A Book Talk with Denise Kiernan

Join us at the bookstore for a free book talk with Denise Kiernan on her new book Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution. She will be joined in conversation by Ed Southern, author and director of the North Carolina Writers' Network.

Attendees can pre-purchase the book with registration; copies will also be on sale at the event. There will be a book signing following the talk.

Have any questions? Check out our page and email [email protected] for further inquiries.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls of Atomic City and The Last Castle comes a sweeping chronicle challenging the traditional mythology of the nation’s beginnings and championing the unsung women behind the American Revolution.
History has always celebrated the “Founding Fathers“—the sly but victorious tactics of Washington, the daring exploits of Lafayette, the grand ideas of Jefferson. Yet we rarely hear of the women who kept the colonies running and liberty alive. Obstinate Daughters finally rewrites the story of America’s birth by revealing the courageous, resourceful women whose actions shaped a nation. From the battlefields to the printing press, from the plantations to the pulpit, these women fought, spied, published, preached, farmed, organized. From the front lines to the home front, from the colonies to the frontier, these unsung heroines turned the tide.
In Obstinate Daughters, readers will meet women who armed themselves and took matters into their own hands to defend their town. A Cherokee leader who warned patriot settlements of looming attacks, risking the lives of her own people in the process. A British spy at the center of a plot to assassinate George Washington. Enslaved women who risked their lives while fighting a parallel battle for their own freedom, embodying the very ideals the revolution claimed to uphold. The only woman to have her name on the Declaration of Independence. And many more.
As she has done so many times before, Kiernan masterfully weaves these individual stories together into a single, compelling narrative and carves a place in history for these impactful females. With journalistic rigor and narrative flair, Kiernan reminds us that the past is always open to challenge, and that every untold story can inspire a new generation.

Denise Kiernan is an award‑winning author with three decades of storytelling experience whose books have been translated into numerous languages. She is the author of We Gather Together and the instant New York Times bestsellers The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City. Kiernan has also co-authored several popular history titles including Signing Their Lives Away, Signing Their Rights Away, and Stuff Every American Should Know. She has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Time, Ms. Magazine, and many more publications. Throughout her career, Kiernan’s engaging personality and expertise has made her a featured guest on many radio and television shows, including NPR's Weekend Edition, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC Morning Joe, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Ed Southern is the editor of The Devil's Done Come Back: New Ghost Tales from North Carolina and the author of Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South, The Jamestown Adventure, Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas, and the short-story collection Parlous Angels. His work has appeared in South Writ Large, the Asheville Poetry Review, storySouth, the NC 10x10 Play Festival, and elsewhere. Since 2008, he has been the executive director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC.

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