Understory—A Women’s History of Appalachia: An Evening with Pauletta Hansel

For Pauletta Hansel, who grew up in southeastern Kentucky, the history of her ancestors traces back to her tenth great-grandmother, a "tobacco bride" shipped from England to Jamestown, Virginia, in exchange for 150 pounds of tobacco leaves. After the Revolutionary War, the family migrated from the Chesapeake area to the mountains of North Carolina and, eventually, into the Appalachian coalfields. As Hansel explored archives and artifacts, she found this ancestry was incomplete, memorialized solely through the lives of men.

With a captivating and contemplative voice, Hansel's Understory weaves history, genealogy, and poetry to chronicle the untold story of her foremothers. Hansel does not shy away from hard truths, such as her family's displacement of Indigenous people, enslavement of those of African descent, and support of the Confederacy. Through research, her travels across the US, and her own family stories and memories, she makes visible those whose lives have been hidden between the lines of documents left behind.

In revealing generations of women whose experiences have only been glimpsed within others' narratives, Understory is not simply one family's story—it is a microcosm of Appalachian, American, and women's histories.

6 pm reception/6:30 pm program
Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Copies of Understory will be available for sale & signing courtesy of Roebling Point Books.

About Pauletta Hansel

Pauletta Hansel is a poet, memoirist, and teacher. Awards for her writing include the Poetry Society of Virginia’s North American Book Award, the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry, and Judy Gaines Young Book Award. She is the author of ten previous books; individual pieces have been featured in Cincinnati Review, Oxford American, Rattle, Cutleaf, Appalachian Journal, Southern Humanities Review, The Southern Appalachian Poetry Anthology, Verse Daily, and Poetry Daily, among others. Born and raised in southeastern Kentucky, Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first Poet Laureate and has been Writer in Residence at Thomas More University, WordPlay Cincy, and the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library.