Join us as Robin Caudell will be discussing her book “Black Heel Strings: A Choptank Memoir” at the Museum of Rural Life, 2 N. 2nd Street, Denton, MD on June 25, 2026, at 6 PM. She will be discussing her memoir, as she traces her childhood in a Black family navigating poverty and racism on the Delmarva Peninsula. While many books cover the stories of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and their exodus, her family story is of those people who stayed. MS Caudell is the living legacy of the ones who did not run away and of the free people of color and christianized native Americans in the Chesapeake region. The memoir’s title references a physical anomaly, believed to be indicative of Indigenous ancestry, which skips generations among Caudell’s Kellum kin. This trait is visible as a dark line that extends upward from the Achilles tendon, a visible link to her ancestry. An emotional odyssey, “Black Heel Strings” weaves Caudell’s adult and childhood memories into a vivid story that honors belonging, resilience, and recovery in her community and in this place. At the conclusion of her talk, she will sign copies of her book.
*Note* Books will not be available for purchase at this event – you will have to bring a book with you to be signed
The book is available via several online book retailers and perhaps some brick and mortar bookstores. Here are the online retailers:
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Black-Heel-Strings-Choptank-Veterans/dp/0815611986
Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-heel-strings-robin-michel-caudell/1148178720
Mahogany Books – https://www.mahoganybooks.com/9780815611981
Porchlight Books – https://www.porchlightbooks.com/products/black-heel-strings-robin-michel-caudell-9780815611981
Syracuse University Press – https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/9319/black-heel-strings/
*Note* Books will not be available for purchase at this event – you will have to bring a book with you to be signed
The book is available via several online book retailers and perhaps some brick and mortar bookstores. Here are the online retailers:
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Black-Heel-Strings-Choptank-Veterans/dp/0815611986
Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-heel-strings-robin-michel-caudell/1148178720
Mahogany Books – https://www.mahoganybooks.com/9780815611981
Porchlight Books – https://www.porchlightbooks.com/products/black-heel-strings-robin-michel-caudell-9780815611981
Syracuse University Press – https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/9319/black-heel-strings/
About the Author
An award-winning journalist and videographer, Robin Michel Caudell is a staff writer at the Press Republican. Her poetry has been anthologized in national and international publications. A native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Caudell is a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park and Goddard College. She is an alumna of Cave Canem, Gotham Writers Workshop, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She served in the US Air Force and was a John L. Levitow Honor Graduate.