Calliope

Calliope is a unique, eccentric soul, in touch with nature and with the poetry that lives in her incredible mind. Functioning in an alien world, in which emotions sometimes confuse and confound her, nevertheless, she has the love and acceptance of an adopted family and friends, who know, in Calliope's own words: "My soul does not sing, but hums, With measured notes, discordant." The simplicity and beauty of Calliope's view of life brings clarity to a precocious young girl struggling to understand and accept tragedy to move into a new life in the mountains of Southeast Tennessee, in the valley of uwohali, the eagle. Calliope is a story of faith, family, and eternal values, largely forgotten or denied, but sorely needed in this contemporary society-values that are alive and well in the hearts of those who seek and find more than this troubled world has to offer.

Writer Jan Dearman is a native of southeast Tennessee, born into a family that has called the land of the river gorge at the foot of Suck Creek Mountain home for seven generations. Hardy Scottish forefathers and the native women they married produced a people who, still today, cling to the land as their heritage-a place of history, beauty, and ancestry, shared with uwohali, who reigns with grace and magnificence along the banks of the Tennessee.