Storyweb: Storytime For Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Kathleen Kent’s novel The Heretic’s Daughter. Those who know me or know my work understand that I am compelled by family histories. I especially love it when contemporary writers delve into their family pasts to unearth secret stories and bring those hidden stories to life for modern readers. Think Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior – one of my key inspirations when I wrote Power in the Blood: A Family Narrative. I am always on the lookout for similar projects. Imagine my delight, then, when I met author Kathleen Kent. We’d both just flown into Lexington, Kentucky, and had been picked up by the executive director of the Kentucky Book Fair, being held in nearby Frankfort, the state capital. Kathleen and I struck up what became a very animated conversation as we discovered that we were both promoting books relating to our families’ histories. My book is about a decidedly obscure family – a poor, rural, hardscrabble family of Cherokee descent. My goal in writing Power in the Blood wa