Author Event: KAREN SPEARS ZACHARIAS AND E.J. WADE

Author Karen Spears Zacharias and poet E.J. Wade join forces to discuss their new memoir.

On the heels of a global pandemic, two post-menopausal Appalachian women, one black, one white, abandoned hearth, home, and spouses shrugging in dubious wonderment to live and study abroad together in a university flat along Scotland's River Ayr.

The hilarious, rousing and deeply meaningful record of that journey by poet E.J. Wade and novelist Karen Spears Zacharias is the recently published The Devil’s Pulpit & Other Mostly True Scottish Misadventures. They’ll share these tales (and others that may or may not have made it into the book) as a part of this special presentation.

During their time in Scotland the co-authors roamed from the depths of Finnich Glen to the outcroppings of Dunure Castle. Sometimes wishing they'd been raised by Buddhist Monks instead of by foul-mouthed chain-smoking Appalachian mothers, these two University of the West of Scotland grad students embraced the wandering spirits of their matriarchal ancestors and left no ScotRail ticket unused.

“Part travel journal, part memoir, part story about a friendship, The Devil’s Pulpit & Other Mostly True Scottish Misadventures seamlessly weaves together prose and poetry like a harmonic musical chord," says Marjory Wentworth, former South Carolina Poet Laureate and author of One River, One Boat: Occasional Poems and Other Stories. "Rooted by a mutual longing for information about family history, poet E.J. Wade and prose writer Karen Spears Zacharias travel to Scotland, 'where / myth and legend riddle reality' to discover fundamental truths about where they come from and who they are in the world. Both writers bring an anthropological perspective to every encounter, creating a text that resonates far beyond these pages."

E.J. Wade is an award-winning poet whose work has been published in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Women Speak, Salvation South, and Callaloo Literary Journal. She holds an EdD in Disability and Equity in Education from National Louis University, an MA in Appalachian Studies from Shepherd University, and an MA in Creative Media Practice from the University of the West of Scotland. Karen Spears Zacharias is an American writer whose ten previous books and numerous articles focuses on women and justice. She holds an MA in Appalachian Studies from Shepherd University and an MA in Creative Media Practice from the University of the West of Scotland. A Georgia native, she lives at the foot of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.

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