Rita Quillen’s novel HIDING EZRA,published in March 2014, has a chapter included in the scholarly study of Appalachian dialect, TALKING APPALACHIAN, published by the University of Kentucky Press. One of six semi- finalists for the 2012-14 Poet Laureate of Virginia, she also published a new chapbook SOMETHING SOLID TO ANCHOR TO in 2014 from Finishing Line Press.
HIDING EZRA-WWI and the Dilemma for Appalachian Families
Reading/Discussion-HIDING EZRA by Rita Sims Quillen-I would like to read from my recently published novel, which is historical fiction based on true events in the life of my husband's grandfather in Scott County, VA. He was one of over 170,000 men from across the south who went AWOL during WWI, most of them for economic reasons, not because they were pacifists or conscientious objectors. The extensive research that went into writing this book revealed a story of unbelievable hardship and trial here in the mountains that I had heard nothing about during my education! Citizens endured a the great flu pandemic, the coldest winter in a generation, and a coal strike, among other things, in addition to the first-ever draft, which called every available young man! Protagonist Ezra Teague "hides in plain sight" in the hills he loves while the Army looks for him and the two women he loves-his sister and his future wife--try to figure out how to get him out of the predicament he's in. The novel details the reasons for the terrible choice faced by its protagonist: should he fulfill his duty to his country or to his family?
