It was 1929 when Ella May Wiggins decided she would join the fight to unionize mill workers in North Carolina. She also decided she would work to integrate the union -- despite the fact she was a mill worker herself who barely survived on her meager wages, despite the fact she was a woman with no formal education, no help from the father of her children, and not even enough food to fill her belly from day to day.
The story of Ella May Wiggins is a real part of North Carolina history – now come alive in a work of historical fiction by Wiley Cash called The Last Ballad. We’ll learn more about Ella May today and why her story matters so deeply to the man behind the book -- a New York Times bestselling author who’s written two other novels: A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road To Mercy.
Wiley Cash is the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville, and he teaches creative writing in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program. He’s picked up a passel of awards along the way, and he now lives in Wilmington with his family.
Wiley Cash is also a member of the Board of Directors of Friends of Public Radio, WHQR’s governing body.
Event: The Bellamy Mansion hosts a reading with Wiley Cash on Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 6:30 PM.
