Even As We Breathe
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville’s luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. Learn More…
The University Press of Kentucky releases Even As We Breathe in paperback.
"The flood came at night, forcefully and quickly, destroying so many lives in its wake. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it will happen again and again."—Carter Sickels
In late July 2022, a catastrophic flash flood claimed the lives of more than forty people and devastated homes and communities in Central Appalachia. The forty-fifth annual Appalachian Writers' Workshop at Hindman Settlement School in eastern Kentucky was in progress when surging floodwater forced the participants and staff to rush to higher ground. The school lost classrooms, housing, and gathering areas, as well as valuable equipment, and irreplaceable artifacts such as historical books and documents, photographs, and handmade musical instruments from the school archives were damaged. As the floodwaters receded throughout the region, countless lives were forever changed.
In this visceral and powerful anthology, well-known and emerging Appalachian writers create an authentic space for processing and healing as they document and share the depth of the flood's devastation. Through words and images, Troublesome Rising reveals the writers' fears, desperation, sadness, and anger while detailing and examining the disaster's causes, the need for solutions, and how flooding has historically impacted the Appalachian community and culture. In a shared, varied, and resounding voice, this compelling collection not only serves as a historical document and an in-depth investigation of the event, but also as a celebration of Appalachian strength, determination, and resilience.
Fifteen of North Carolina’s finest writers reimagine and reclaim the stories of the ghosts who have haunted all corners of the state.
North Carolina ain’t what it once was: forests and fields have given way to suburbs and vacation homes, textile mills to high tech, tobacco farms to tourism. That doesn’t mean, though, that the ghosts of the Old North State have gone away.
In this anthology, readers might glimpse some of the ghostly apparitions, headless fiends, and creepy hollers they heard about around their childhood campfires. Now, fifteen of the state’s finest contemporary prose writers and poets have reimagined these stories—bringing us fresh tales that are bound to scare the living daylights out of us all over again.
The Devil’s Done Come Back reclaims these old ghost tales as living stories, told and retold to frighten and delight.
Contributors include: Michele Tracy Berger on the ghosts of the Great Dismal Swamp, Wiley Cash (and his daughters) on the Maco Light, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle on the Raven Mockers, Tyree Daye on family hauntings, Jeremy B. Jones on the phantasms of Chimney Rock, Ed Southern on the Jack Tales and the Devil’s Tramping Ground, Ross White on the Little Red Man of Old Salem, and many more.
In The News
Write On, Mississippi - Story Made Podcast
Write On, Mississippi: Season 6, Chapter 1: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
•Thursday, September 14, 2023
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle discusses her debut novel, Even As We Breathe, with her friend and fellow North Carolinian, Matt Sawyer. The book made Clapsaddle the first member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to publish a novel.
PBS: Southern Storytellers
Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle is the author of "Even As We Breathe" and a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Annette takes author David Joy ("Those We Thought We Knew") to Kituwah Mound, the "most sacred place for the Cherokee."
NPR
“The ancestral home of the Cherokee people sprawls across western North Carolina, a mountainous region thick with yellow birch and red maple forests, Dollar Generals, and ancient ceremonial mounds dating back to at least 1000 BCE. It's also home to first-time author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle.”
The Bitter Southerner
“Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s Even As We Breathe is the story of a young Cherokee man setting out in the world and discovering that he might realize his full potential through returning home to North Carolina. Behind that story is the story of a debut author — the first enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to publish a novel — who did much the same.”
Our State Magazine
“A Q&A with author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, the first member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to publish a novel.”
Publishers Weekly
“Both an astonishing addition to WWII and Native American literature, this novel sings on every level.”