A clear-eyed and compassionate memoir of the Appalachian experience by a woman who embraced its astonishing beauty, narrowly escaped its violence, and struggles to call it home.
Bobi Conn is a professor in the English department at Eastern Kentucky University - see what their students are saying about them or leave a rating yourself. View Bobi Conn’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Bobi has 5 jobs listed on their profile. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Bobi’s.
Bobi Conn Bio
Drivers vasco. Bobi Conn was raised in a remote Kentucky holler in 1980s Appalachia. She remembers her tin-roofed house tucked away in a vast forest paradise; the sparkling creeks, with their frogs and crawdads; the sweet blackberries growing along the road to her granny’s; and her abusive father, an underemployed alcoholic whose untethered rage and violence against Bobi and her mother were frighteningly typical of a community marginalized, desperate, and ignored. Bobi’s rule of survival: always be vigilant but endure it silently.
Slipping away from home, Bobi went to college and got a white-collar job. Mistrusted by her family for her progress and condescended to by peers for her accent and her history, she was followed by the markers of her class. Though she carried her childhood self everywhere, Bobi also finally found her voice.
An elegiac account of survival despite being born poor, female, and cloistered, Bobi’s testament is one of hope for all vulnerable populations, particularly women and girls caught in the cycle of poverty and abuse. On a continual path to worth, autonomy, and reinvention, Conn proves here that “the storyteller is the one with power.”
Bobi Conn grew up in a hollow near Clearfield, Kentucky, a former factory village located just outside of Morehead. It was an idyllic setting of forest, creeks and tin-roofed homes that sang to the tempos of rainfall. But it also was the scene of a traumatic childhood in the presence of an addicted, alcoholic, violent father. Bobi Conn escaped, got herself into college and landed a white-collar job.
Bobi Conn In The Shadow Of The Valley
But that same progress earned the mistrust of her family. And her Eastern Kentucky accent and history were often met by the condescension of peers.
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The account of a survivor is detailed in the pages of Bobi’s debut memoir, “In the Shadow of the Valley.”
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She discussed her work and perspectives on life with UnderMain’s Tom Martin for his weekly WEKU program, Eastern Standard.