LLL: When Home is a Hotel...Author Susan Zurenda

Coming Monday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Lodge

When Home is the Red Rose Motel
Causes and consequences affecting Hazel's life in The Girl From the Red Rose Motel

Thousands of families with children live in rundown motels. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a single night in 2022 there were 348,630 sheltered homeless in America. Join author Susan Zurenda as she discusses the life-changing story of her fictionalized character Hazel living in The Red Rose Motel. In this exceptional love story, 17-year old Hazel finds strength and guidance from her English teacher and encouragement from her affluent boyfriend Sterling, whom she meets during in-school suspension, to escape her maladaptive environment. You'll cheer for this young woman who develops hope and courage to make a bold and astonishing decision to save herself. Relevant research about the physical and psychological circumstances for those living in motels in our nation and the South, in particular, support the discussion.

Abour our presenter: Susan Beckham Zurenda taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level to AP students. Her debut novel, Bells for Eli (Mercer University Press, March 2020; paperback edition March 2021), has been selected the Gold Medal (first place) winner for Best First Book—Fiction in the 2021 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards), a Foreword Indie Book Award finalist, a Winter 2020 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, a 2020 Notable Indie on Shelf Unbound, a 2020 finalist for American Book Fest Best Book Awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for 2021. Susan has won numerous awards for her short fiction, including winning the South Carolina Fiction Prize twice.  The author lives in Spartanburg, SC.

*** REMINDER

LLL will NOT have programs on Oct. 9 or Oct. 16. The Lodge is being used for by Performing Arts Club. We will return Monday, Oct. 23 with "Caring for the Dead: The Polk-Alexander Family Cemetery" by Kyle Booker, assistant site manager of James K. Polk State Historic Site in Pineville, NC., who will tell us the fascinating and complicated story of how to move a family grave site.