Betina Entzminger
Memoir
Handling Shit and Finding Love
written by Betina Entzminger
Handling Shit and Finding Love is an excerpt from Betina Entzminger’s memoir, The Beak in the Heart: True Tales of Misfit Southern Women, a collection of dramatic portraits of the author’s “misfit” female ancestors and a candid, intimate memoir about family secrets and breaking free of the narrow confines of being a “proper” southern woman.
In this chapter from The Beak in the Heart, Betina tells the story of Louise and Ella, two of her “misfit” aunts who had the strength to handle the blows dealt to them by adversity, disappointment, and heartache in the South of the 1950s. This is a touching story about finding love, freedom, and fortitude.
© 2021 Betina Entzminger | Recording © 2021 Rivercliff Books & Media. All rights reserved.
Read by Julie Niblett
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Betina Entzminger is a Southern-born writer and English professor, currently living and working in Pennsylvania. A quadruple divorcee and mother of two teenagers, Entzminger holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her academic publications include two books: The Belle Gone Bad: White Southern Women Writers and The Dark Seductress, and Contemporary Reconfigurations of American Literary Classics, and many essays on American literature.
She loves travelling, gardening, southern history, genealogy, animals, and antiques. She is also a feminist who loves men.
Q&A with Betina
Tell us about your story...
This is an excerpt from my new memoir, The Beak in the Heart: True Tales of Misfit Southern Women.
What was the inspiration for this story?
For more information, please listen to this interview with me on the public radio show ArtScene with Erika Funke.
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