Shake Terribly the Earth

Sarah Beth Childers is from Huntington, West Virginia, and she lives and writes in Richmond, Indiana, where she is a writer in residence at Earlham College. Previously, she served as a lecturer at West Virginia University and as a visiting professor of creative nonfiction in the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

"Beautifully written, nostalgic, and indeed unique, this work will be welcomed by those who enjoy memoir or American regional history and by anyone interested in Appalachian culture." (Library Journal) "A clear hallmark of memoir is allowing the reader to experience the author's moments of realization with her as it happens, but it requires a brave writer to share something so raw and unfiltered, and Childers does so without pause." (Appalachian Heritage) "[Childers] weaves together complex characters, a culture shaped by faith and music, and vibrantly imagined settings to both capture and complicate an often misunderstood facet of Appalachian culture—fundamental Christianity." (West Virginia Living) "Childers's collection of carefully arranged family vignettes reveals a master storyteller sharing the tales of her yarn-spinning clan over the generations." ("Around Cincinnati," WVXU-NPR) "Nearly all of us have our own full share of childhood memories. But few of us are willing—or able—to dig as deep into our store of memories as does Sarah Beth Childers in her impressive new memoir, Shake Terribly the Earth." (Charleston Gazette) "A tightly connected collection of essays…." (ForeWord Reviews) "Shake Terribly the Earth announces a new, clear voice in Appalachian nonfiction, free of cant, free of even the rumor of a stereotype. Sarah Beth Childers's family saga engages the griefs of the region in many ways—times have been difficult in her native West Virginia—but a thread of joyfulness, like light, winds through these essays, as stories accumulated by generations at last find voice in Childers's telling. It is a pleasure, rare and true, to sit with this book and listen." "The West Virginia childhood that Sarah Beth Childers gives us in Shake Terribly the Earth is hardscrabble, pietistic, and loving. Disability checks, pizza, and Mountain Dew along with the Holy Spirit inflect this clear-eyed and moving portrait of a young woman's coming of age in one deep corner of the American Landscape." "This is a book to rattle us awake and stir in our blood forgotten memories of family and faith, of fire and flood. Shake Terribly the Earth introduces us to a young writer mightily engaged with the world before her. There is wisdom in these pages. Music bellows from the words." "Wonderfully rich and beautifully written … the collection is also self-aware and articulate about storytelling as an art and as a profoundly human means of creating meaning. Storytelling is furthermore a powerful folkway in Appalachian life, and one of the main themes of the book.… It is a deeply worthwhile and fascinating collection."