St. Louis, MO – Left Bank Books welcomes local author Vivian Gibson, who will discuss her new memoir, The Last Children of Mill Creek, on Facebook Live at 7pm CST on May 19. Gibson will be in conversation with St. Louis native and journalist Ryan Schuessler.
Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood of St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as “progress.” The three rooms of her childhood home were heated by a wood-burning stove; her family had no hot water or furnace, but what Gibson lacked in material comforts she made up for in imagination. A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson’s large family — her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father — and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African-American community. In Gibson’s words, “This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl” — a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.
Vivian Gibson was raised on Bernard Street in Mill Creek Valley, and has lived in New York City and Liberia. She started writing short stories about her childhood memories after retiring at age 66. Her work has been produced as part of 50in50: Writing Women into Existence, at the Billie Holliday Theater in Brooklyn, and published in The St. Louis Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2019). She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Ryan Schuessler is a journalist from St. Louis, currently based in Chicago, whose work has appeared in Al Jazeera America, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, National Geographic News, and The St. Louis Beacon.
Vivian Gibson will discuss The Last Children of Mill Creek and answer questions during this online event that will take place on the Left Bank Books’ Facebook Page for this interactive conversation and order a copy of The Last Children of Mill Creek from Left Bank Books to support authors and independent bookstores!
For more information, call 314.367.6731 or visit left-bank.com.
