Scags at 7

By Deborah Emin

"I made up the name that everyone calls me. I made it up because I didn’t like the name Mama gave me when I was born when no one could ask me what I wanted to be called. So I’m called, because I say so, Scags.”

So begins the revolutionary Scags Series, which spans a woman's life from age 7 to 45, organized around the seasons of a year.

The first volume, Scags at 7, is told from the point of view of the 7-year-old Scags who has begun to understand that the much beloved Pops and the overshadowed Mama are not the people who can protect her from the world. Living in a very protected and safe environment of Skokie, Illinois in 1958 is not a bulwark against the turmoil of family life which for a 7 year old is the world.

Begin the journey of Scags, a young woman who is as different sounding as her name.

Scags sounds like a car horn beeping once to say hello, like a leap into dry leaves all raked up in a pile, or like the sound a dog makes, his claws racing on the sidewalk when his owner lets him off the leash."

The Scags Series
Volume One: Scags at 7
Volume Two: Scags at 18
Volume 3: Scags at 30
Volume 4: Scags at 45

"Deborah Emin has the uncanny ability to capture the voice of a seven year old girl.... Scags is an intelligent, curious and captivating character." - Supr, Goodreads

"I re-read this book, as I will with Scags at 18, because I want them to be fresher in my mind." -Julia, Goodreads

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sullivan Street Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9780981942865

Deborah Emin

Deborah Emin is the author of the Scags Series, a 4-part exploration of the many ways over a woman’s lifetime that she awakens to who she is and how she is meant to live her life. Told in four different first-person voices, Scags grows from childhood to young adult to adult and then to a not-yet-finished person but one who knows that the quest to understand and find meaningful activity never ends. Reviewers have praised the Scags series as "clever,""lyrical" and "moving" with the "uncanny ability to capture the voice of a seven year old girl". Deborah has had poems and short stories published in a number of literary journals and was a reporter for Gay City News, OpEd News and has had numerous stories published on alternet.org, Huffingon Post, Mondoweiss, Thrive and other papers and online zines where her brand of political and literary synthesis has been welcomed. Keep up with Deborah on Facebook @deborahemin, Twitter @deminlit, or visit her blog at https://deborahemin.com/, and follow her annual road trip: she would love to meet up with you at a bookstore.