>> on behalf of carmichael's bookstore i greatly appreciate that though tonight with a debut memoir with the strong

women who raised her and later went on to earn a degree from harvardd law and working extensively with domestic violence survivors here in kentuckye now lives in louisville with her husband. [applause] >> first off thank you for being here from all the different stages and phases of my life also thank you to carmichael's for hosting this event it does so much for our community please purchaseca books and have events like this and support them. so please at the end of tonight i will be signing them at the signing table. so what i want to do tonight is talk about why i wrote this

book and what inspired me to write it and a little bit of an overview of how the book came to be and into the world. so anything that's on your mind this is a discussion and a dialogue i look forward so the first part of want to read so in kentucky that is one of the poorest counties in all of america the appellation a small county one of the highest poverty rates in america. it's hard for me to know which part of the county we should show the rest ofw the world. and to helpal people understand the extent of the poverty i

want them to know how deep it goes. if they understand that they can help fix it. but i also don't want them to think this already exist in appalachia that it is hopeless and broken on the square along the way and old car parts and refrigerators and children's toys but i know that for some people to serve the night and entrepreneurial at that. people here make a living however they can and organizing yard sales. and what c will come in handy.

and sell the junk for $50 a truckload. and then to provide for the family and and then those that are trapped in such awful circumstances i try to look at it with a sense of c respect and to remember how hard they are working to survived but last year in those categories they want to create. and that is marginalized.

and those that take care of each other even the outside world is not take care off them. and in tobacco fields and coal mines in the only community they have ever known who don't take the time and the grid and the mountain women i have come to know that grit well and role kentucky i see them everyday of my clients and to do what it takes to keep them safe. weight shapes people and families and communities and where it has shaped me of course not everything is exceptional that is horrible and virtuous and whatever we

wanted to be. and the basic themes people care aboutar loving community and family a mile outside of town to drop dramatically on the side of the hill it is called cal creek with a stream that cuts through it. and out one - - now i'm at the bottom of a small flat space enclosed by rolling hills on top is a farmhouse looking out onto the fields below. it resembles an elderly woman around the ever weakening structure. the wooden boards are worn and faded. faded but there are hints of the

white and green at once war. there is a strength in his brokenness. it has withstood whether, time and family. it is banking now, resting, watching, waiting as each new day cascades. this feels like home and if you like family, there are women's stories here, stories of resilience, love and strength. this community knows them well but the echo has not reached far enough into the outside world. instead, these have ricochet within the mountains, growing more faint with time. i want to tell these stories because they matter because i am afraid they will be forgotten and because they have the power to make this community visible. as i stop my vehicle and walked towards the house, the memories washed over me like the sunlight

on them on hill. and so this introduction says a lot about why we road and how it's in conversation with other depictions of appalachia as we see it being popular in recent years and presently. around 2016 there was a lot of things being written about appalachia and a lot of people depicting the problem. and these were problems i was aware of and i saw and familiar with. but what i was not hearing a lot about was the hope in the way that people are coping with the problems in a creative solution in the strength of communities that are addressing the problems and addressing them well. i wrote this book in large part to tell his side of the story and show there is hope in the communities that they talk about so often. and there is strength in communities that struggle. i had always known this and been aware of these virtues and the

way the struggling communities have so much to offer, it was not until i began seeing the other pre-trails and other books, movies, films in the story of the community and the story of my family was noteworthy. when you grow up this way and it is your life story, you don't know it's something that anybody else would be interested in. all the sudden the stories came out about people who came from the back into poverty and appalachia and went to the halls of the ivy league and somehow that was a journey that was worth talking about. there was lessons to take away from that. i look for people telling the stories that had similar plot point to my own life story. and from the outside that is what my life look like, that's what the story of my family's life look like. it looks like being born in a trailer to two young parents who cannot afford to run air conditioning and then going on to the opportunity to earn a

degree from harvard law school. the way i thought about those was very different from what i was reading about, everything that i have every opportunity that i had is because of my community and the people that shape me and informed me, or talk about this book a lot, in some ways we all know about the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, pull yourself out of poverty, go and get an ivy league degree, for me the take away for my story is only reason i was able to do that and had any boost at all is not because of my immediate family and immediate community but a generation that came before me and how the women in my family each tried to do something better for the next generation and build something better for the women that came after them. that is really at its core what "hill women" is all about, it is about women in the ways that they work to make their communities better and make their families better and do better for the people that come after them.

>> just to give you a context and a flavor for "hill women" and the stories that are in it, it starts off with my grandmother, i called my grandmother granny, she had a third grade education and she was born into extreme poverty, poverty so bad that her blankets used to freeze at night because her house was so cold and they cannot afford any way to heat it. she never got to play or go to the movies or who never went out to eat her restaurant or had toys. she lived a life that was hard and she was treated like an adult from the time she was a child. in more than anything, even though she had not had the opportunity to get an education and she did not have the ability to understand what getting an education meant. she wanted her children to be able to do better than she had done. and to go further than she had been able to go. so she had seven children, the sixth of which was my mom and she pushed my mom from the time my mom was born to graduate high school, get an education and

because of that and because of my mom's sister ruth who also encouraged her to get a degree, my mom became the first in her family to graduate high school and went on to graduate college. she went to break college which many in the room are familiar with, it was a wonderful place that allowed her to get a free education which was something her family did not have the money for her to be able to go to school to pay tuition and quite frankly if she had to go into debt that was not something that people did so she would've had the chance to get her degree if she had the employees. >> my mom coming from that background saw the way the education changed her life, the way it made the world smaller and open doors for her. for her, she felt that she had came so far from the holler in kentucky that nobody left to being able to go to college where she felt like she could learn about ideas in the world

and had her horizons broadened. and she raised me too believe there was nothing that i was not capable of doing. she had come so far that she believed i had the ability to do anything in the world that i wanted to do. and so because my mom and instilled in me from a very young age to get an education, experience the world, take chances because she had taken chances, i was able to go on and earn a scholarship to yell college and graduate from harvard law school. in the book talks about, i believe when you're a person of three generations that have worked to give opportunities to, all the effort and care has gone into making you who you are, you're under no obligation to pay forward, i returned to kentucky and i came back and i worked with low-income women in domestic violence situations trying to provide other families another women's with the same opportunities i was been provided by my family. so i have another excerpt that i

want to read from the book that plays on that theme, it is about my mother going to college. >> when i was five, my mother graduated from college. i remember getting a new dress for the occasion. the first diet owned that that was not paid c. it had lace trim and a delicate flower. my mother bought me a child size graduation cap and gown and let me walk with her in the processional. we are graduating i told my family as we walked past them down the aisle. i did not know then how true that statement was. how by graduating with her degree my mother changed both of our lives. how the value she had come to place on education would seep into my core and carry me beyond

the hills of appalachia, how her ability to understand herself and her family would set me up for success. the day after the graduation ceremony, the local newspaper ran a picture of the two of us. my mother and me, standing side-by-side. eyes focus forward, graduating to the next phase of our life. and so the last thing that i want to talk about about the book and then i would like to hear your thoughts and questions and have a conversation about appalachia and ways to move forward in the region and think about world poverty and how is different than urban poverty and education in all of these things, the last thing i want to talk about a little bit is my work paying it forward, i believe when your community gives you opportunities it's a comment to pay those opportunities forward. so that took the form of starting my career at the legal aid society in working with

women in the state of crisis were dealing with safety issues, trying to keep themselves and their children safe and trying to protect themselves and their families. and i worked in rural county surrounding and i call myself a one woman traveling law firm, i had a printer in the back of my car in the laptop and i met clients as subways and gas stations and public labors and i got very good figuring out how to get people to. things when they did not have access to technology an e-mail things with they did not have an e-mail address and i have a really fond memories from life on the road. but in this work, one of the things that was important to me was to find tangible ways to make the system better. my experience working in rural kentucky in eastern kentucky showed me there's a lot of barriers that exist in places that we don't necessarily see you then. when i was working in the civil justice system, i saw

the way that there was a lot of financial barriers that stop women from being in the court system and keep them in their families safe. we talk about this in the criminal context, a lot of people say you have the right to an attorney, if you can't afford 11 will be provided. people don't realize you have the same right in the civil law. when i was working with these women trying to get custody orders or tried to get protective orders they did not necessarily have a right to get an attorney. so i was representing them for free and that was certainly helpful but not always enough because a lot of times there are fees that you have to pay like having an attorney appointed for your children, commissioners where you had to pay an hourly fee to have your case heard, there was all these little fees that add up. and one of the things that i noticed that there was a law on the books that required women or anyone if they wanted to divorce and abusive partner and that partner was in jail for

assaulting them, the law required that the person be appointed an attorney. which in itself is not a bad thing, i feel that people should have representation and they should have a lawyer to make sure their interests are represented. the problem with the law, who had to pay for that attorney, in these situations, the person seeking the divorce, normally the person who had been the abuse and the person was in jail for abusing them, it was that person in that victim, that survivor who got stuck with the legal bill. and i saw time and again, how this made women feel like the court system was working for their abuser and it made them feel victimized by the legal system and hesitate to use the legal system to get the kind of help and relief that they needed, they saw as a place that did not protect their interest and did not have anything to help them. and so i decided to work with one of my clients, a woman named

jeanette to be able to address this problem. i believe strongly in a client driven solution and partying with people who experienced the problem the most to find solutions together. so i went to read an excerpt from the latter part of the book where am talking about jeanette and work together. jeanette and i did together -- it started off with me saying jeanette can i tell your story, can i use your story as a way to make the system better. and jeanette had a pretty dramatic story. she had experienced violence and abuse for a number of she had experienced violence and abuse four years at her then husband one night he came home and intoxicated and fired a pistol and to this day her

closer still in police custody and at first and when she tried to get the divorce she was stuck with the legalo bill even though i was representing her for free because she cannot afford an attorney. is a can i tell your story if my story canle help someone then use it. but she had to pay for her incarceration and wanted to use that as a way to make a change. i wrote the op-ed and lawmakers b filed the bill and at that point she said i'm

okay telling my story i want to carry the torch and wants to make the system better so we had some conversations about how she could get involved but then to testify in front of the kentucky gsgeneral assembly that anyone that would listen to her experience and why it mattered so it was signed into law by the governor called jeanette's law and named after her. that the most think she is proud of in the t world and then to transform the system taking advantage of her.

my experience with jeanette is a powerful reminder of the importance but the voice led to tangible changes in the state law because of her bravery other women's lives will be better. and each win is a reminder things can change with the spouse or unjust system is powerful. so some people portrayed survivors and those in appalachia the same way i think jeanette story is the opposite to give the right tools and support and environment these women are capable of changing the world. so with that i will conclude my reading part and i look forward to hearing of your

questions and thing carmichael's for hosting this event please support your local bookstores and also to make sure we capture the audio please speak into the microphon microphone. [applause] i also had a similar negative reaction and i was lucky so

howw do you pronounce vienna sausages? >> that's how i pronounce it. me.hat is a new one to but just to touch on that one thing that gained a lot of attention what the rest of the world knew about appalachia i was hillbilly elegy i do think that book talks about appalachia in a way that is unhelpful and focuses on the problem of the people and does

not acknowledge the way the systems and how hard they are working in the marginalized communities and how much honor there is in a community that is marginalized over time. that was one of the driving forceses to put something out there in the world to show the true view and then focuses on women and then the community and then this is the book i hope that elevates women voices and women's choice. thank you for the question. >> i see someone in the back.

>> i was wondering if you could tell us about your family and people in your family didn't know they were read it? il. guess that is all. >> thank you for the questions. and with those people that are going to read the book. so to write a memoir is an interesting process and my editor is here because she is an incredible woman. but one of the things she did a lot of is asking questions

so what's underneath the surface and to get at the deeper level and i'm lucky i worked with an amazing editor. and then it got to publication and then faced with the prospect to drive down those finish copies here is the book i hope you like the way you are portrayed which is quite an experience because the way any of us word right is different than we would talk about ourselves. and i got some advice from someone who wrote a memoir will never regret being overly generous of your portrayal off

people. at the time that didn't make sense but that is good advice. now in hindsight that is the best advice that i got and that's what i would tell other people. be generous in your portrayal of people the way you write about them on the page lives forever and you cannot take it back so you will never regret being a little kinder. and it didn't take that long to write there is a lot of sitting down a lot of interview with family members about grandma getting married at 15 but what else can you tellnn me?

what do you remember her talking about? it is interesting to see the way everyone's memory is differed. this is not a research book and i acknowledge everyone memory is different maybe there w was a brown wedding dress or maybe it was blue i think at the end of the day i said blue i'm not sure maybe it was brown. [laughter] but it was fun to sit down and talk to relatives about their memories and my mom was very involved to sit down and talk with me and to share her memories in life story and were very lucky to have that opportunity to have this conversation because a lot of us don't have the chance to sit down with relatives how much we admire them have taken away from their life story so i feel grateful for that opportunity. >>

[laughter] >> congratulations on your book. i wondered you grew up and went to yale and harvard and then you came back which many people in eastern kentucky very one - - never even considered to be kentucky so how did that wind up being your decision? you could've went somewhere out there. >> i fell in love with louisville when i was a law student and i had the opportunity to spend summers here so is big enough to have everything you need but small it so it's true at a nicee restaurant.

soso for me i had gone and one of the things are really interested is the urban divide because we have more in common than what divides us. but i love the unique and interesting things that happen and kentucky was always home and felt like home i fell in love with louisville and he felt this is then place i could land and make a difference. so i moved here and started to do the work i was doing and met my husband. his first question when he proposedy was will you marry me and will be always live in the highlands? at the end of the day, i really enjoy having the opportunity to talk about how we can bring rural and urban

areas together and again i believe what divides us so thank q you for the question. >> so what is the common thread between world and urban poverty? >> that's an interesting question the truth is that rural and urban poverty do look quite different. they are both a significant problems do have resources availableth. but there are unique challenges around rural poverty and one in particular is in cities for example there are a lot of organizations

serviceside social and for the entire multicounty area for the very low income clients they may not have reliable transportation or they cannot afford the gas or make it. so it is really want transportation and infrastructure really matters and the way the poverty is diffused which makes it harder to bring people together because you may have a couple people in a hauler over here or 3 miles away. but that is not to say you have to have different strategies it's not to say they are not competing with one another or either is a more pressing concern.

>> that brings up another question. >> going from a protective order to remember a conversation that they have in the urban areas. and then with that legislature. but what about eastern kentucky?

and then what happens? >> if you cannot here in the rural counties that don't have wi-fi access they could have paper protective orders as opposed to electronic orders and what happens. ia words say i have had had to call police because there has been a safety threat someone has shown up and they cannot get the police to respond quickly enough so the answer is when there is a delay to provide safety services we should do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen. the point of wi-fi access more generally as we live in a world where we talk about access to the internet and wi-fi is a fundamental right and something we need to participate in society and

relatives to this day who have never used a computer or they've never seen a facebook page. so would you like to come to my wedding i would like to have you there they don't know how to get there they don't. have gps some have not even used a parking garage. so that was just not an option for them. was telling people why is it your eastern kentucky family coming to your wedding it might as well be in taiwan. they don't have the ability or the funds or gps to navigate that's a people still find shocking in this day and age with this access to technology and information and how to use that it is important when we are talking about the poverty areas and how we teach young

people to use the technology of the future because that is what helps them connect to the larger world and job opportunities and economic opportunities t. >> can you point to any policy decisions? >> the question was how my family and community shaped me and specifically the policies that played a role on that. and in the bookayolol i talk abt how we received food stamps and we god expenses with medical one - - help with medical expenses i played in public parks and public school, to public libraries because in the beginning i was talking about being born to two young parents who cannot run air-conditioningnt but the

public library does so it was perfect in my life with this place that was open to the public i could go and learn and beat the summer heat. i am such a big believer to have the policies to provide everything because my family took advantage of those and if any one of those were missing i would not be where i am today. . our lives would have looked different and had i not had the opportunity to go to public school and get a good education, my life would have looked very different. so i believe that we have to make sure we have policies in place that are making sure every child has the same opportunities i had to grow and thrive. >> i work in education including dropout prevention and re- engagement is a sometimes we hear that particularly in the rural parts of the state there may be a fear of families and

they may leave the community if we are going to go out to higher ed and they don't come back into there is a loss. and whether that is true in some cases what is the best way to address those complicated things my mom experienced about when she wanted to be able to go to college and get an education. she didn't want my mom to leave for the same reason. families take care of their children. children stay close to their families why would you go away. do you think i can't provide a good life for you here.

it was about 50 miles but never had a driver's license and rarely left the county, might as well have been a completely different country. i think to some extent that is getting left him as people see the way that education changes their communities, and a lot of people i think there is a focus now doing sort of what i did, getting education and returning and making a difference that you come from and i know that there are programs to help bring people back to the communities. with the drive to get the education and sometimes the drive is big problems in the communities they want to come back and sold solve, so i think there's certainly still work to be done. i have heard young children say

college isn't for me, high school isn't for me, i'm going to grow up you never going to leave sometimes they feel their world is limited. i certainly understand the value of home and family, and i think people can make good legitimate choices to stay near home and families. i just hope for the world where every child feels they have the choice to choose some thing else but that is what they want. ibm hearing that our time has left debate collapsed. thank you all again for coming tonight is so great to have you here. thank you to my age and who came from new york i was lucky to have a team of amazing women supporting me in the project thank you for hosting. i will be over signing books so

please come support carmichael's and thank you all for being here. ask a [applause]