Becky Ellis, author of “Little Avalanches,” will speak at the Vicksburg YMCA April 24 at 6 p.m.

Ellis won the 2024 Rubery Book Award, as well as the 2024 Independent Author Network Award for “Little Avalanches.” She was named a finalist in a number of other book award competitions.

Ellis’s book is a memoir about the difficult relationship she had growing up with her father, who served in World War II as a member of the Timberwolf unit, a group of specialty fighters who went into battle first and were met with a very high mortality rate.

After spending most of her life trying to understand her father and the PTSD he suffered from, on the eve of his 90th birthday, she asked him about the war. Breaking 70 years of silence, he shared his experiences with her. She spent the next year chronicling his war experience and came to understand him on a much deeper level, she said.

“Little Avalanches” is Ellis’s debut memoir. She makes her home in Portland, Oregon.

Copies of her book, “Little Avalanches,” will be available for purchase for $20 at the event. Ellis donates a portion of the proceeds to Disabled American Veterans. The event is open to everyone, and veterans are encouraged to attend.