Appalachian Tales: Come Sit a Spell

Name: Appalachian Tales: Come Sit a Spell
Start: 2026-10-17T17:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-10-17T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Stone Soup Books

Join us in discussing three Appalachian tales with their authors: Stephanie S. Gardner, Susan Gregg Gilmore, and Stacia Pelletier!

Time & Location

Oct 17, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Stone Soup Books, 402 W Main St, Waynesboro, VA 22980, USA

About

Come sit a spell and listen while authors Stephanie S. Gardner, Susan Gregg Gilmore, and Stacia Pelletier talk about their books, all of which are set in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. We will explore Civil War times in the Shenandoah Valley, small town life in East Tennessee, and experience the Georgia Gold Rush. These authors will discuss their research and answer audience questions. Come and fall under the spell of the Appalachian Mountains and get lost in the stories!

Stephanie Gardner lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She grew up in the mountains of Western North Carolina and has strong family roots in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. She holds degrees in history, public history, and library science. Stephanie works as a librarian, archivist, and museum curator. Rattlesnake Granny was released in 2024 and was her first book.

Nancy Pullum isn't afraid to live on the mountainside by herself in 1800s Blue Ridge Virginia. She has been catching rattlers and selling snake oil medicine since she was a girl. But change comes to everyone: How will Nancy and her Thornton Gap neighbors, John (a free Black man) and William Randolph Barbee (a famous sculptor) experience the American Civil War?

Susan Gregg Gilmore is the author of four novels rooted in the landscape and lives of her native South. A Nashville native, Gilmore earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and her Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin. She began her writing career at the Chattanooga News Free Press, where she wrote features and a weekly parenting column. Her freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Garden & Gun. The mother of three grown daughters and grandmother of four boys, Gilmore lives in Chattanooga with her husband, Dan. — Susan Gregg Gilmore is the author of four novels rooted in the landscape and lives of her native South. A Nashville native, Gilmore earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and her Master of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin. She began her writing career at the *Chattanooga News Free Press*, where she wrote features and a weekly parenting column. Her freelance work has appeared in the *Los Angeles Times*, *The Christian Science Monitor*, and *Garden & Gun*. The mother of three grown daughters and grandmother of four boys, Gilmore lives in Chattanooga with her husband, Dan.

When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events—upending the lives of Leonard’s rigidly God-fearing mother, June; his deeply conflicted father, Emmett; and his best friend, Azalea, and her mother, Rose, who is also the town prostitute. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening.

Susan Gilmore’s love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She’s the daughter of a revival preacher’s son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a “homespun Pilgrim’s Progress.”

Stacia Pelletier is a historical novelist, writer, and editor. Nominated twice for the Townsend Prize in Fiction, Georgia’s highest literary honor, she is the author of three novels: The Deliverance of Barker McRae (Mercer University Press, 2025), Accidents of Providence (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and The Half Wives (Mariner/Harper). A writer with a day job, Stacia currently serves as executive director of corporate and foundation relations at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was previously the speechwriter for the president of Emory University. She holds an MDiv and a PhD in the history of religion from Emory. — Stacia Pelletier is a historical novelist, writer, and editor. Nominated twice for the Townsend Prize in Fiction, Georgia’s highest literary honor, she is the author of three novels: *The Deliverance of Barker McRae* (Mercer University Press, 2025), *Accidents of Providence* (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and *The Half Wives* (Mariner/Harper). A writer with a day job, Stacia currently serves as executive director of corporate and foundation relations at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was previously the speechwriter for the president of Emory University. She holds an MDiv and a PhD in the history of religion from Emory.

It's a wintry April 1833 in Watkinsville, Georgia. Fourteen-year-old Barker McRae is stuck living with her odious uncle, militia captain Wiley Wood, as she waits for her father, a Methodist circuit rider, to return. Instead, a stranger arrives. Matthew Higgenbotham, a land lottery messenger who dreams of leaving Georgia, shows up at Wiley's farm with unexpected news: Barker has won forty acres in the latest state lottery. His announcement sets in motion an act of unimaginable violence, a harrowing escape, and a cat-and-mouse chase across frontier Georgia during America's first gold rush and the illegal seizure of Cherokee lands. With Higgenbotham as her reluctant ally, Barker's mission is clear: escape her uncle and reunite with her father. Or should she free herself from them both? And what about the troubled aunt she has left behind?

Appalachian Tales: Come Sit a Spell

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