Geography, personal insecurity, and poverty are just some of the powerful forces that Angela Palm has struggled with and against in becoming a writer. That may be surprising to some, because Palm's memoir Riverine is a triumph of a book, named the winner of the 2015 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.
But digging into the story of Palm's childhood in northwestern Indiana, where the Kankakee river flooded so much it turned her home into an island, and following the story of a childhood friend she fell in love with and continued to love even after he was convicted of a double murder, it's easy to understand how self-doubt was Palm's constant companion, even as she succeeded in producing an award-winning book.
Angela Palm joined VPR's Mitch Wertlieb to talk about Riverine.
