Praise for Mama's Shoes
From it's first perfect paragraph straight through to its hard won resolution, Mama's Shoes is an absolutely wonderful novel, its setting a beautifully realized small Appalachian coal town, its characters so vivid they are practically jumping off the page. There's conflict aplenty here too - between mother and daughter, truth and lies, rich and poor, past and present - as thirteen year old Sassy tries to determine the truth of who she really is. Rebecca Elswick captures her readers by writing straight from the heart. ~ Lee Smith, author of Family Linen, The Last Girls and Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-eyed Stranger
In Mama’s Shoes, immensely talented debut novelist Rebecca Elswick weaves an intriguing tale of buried secrets at times both haunting and humorous, with a cast of strong Southern women so real that I
could almost hear them speaking to me...
~ Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
From Publisher's Weekly - The tragic and troubled history of the Richardson family is the backbone of this WWII-era coming-of-age tale...Filled with a cast of eccentric bucolic characters and meticulously built scenes, this novel creates an intricate and beautiful landscape...this is a well-tuned and complex work.
From Amazon.com - This family saga told through the eyes of a young imaginative girl (Sassy), on the cusp of puberty, and her other female relatives. Sassy reminds me of the young heroine of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" in her ability to convey all the little details of her world, and make them as magical for the reader as they are for her.
From Writer's Digest - Rebecca D Elswick's debut novel, "Mama's Shoes," has been chosen to receive the prestigious "Mark of Quality" distinction. The "Mark of Quality" is reserved for books published through Abbott Press that come highly recommended for style and literary merit by the Writer's Digest editorial staff.
I got to meet the lovely author Ann Patchett at the Martha Washington Inn, Abingdon, VA.
With amazing author, Barbara Kingsolver in Abingdon, VA.
With the Richlands Book Club, Richlands, VA
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With Adriana Trigiani at the Writer's Digest Conference, New York
With the lovely Jill McCorkle at Laughing Heart Literary Festival in Hot Springs, NC,
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At Harvard University Nov. 2013
With my Appalachian Writing Project buddies at a weekend writing retreat at Hindman Settlement School.
Signing books at The Appalachian Arts Center
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Rebecca Elswick lives in southwestern Virginia, the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners. She is a writing and public relations specialist for Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, VA and is a teacher consultant for the Appalachian Writing Project at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers II, Christmas Blooms, Broken Petals, and the Literary Journal of the Virginia Writing Project.
Mama's Shoes is her debut novel. Her first young adult novella, No Stopping Her was published in 2015 by Gemma Media's Adult Literacy Program.
Rebecca has an MFA in creative writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Mama's Shoes is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Abbott Press.
It is available in hardcover, softcover, and ebook.
Rebecca D. Elswick
Last Updated 4/16/2020 by Author
