Ep. 39 - Cassie Chambers: Mountain Mamas and a Meaningful Memoir

Our guest today grew up in poverty in eastern Kentucky, but attended Yale and Harvard, received her law degree, and came back to Kentucky to work for the Legal Aid Society, helping at-risk women in her home state. Cassie Chambers has also written a memoir, called Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, about life and culture in Owsley County through the lens of three generations of women in her own family.

Her book came out in January of this year. Newsweek has named it a must-read book to savor this Spring, and Publisher’s Weekly called it a “passionate memoir”.

Cassie talks to us about her favorite book series from childhood that she still rereads as an adult, why she felt the women of Appalachia specifically need their stories told and what compelled her to write it, and why she thinks more women don’t run for office and why that needs to change.

Books Discussed during this Episode:
1- Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maude Montgomery
2- Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith
3- The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
4- Castaway: Poems for our Time by Naomi Shihab Nye
5- Walkable City by Jeff Speck

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Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.