We are starting out our New Year with one less family member. It was not a death that claimed him. Not a death in the typical sense at any rate, though, if I am completely honest, there have been moments when I think that[..]
Hardly anyone ever mentions the people we don't miss at the family gatherings. I don't mean those we love who have gone on to what I hope is an eternal celebration and not an eternal rest. I'm talking about the people who no longer gather[..]
I asked her if she had read a certain Christian's blog that we both followed at one time. "No," she replied. "I don't keep up with anything out of the Evangelical community any more." I didn't have to ask why; I already knew. The[..]
Alienation. To be estranged, hostile or indifferent, especially where attachment formerly existed. We most typically think of alienation as the thing that occurs when couples separate or divorce. Alienation always precedes such break-ups. Bookstores have a wide swath of self-help books for those dealing[..]
Several years ago, while working on Mother of Rain, the beginning of the Appalachian novels I wrote, I snuck in late to the evening service at Christians Bend Church in Tennessee. I had not been in the church since 1968. The last time I[..]
She gave me a ring; rose gold, with a Celtic Cross made of turquoise, a diamond at its center, this woman whose name I can no longer remember. I saw her sitting there, on a bench in a dark corner of a popular eatery in[..]
I came across this photo while looking for another. Everyone in this picture has gone on to be with God except for me and the babies. The two I'm carrying and the one sitting at the table. That's Mama, the baby of her family,[..]
I made cornbread. The old-fashioned kind. You know, with corn meal and flour, not the kind that comes out of a Jiffy or Dave's box. There was a time when I knew how to make cornbread from heart, the way I do my biscuits. Today,[..]
Editor's Note: I first met author Ann Hite through her book Ghost on Black Mountain. It was one of the best ghost story novels I had read in decades. Ann and I share a love of Appalachia and the stories that come out of the mountains.[..]
Author/Journalist Karen Spears Zacharias is a Gold Star daughter and an alumni of Oregon State University.
Karen's work has been featured in the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, and Good Morning America.
Her debut novel, Mother of Rain (Mercer University Press), received the Weatherford Award for Best in Appalachian Fiction from Berea College and was adapted for the stage by Georgia's Historic State Theater, The Springer. In 2018, Karen was named Appalachian Heritage Writer by Shepherd University, and Mother of Rain was chosen as the One Book One West Virginia Read.
Her first true crime book A Silence of Mockingbirds was chosen by the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the One City Read.
Karen's upcoming book The Murder Gene, is her second true crime work.
Karen and her husband, Tim, make their home in Deschutes County, Oregon.
For more information on Karen and her books, click here