Amy Butcher discusses new memoir, MOTHERTRUCKER, with Elizabeth Dark!

2424 East Main Street,Columbus OH 43209

18 November, 2021

Description

Writer and scholar Amy Butcher will share her new memoir, Mothertrucker, in conversation with Kenyon Review's Elizabeth Dark. Writer and scholar Amy Butcher's latest memoir, Mothertrucker: Finding Joy On The Loneliest Road in America, is the true story of two women who found meaning, strength, and friendship in one of the most punishing and magnificent landscapes on earth. Amy will be in conversation with Kenyon Review’s Elizabeth Dark. Admission is free, and attendees can purchase the book while registering. Registration closes at 6:00 pm on the day of the event. We ask that only those vaccinated attend in-store events. Masks are mandated by the City of Bexley, even for those unvaccinated. Kenyon Review and Ohio Wesleyan University are Gramercy’s Community Partners for this program. Amy Butcher was an accomplished college professor, mentor, and writer, but in her own home, she was embarrassed and emotionally burdened by an increasingly abusive relationship. Exhausted and terrified of the ways her partner's behavior could escalate, Amy reached out to Instagram celebrity Joy "Mothertrucker" Wiebe. Joy was a fifty-year-old wife and mother and the nation's only female ice road trucker, a woman who maneuvered big rigs through the Alaskan wilderness along the deadliest road in America. Joy was everything Amy wanted to be: independent, fearless, and in charge of her life in a landscape dominated by men. Invited by Joy to ride shotgun, Amy found her escape on a road that was treacherous, beautiful, and exhilarating--an adventurous ride through the Alaskan wilderness that was profoundly life changing. Called “gorgeous and gripping,” by Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, Mothertrucker is the story of that bracing four-hundred-mile journey navigating snow-glazed overpasses, ice-blue curves, and near plummets. It's also the stories that led both Amy and Joy to Alaska--an interrogation of the reality of female fear, domestic violence, and how to overcome--and an exploration into just how galvanizing friendships between women can be. The novel is in development to be a major motion picture directed by Emmy Award-winner Joey Soloway and starring Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Julianne Moore. Amy Butcher is a highly recognized and widely published essayist (Granta, New York Times, Washington post, The Paris Review, The Iowa Review, Guernica, and others) and the author of Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder, released in 2015. She is the director of creative writing and an associate professor of English at Ohio Wesleyan University. Elizabeth Ann Dark is the Associate Director of Programs for Kenyon Review. Her essays have been published in journals, including Ruminate, Curator, Blue Bear Review, and Riverteeth. She holds a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Georgia and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Ashland University. Gramercy Books is a locally-owned, independently-minded neighborhood bookstore located in the heart of Bexley, Ohio (just outside of downtown Columbus) that opened in December of 2016. Inspiration and discovery through books is cultivated in a variety of events throughout the year that include author visits and festivals, book signings, poetry readings, a monthly book club, and songwriter performances. Gramercy Books shares space with Kittie’s bakery café.