Author Ryan Stovall will be at the Rangeley Public Library on Wednesday, September 6th at 6:00 PM to share from his book Black Snowflakes Smothering a Torch: Or How to Talk to Your Veteran: A Primer. Black Snowflakes is a primer serving to facilitate dialogue between those who have experienced the crushing arms of war and those who have not. At its foundation Black Snowflakes presupposes that many issues veterans face when reintegrating come not from the veteran’s traumas but from the hypocrisies inherent to American civilian culture itself. As such Black Snowflakes represents an invaluable starting point, one that will serve as both a reference for civilians seeking to understand and as a voice for veterans hoping to explain.

Phil Klay, National Book Award winning author of Redeployment, says, “Beautiful, brutal, and moving, Ryan Stovall’s Black Snowflakes is critical reading from a perspective that is almost never articulated with such astonishing raw honesty”.

Ryan Stovall is a former adventurer, world traveler, and Green Beret twice decorated for valor and awarded two Purple Hearts. Since returning from Pakistan in 2016 he has found writing to be a therapeutic outlet for coping with PTSD. His poetry won the 2018 Wright Award from Line of Advance and has appeared in Rosebud, The Cape Rock, Here Comes Everyone, and other journals and anthologies. Ryan writes and lives with his family in Western Maine.

Please stop by or call the Rangeley Public Library (207)864-5529 to sign up for this free program.