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Lady Banks' Commonplace Book
In which it is proved that southerners are bad at writing badly, legacies are both given and taken away, Mr. Thomas Wolfe is designated “writer most likely to drive you insane,” two southern women discover they have more in common than their love of dogs, the summer okra harvest has arrived, a Morning Glory Automobile is put up for sale, a woman walks barefoot through a swamp and is not afraid of snakes, and Lee Smith catches "Romantic Fever."
Arts Calendar | STARS |Gossip |Okra | The Blogs | Read This! | Found in Lady Banks' Commonplace Book | On her ladyship's bookshelf | Author2Author
 Dearest Readers,
The results of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton contest have been announced. Her ladyship, the editor is aware that this does not constitute news of a southern, much less literary, nature. In fact, she has noted that southerners tend to be under represented among the winners of this, the world’s most amusing bad writing contest. Her ladyship is of the opinion that this is because it is so very difficult for a southerner to tell a story badly.
Nevertheless, the Bulwer-Lytton contest never fails to make her ladyship laugh. At it is summer, after all. A time when readers prefer their reading to be light. Here then, are the southerners who—even if they did not win, nevertheless earned honorable mentions in this august competition. Her ladyship assures her readers—it doesn’t get any lighter than this.
Through the verdant plains of North Umbria walked Waylon Ogglethorpe and, as he walked, the clouds whispered his name, the birds of the air sang his praises, and the beasts of the fields from smallest to greatest said, "There goes the most noble among men" -- in other words, a typical stroll for a schizophrenic ventriloquist with delusions of grandeur. --- Tom Wallace of Columbia, SC
As Holmes, who had a nose for danger, quietly fingered the bloody knife and eyed the various body parts strewn along the dark, deserted highway, he placed his ear to the ground and, with his heart in his throat, silently mouthed to his companion, “Arm yourself, Watson, there is an evil hand afoot ahead. ---Dennis Pearce of Lexington, KY
Elaine was a big woman, and in her tiny Smart car, stakeouts were always hard for her, especially in the August sun where the humidity made her massive thighs, under her lightweight cotton dress, stick together like two walruses in heat. ---Derek Renfro of Ringgold, GA
It was a risky production unlike any mounted prior on the Met stage, the orchestra first imitating the perpetually beating heart of a man walled-in while in pursuit of wine, and then a soprano singing the plaintive aria of a barely alive woman stuffed up a chimney as her ancestral home was destroyed; however, it certainly was Opera Poe. ---Amy Torchinsky of Greensboro NC
(this entry was her ladyship, the editor’s favorite)
As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.---Judy Fischer of Prospect, KY
With sincere, even abject, apologies--
Her ladyship, the editor
Authors 'Round the South
Authors Round the South is the home of one of the most extensive listings of literary events in the South, including author readings & appearances, book club meetings, book & literary festivals, open mics, poetry slams and writing groups. No matter what part of the South you live in, you can find a bookstore and author appearance near you!
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Julie Andrews, author of The Very Fairy Princess at Books & Books Inc in Coral Gables, FL (July 11 2010)
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John Bakos, author of Greek Tragedy, Greek Closure at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (July 13 2010)
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John Biewen, author of Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 26 2010))
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| Russell Blount, author of The Battle of New Hope Church at Page & Palette in Fairhope, AL (July 10 2010) |
| Belle Boggs, author of Mattaponi Queen at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/15/2010) |
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Michele Andrea Bowen, author of MORE CHURCH FOLK at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/29/2010)
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Christina Bjergo, author of The Tao of Tarot at Malaprop's Bookstore & Cafe in Asheville, NC (06/10/2010)
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Nic Brown, author of Doubles at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC (July 6 2010), at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 13 2010) at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (7/22/2010)
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| McAlister Carol, author of BRAVE DONATELLA at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/17/2010) |
Carla Damron, author of Death in Zooville at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC (07/31/2010)
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| Howard David, author of Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen America at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/18/2010) |
| Jeff Davidson, author of Simpler Living: A Back to Basics Guide to Cleaning at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 14 2010) |
Dan Easterling, author of The Paralegal at Burry Bookstore in Hartsville, SC (07/23/2010)
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| Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through B at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 24 2010) |
| Rafe Esquith, author of Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Childr at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (7/31/2010) |
| Marilyn Fowler, author of Silent Echoes at Muse Book Shop in Deland, FL (07/16/2010) |
| Thomas French, author of Zoo Story at Inkwood Books in Tampa, FL (July 15 2010) |
| Rick Hathaway, author of A Love Driven Life: Cody, Me, & God at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (July 24 2010) |
 Denise Hildreth, author of Hurricanes in Paradise at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC (07/28/2010) |
| Joe Hoppel, author of People I've met, Things I've Done: 50 Years in Cou at Page After Page in Elizabeth City, NC (July 31 2010) |
| David Howard, author of Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen America at Country Bookshop Inc in Southern Pines, NC (July 19 2010) |
| Susan Isaacs, author of As Husbands Go at Books & Books Inc in Coral Gables, FL (July 22 2010) |
 Joshilyn Jackson, author of Backseat Saints at Book Exchange in Marietta, GA (07/22/2010) |
| Danielle Joseph, author of Indigo Blues at Books & Books Inc in Coral Gables, FL (July 17 2010) |
| Alex Kava, author of Damaged at Books & Books Inc in Coral Gables, FL (July 28 2010) |
| Stephanie Lauren, author of Pirate - The Unkindly Gentlemen at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (July 17 2010) |
| McKendree Long, author of No Good Like It Is at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC (07/10/2010) |
| Tom Lowe, author of 24th Letter at Muse Book Shop in Deland, FL (07/16/2010) |
| Shari Maurer, author of Change of Heart at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC (July 5 2010) |
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Peter Mayle, author of The Vintage Caper at McIntyre's Fine Books in Pittsboro, NC (July 18 2010)
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| Sharyn McCrumb, author of The Devil Amongst the Lawyers at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 6 2010), at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/07/10), at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (July 9 2010) |
Tom Mendicino, author of Probation at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 28 2010)
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Mary Alice Monroe, author of Turtle Summer at Booklovers Bookstore in Aiken, SC (07/27/2010) |
| Penelope O'Sullivan, author of Homeowners Comp Tree & Shrub HBK at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/14/2010) |
| H. A. Olsen, author of A Lone Palm Stands at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (July 10 2010) |
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Jack Parker, author of Parker's Guide to the Revolutionary War in South C at Burry Bookstore in Hartsville, SC (07/16/2010)
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| Warren Richey, author of Without a Paddle at Books & Books Inc in Coral Gables, FL (July 7 2010), at Inkwood Books in Tampa, FL (July 8 2010) |
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Alexandra Sokolff, author of Book of Shadows at Country Bookshop Inc in Southern Pines, NC (July 15 2010), at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/21/2010)
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| Tina Staley, author of Living Fully, Dying Well at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 29 2010) |
| Margot Starbuck, author of Unsqueezed: Springing Free from Skinny Jeans, Nose at Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC (July 16 2010) |
| Jeffrey Stepakoff, author of FIREWORKS OVER TOCCOA at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC (07/20/2010) |
Wendy Wax, author of The Accidental Bestseller at Fiction Addiction in Greenville, SC (07/12/2010)
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| Joseph Wheelan, author of Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, NC (07/28/2010) |
Susan Rebecca White, author of A Soft Place to Land at Book Exchange in Marietta, GA (07/22/2010) |
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The following authors are traveling this month and open to meeting with book clubs, talking to schools and participating in library programs. Visit the STARS directory at Authors Round the South for more information.
Helen Akinc
Topsail Island Beach, NC 8/1/2010
Kala Ambrose
Richmond, VA 7/16/2010
Hester Bass
Vicksburg, MS 8/6/2010
Orlando, FL 11/19/2010
Maggie Bishop
Todd, NC 7/10/2010
Banner Elk, NC 7/24/2010
Murrells Inslet, SC 7/25/2010
Galax, VA 9/11/2010
Jamestown, NC 9/24/2010
Sugar Mountain, NC 10/9/2010
Valle Crucis, NC 10/16/2010
John C. Campbell Folk School, NC 10/30/2011
Elizabeth O. Dulemba
Brasstown, NC 8/6/2010
Charlotte, NC 9/24/2010
Auburn, AL 10/8/2010
Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
Brasstown, NC 8/15/2010
Batt Humphreys
Florence, SC 7/10/2010
Dectaur, GA 7/17/2010
Greenville, SC 8/6/2010
Daytona, FL 9/24/2010
Peggy Millin
Alexander, NC 8/6/2010
Raleigh, NC 9/11/2010
Lake Logan, NC 10/25/2010
Pamela Bauer Mueller Statesboro, GA 10/22/2010
Valerie Nieman
Brasstown, NC 7/9/2010
Scott Owens
Raleigh, NC 9/26/2010
Jack Riggs
Lawrenceville, GA 8/5/2010
Sun City/Hilton Head, SC 8/19/2010
Donny Bailey Seagraves
Decatur, GA 9/3/2010
Athens, GA 10/14/2010
Maureen Sherbondy
Hickory, NC 7/13/2010
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Ten years of great southern lit for $9.95!
How well do you know your Southern lit? We dare you to use a pen on these crossword puzzles, each inspired by one of the winning titles of the SIBA Book Award, honoring ten years of the very best in Southern literature as chosen by the people who would know...Southern Independent Booksellers! A great gift for your book club, for puzzle-lovers, and anyone who loves Southern literature.
$9.95 paperback. Available at Southern Indie Bookstores.
Play a sample puzzle online!
The south lost several iconic figures this recently—people who left a lasting legacy on all of us. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) is perhaps the best known. (A friend of her ladyship, the editor, wondered “Is there anyone left in the senate that can quote classical poetry?”) Also gone to his rest is Jimmy Dean, a household name for many of us in the South in the most literal sense—for is there an icebox south of the Virginia border that doesn’t have packages of his pork country sausage tucked away in the bin for breakfasts?
On a more personal note, her ladyship mourns the loss of Mrs. Virginia Hobson Hicks, a bookseller of the finest kind, and a truly gracious southern lady. Wanda Jewell, the director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, remembers “She always had a surprising Southern tale that involved industry insiders (or created them), from giving Pat Conroy his first ever book signing, to growing up across the street from the Ingram family. She came from a long line of Southern booksellers and was raised in The Haunted Bookshop.”
Oh, to be able to write “I was raised in the haunted bookshop” in one’s autobiography.
A legacy, no longer: Mr. Wendell Berry is pulling his personal papers from the University of Kentucky archives, in protest against the influence of the coal industry over his alma mater. His statement, delivered in true Berryian fashion by typewritten letter, cited the renaming of the basketball dorm the Wildcat Coal Lodge as the last straw. "I don't think the University of Kentucky can be so ostentatiously friendly to the coal industry” Berry said in an interview “... and still be a friend to me and the interests for which I have stood for the last 45 years." Read more
But if one southern university is suffering, another is not:
An alumnus has donated to the University of Alabama the A. S. Williams III Collection of History and Culture of the South—one of the largest private collections of Americana and Southern history. It includes some 20,000 books and over 3,000 written documents spanning the era from 1820 through the early 1900s, as well as over 12,000 photographs. Her ladyship is frankly salivating.
And speaking of lasting legacies, a writer explores the Georgia segment of the Southern Literary Trail, starting at The Wren’s Nest, home of Joel Chandler Harris, the author of the Uncle Remus stories. “I love how it came to have such a wonderful name,” she writes, “ A family of wrens built a nest in the mailbox, and no one in the family could bear to disturb it. A second mailbox was added so the birds could be saved.” Her ladyship thinks this was a perfectly sensible approach to the problem of wrens in one’s mailbox.
Mr. Fred Chappell, a man who is the dictionary definition of a southern gentleman, is the recipient of the 2010 John Tyler Caldwell Award from the Humanities—the state of North Carolina’s most prestigious public humanities honor.
The NC Humanities council has also announced that it is investing nearly $60,000 in eight cultural projects, including the Southern Documentary Fund, which is producing a film on Elizabeth Spencer called Landscapes of the Heart, as well as two literary festivals: The “On the Same Page Literary Festival” sponsored by the Ashe County Arts Council and Ashe County Public Library, and the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival.
Elsewhere:
Faulkner on the auction block
 A new Southern Literature Collection is compared to Song of the South
Students at Loyola are required to read A Confederacy of Dunces. “Southern literature is known for its connection to place, and no book better represents a place than this one” says administrators.
Lists like this are made to be argues with. Her ladyship wonders how many of her readers agree that these are the 25 Books All Georgians Should Read:
Legacies must begin somewhere, is it not so? Here, then, is the happy news of new booksellers that have opened their doors. Destined to be legacies in the future, one trusts:
Old Books (still) on Front Street in Wilmington, NC
The Purple Raven (what a delightful name!) in Hillsborough, NC
Over the Moon Books in Crozet, VA. (Her ladyship was utterly charmed when she read their public appeal last month for volunteers to help shelve books; “Wanted: anyone who knows the alphabet”)
Lady Banks’ Commonplace Book
 Romantic Fever
“I myself was in love with my best friend’s father, three houses down the road. Mr. Owens had huge dark soulful eyes, thick black hair, a mustache that dropped down on either side of his mouth, and the prettiest singing voice around. Every night after supper he’d sit out in his garden by the river and play his guitar and sing for us and every other kid in the neighborhood who’d gather around to listen.
Mr.Owens played songs like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “The Alabama Waltz.” He died the year we were thirteen, from an illness described as “romantic fever.” Though later I would learn that the first word was actually “rheumatic,” in my own mind it remained “romantic fever,” an illness I associated with those long summer evenings when my beloved Mr. Owens played the old sad songs while lightning bugs rose like stars from the misty weeds along the black river and right down the road—three houses away—my own parents were kissing like crazy as night came on.”
From “Sex, Love, Death, Sex, High School” by Lee Smith, in Long Story Short: Flash Fiction by Sixty-five of North Carolina’s Finest Writers (UNC Press, 2009)
Author 2 Author: River to Shellie and Shellie to River
River Jordan and Shellie Rushing Tomlinson have a lot in common. They are both southern writers. They both have radio shows. They both try to do what their mamas tell them to do, and they both insist on including their dogs as members of the family.
They also both have new books coming out next spring. Shellie’s will be a follow up to her bestselling book Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On! “Bookstores were shelving me in self-help,” she says, “something I still find uproariously funny.” In the spirit of self-help, Southern Style, the new book will be called Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy. River Jordan’s new nonfiction book Prayers for Strangers—born of a New Year’s resolution she made that has since taken her farther than she ever expected to go—will be released at about the same time.
Two sassy, southern, dog-lovin’ women. Two new books. We thought it would be fun to lock them in a room together and see what happened.
River Jordan to Shellie Rushing Tomlinson
 Your writing career path has been what many people might call – original – just like you. What has been the greatest surprise or discovery you’ve had along the way?
I know this may come off all Pollyanna but I've truly not seen the competitiveness or vindictiveness among published authors that you might expect to be there. On the contrary, the writing friends I've made seem to not only celebrate each other's success, but to help promote the others' work. That has been a most delightful surprise.
 You’re most recent book – Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On has made repeated appearances on SIBA's bestseller list. To what do you think you might contribute this stellar happy news?
Who really knows? It's a wonderful puzzle! But, if I must guess, I'd say my work seems to hold a mirror up before readers. When they look into it they see themselves and their people. Somehow, I get to benefit from those warm fuzzies, almost like family, (even if they see me as the crazy relative in the attic!)
Shellie, you have a terrific fan base of friends, readers, and supporters you often refer to also as your ‘porchers’ from your radio show. How have these fans enriched or touched your life?
I know I just mentioned family, but I'm going to have to go there again. My readers have become that for me. I'm humbled when they let me into their world, when they feel so comfortable with me that they actually share their hearts, whether it is what they dream of or what torments their souls. I may not be able to change a thing but I consider listening an honor.
Speaking of radio – you do this wild and crazy thing every week called LIVE RADIO – and your program All Things Southern has it’s own fan club called Porchers- how has the radio show grown or changed since the first day you went on? Is there one central thing that has remained the same?
Live radio, as you well know River, is a rush, plain and simple. It's a tightrope. Thankfully, mine seems to have a trampoline under it instead of a concrete floor because I get to try and try again! That would be the constant-- my dogged determination to produce a better product the next time. The maxim, "never let 'em see you sweat", I murder it weekly.
You have one of those things I call a very beautiful, messy life – it’s full of family, friends, grandbabies, and lots of love! How do you possibly find time or the energy to write in the midst of it? What advice would you offer to people who want to write and become published that have a hard time juggling all manner of things in their life to accomplish that?
The only way to write in a big beautiful, messy, life is to learn how to churn the words out in the middle of life's unending dramas. The writer's retreat—why, it sounds heavenly, but I can't do it. I have to keep the deadlines knocked out in the middle of it all. The second half of your question speaks to one of my soapbox subjects. If you need to write, if you have to write because it's what you do and who you are, you'll find time to write. None others need apply sounds harsh, but it's the cold hard truth from where I sit.
We first met at Kathy Patrick’s now infamous Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Getaway Weekend (a time to never be forgotten ) – how have book clubs had an impact on your readership?
Hooray for book clubs! Where would we be without them? And, on that note, without Ms Pulpwood Queen herself tending the flame? Book clubs have been a huge part of the success of Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On. FYI, Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy will be out in the spring and I love to SKYPE with book clubs that, for whatever reasons, can't have me there in person. Readers rock!
I'm curious about that next book – Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy –scheduled to be released Spring 2011. I know it's the sequel to Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On, which documented the cradle to grave advice a southern belle gets from her mama. So how in the world do you follow that?
Well, obviously, you don't. You can't do the cradle to grave thing but once. With Sue Ellen's Girl I took the fact that the bookstores were shelving me in self-help, something I still find uproariously funny, and I just ran with it, telling my stories and giving advice on a variety of subjects. You don't have to be an expert to do that, right? Right, River?
Okay – I can’t let you get away without a Momma question. My mother once offered to stand in front of a bookstore in her hometown and pass out postcards of my book cover and info to all the people coming in and driving by. (I told her I didn’t think that was legal.) Has your mother offered to help assist you on your writing career? Offered any special advice truly that has come in handy?
Mama has offered to help in more ways that time or space would allow me to explain. One of my favorite offers came as she was helping man the book table and the line was getting long. "Hand me some of those books," she said. "I can sign 'em for you." She understood when I gracefully declined, of course. (I couldn't help thinking that perhaps the readers wouldn't appreciate her thoughtfulness.) She took it upon herself to reorganize the line, instead. And they let her! That's why my sisters and I call her Marshall Dillon.
What has surprised you most about your own writing? Have you discovered something about yourself funny or otherwise that you didn’t really know before?
River honey, the funniest thing about my writing is that I never, but never, set out to be funny. Did I say never? Who would do that anyway? It's like trying to be tall on purpose! You either are or you aren't and I never thought I was! Somehow, when I launched All Things Southern and started my little "porch chats" people started tagging me as a humorist. Terrified of the label, I tried my best to avoid it. I would even change the subject when it came up because I could see where the bar was being stationed. Finally I just had to go with it, a la Doris Day, "What will be will be."
Flash forward to a time when you are a very, very old person – let’s say a hundred and twenty-twelve. When you look back over the life behind Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, what do you hope to see?
I hope she'll have figured out how to live fully and love well. I hope she'll be someone who learned to live out the joy and hope she found in Christ in a honest and real way that drew untold numbers to the Light of the World. Is that too lofty? Good. Worthwhile goals are never easily reached.
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson to River Jordan
 River, you write from a place that seems to pull back the curtain of what we see around us to reveal the most extraordinary things happening in the midst of our most ordinary lives. Can you remember the first time you realized that you saw things from a different perspective from the people around you, and does that include your family— or were you raised by people who saw the things you see?
First – I kinda crack up here ’cause I feel like I’m the kid in that movie – “I see dead people.” My grandmother was a major influence when I was very young. She seemed to be very aware that our simple lives held great truths and grand dimensions. And of course growing up playing with a bevy of cousins with great imaginations, plenty of ‘yard time’ and the freedom to run just a little bit wild. But I do remember the magic my mother would show me of a southern storm on a summer night, standing at this big window. Wind howl, lighting crash, thunder boom. She loves storms and didn’t want me to be afraid of them so I was always watching ‘the show.’ Those experiences certainly make their way into my novels.
 With a history as a playwright, three novels, The Miracle of Mercy Land, a southern mystical mystery hitting stores in September and a nonfiction work Praying for Strangers slated to be released in Spring 2011, you seem to be at no loss for words. Which genre would be your favorite storytelling vehicle and is there a genre you haven’t written in that calls to you?
I love the otherworldly possibilities of the Spanish writers and Portuguese writers. I have really wanted to write a novel that doesn’t have anything mystical in it. So I always try to go in that direction – just a straight up story. Then something always shows up – a strange bit of smoke, an odd scent in the air, a little gold dust falling – so I put it down and just keep writing. I used to want to wrestle those things out of a novel which is funny because that’s the very things I love about writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Paulo Coelho.
Praying for Strangers is unlike anything else you have on the market. I’m guessing that could have made you feel somewhat vulnerable, like you were opening yourself up to your readers and the world at large on a different level. Did you find that openness harder or easier than you thought it would be?
Actually, I write about that in the book. Not the vulnerability – that wasn’t so much what I felt but about the privacy issue. As you know, I never intended to write Praying for Strangers. It was a private moment, a New Year’s resolution, and then a daily journey from there. Now, I’ve taken something very personal, very private, and put it on the page. My privacy boundaries just went out the window. The vulnerable will come next Spring with the book is out in hardback.
Your radio program CLEARSTORY airs each Thursday at 5:00 CT out of Nashville on WRFN 107.1 and streams live on your website. One of your strengths as a radio host is your calming voice. Your sound is the epitome of “easy listening” radio. I honestly feel my blood pressure drop and my multi-tasking self-slow down whenever I listen. Enquiring minds want to know if this is instinctive for you or a skill you have developed.
Strange you say that. People tell me that all the time. I’ve had readers at festival come up to me after a reading and say, “You should really be on the radio,” when they didn’t know I had a show. I never meant to be the voice drug of choice but I do think it helps authors when I interview them on the program each week. They seem to go from being a little nervous to just relaxing and telling stories.
Since you started the mama thing, you know I’m going to have to turn the tables on you with a mama question of my own. Your mama is obviously proud of your accomplishments if she is willing to promote your work in front of the bookstore, but you will always be her child so I’m assuming she still gives you advice, too. What does she stress most often, (and do you listen?)
I’m sure my gypsy writer soul has frustrated Mama a little bit on occasion. She wants me to have health insurance and a ‘steady job’ so we tussle a little over the bottom line. However, on a serious note I do seek her advice. We had several wonderful offers and much interest from publishers for the Praying for Strangers book. It was a tough decision to make as each publisher had a personal love for the manuscript and brought different strengths to the table. I finally went out to the porch, sat down in the rocker, and called Mama. I caught her up on things and then she talked. Out of all the beautiful choices she told me she thought Penguin would be the best home for the manuscript. I listened and took her advice.
You mentioned Kathy Patrick, the Pulpwood Queen. I know what she has meant to both of our writing careers as well as the work of countless other authors. What’s the number one take-away lesson our industry could learn from Kathy?
That authors love to meet readers and vice versa. That the love for literature is not a snobbish, cliquish circle. The relationships that have been forged between writers and readers at her events truly inspire me. One of the greatest everlasting effects I’ve ever seen. I would recommend to anyone who is involved in the book business in any capacity needs to venture on down to Jefferson, Texas in January to experience what this weekend is really about.
Okay, I’m going to throw you a real curve. Ready? You’ve received great critical reviews and your lyrical, southern writing style has been compared by reviewers to Harper Lee, Flannery O’Conner, Faulkner, and even Capote and Hemingway. If, at the end of your career, there was to be a one word review of your work, a legacy known all over the world, what word do you think would best describe your writing?
I’ve been thinking about this since you shot me these questions. I’ve come up with magical, mystical, honest, raw, real, other-worldly. . .Wait, wait, I’ve got it. I’ll ride on out of here Sunday dinner satisfied if I can just get a one word review that hangs in the air long after I’ve turned to dust and ashes. Let it forever be - Bodacious. Yes, definitely bodacious. I just love that word. Well, and Bonafide. I’ll take two please. Bonafide and Bodacious as in, “She may be long, some dead but I’ll tell you right here right now that woman was bonafide.” To which the other party might respond. “Yep, I reckon. I ain’t never read her but I hear her work is most bodacious.”
River, what have you found to be the very best advice anyone has ever given you about writing and what hard-earned experience from your own career would you would most want aspiring authors to know?
Best writing advice – To listen to the story asking to be told. Advice to aspiring authors? I really used to think that getting my first novel published would change my life overnight. Now I roll around on the floor and laugh and cry when I think of that. I would never want anyone to lower their expectations but I would encourage them to embrace the writing life over the long road and enjoy every day of it.
If no one could ever read your words, would you still have to write them down and why?
I’d write with a stick in the sand, paint words on cave walls, or tattoo them on my skin if I had to.I am in the company of creators that must tell the story of what it was to have been human. That we roamed the earth like bottled lighting, settled in cities like an autumn hush, we blended and broke away from each other but in the end we were a crazy, passionate people, who held hands and stared into the night sky making wishes on the wind. About how mighty and magnificence we were in all our beautiful imperfection.
Thanks, River. For me, one of your great strengths is your originality. I’m glad you have the courage to be an original in a world where it’s safer to be a copycat. May you never stop sharing your perspectives that so enlarge our own!
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson
Shellie Rushing Tomlinson lives in Lake Providence, Louisiana with her husband, Phil. She is the author of Lessons Learned on Bull Run Road, Twas the Night before the Very First Christmas and Southern Comfort with Shellie Rushing Tomlinson and the recently released title from Penguin Group USA, Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On which became a 2009 SIBA Book Award Finalist. She is currently working on the sequel to be released Spring 2011, Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy! Shellie is owner and publisher of All Things Southern and the host of a daily radio show and weekly video segment by the same name. You can listen to Shellie's All Things Southern LIVE Talk Show each Friday morning from 8:00 to 9:00 CST on FOX 92.7 FM. When Shellie isn't writing, speaking, taping her show, answering email or writing content for the next deadline, you can find her playing tennis with Dixie Belle, (the chocolate lab who thinks she is in charge of running Shellie's life).
River Jordan
River Jordan began her writing career as a playwright and spent over ten years with the Loblolly Theatre group, where her original works were produced, including Mama Jewels: Tales from Mullet Creek, Soul, Rhythm and Blues, and Virga. She is the author of three novels, The Gin Girl, The Messenger of Magnolia Street, and Saints In Limbo, as well as The Deep, Down, & Dirty South – a southern girl recollects, a collection of short essays. Her writing has been compared to Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.
Ms. Jordan teaches and speaks around the country on "The Power of Story", and produces and hostsCLEARSTORYon WRFN, Nashville. When not traveling the back roads of America, River lives with her husband Owen Hicks, and their Great Pyrennees lap dog, Titan in Nashville, Tennessee. She thinks about where stories come from - places and people and moods of the heart while rocking on her front porch. And long after the sun sets over the ridge, she waits for the moon to rise, watches the stars come out, and stares off into the blue-night sky believing with all her might.
Her newest book, The Miracle of Mercy Land will be released September 7, 2010, followed by Praying for Strangers, to be released in the spring of 2011.
From the Blogs
{The Authors}
Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour: If a young person were to come to me and sit at my knee and say, “Old Professor Gessner, you seem so wise. (Here I would nod.) Could you tell me the best book for me to read if I want to drive myself insane with ambition and dreams of glory?” I would reply: “Yes, son/young lady. I recommend that you run out and buy a copy of Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and a River. That will do the trick.” And it will, it will! read more here
 Mindy Friddle: This is what I think about literary awards: they come about from selfless acts and are created and run by generous people. They are vital to writers and the literary world because they keep writing important. Literary awards shine a big bright spotlight on novels and nonfiction and poetry and short fiction--they keep it all vital for authors and readers. Can you tell I'm leading up to something?
I just received word SECRET KEEPERS received the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. A huge honor, an annual prize "for the best novel set in the South." The award includes $2,500, an expense-paid trip to New York City, and a luncheon at the Yacht Club. read more here
Nancy Pate: Hollywood calls them rom-coms, as in romantic comedies. Publishers label them chick-lit. I’ve always thought of them as beach books, even if I’m reading them in winter. They make me think of sun and porches and peaches and girl-talk. But now it really issummer, and I’ve been downing them like pink lemonade. read more here
Peggy Payne: I'm thinking of rehoming my beloved Morning Glory Car, in which I've had many literary thoughts and even written a few immortal pages.For the right collector of literary stuff, particularly North Carolina or Southern, this hand-stencilled-by-the-author art car will be a real find. For the right offer, I'll throw in signed copies of my books. picture of the car here!
Darnell Arnoult: I don’t know how to make a small pot of soup; my husband doesn’t know how to plant a small garden. read more here
A Good Blog is Hard to Find: One day I’ll set a novel in the waiting room of a rural Southern hospital. That way I can use the language I grew up hearing whenever illness was the subject. Two dominant traits emerge when my people speak about being sick: 1. Extreme exaggeration of one’s actual condition (gruesome details are a plus) and 2. Mispronunciation of words related to health. read more here
 The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature: When Mark Twain set Huckleberry Finn on that raft in the Mississippi River, put vernacular speech in his mouth, and used his naive integrity as a prism through which to view the hypocrisy of nineteenth century Southern society, he set the mold for Maurice Manning’s The Common Man (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2010). It’s a voice established from the first line of the first poem:
Moonshine
The older boy said, Take ye a slash
o’ this — hit’ll make yore sticker peck out —
That opening gambit can still set my husband guffawing. He loves a good bawdy joke.
read more
Fried Chicken and Coffee: Go to the Summer Redneck Games, if that’s your thing. I’d like to point out that a true Redneck Games would have tobacco spitting contests instead of watermelon seeds. I feel like rambling and riffing, as sometimes happens when I’m not writing well, so bear this post with good humor, if you will.
When I was a kid, my parents and brother belonged to a reenactment group called the The Ameigh Valley Irregulars Black Powder Club–pre-1840s dress and supplies recommended and sometimes required.The club was loosely organized under the aegis of the NMLRA. This was a good time, believe me. The club would meet every month or so and shoot at the range a couple times a month, or maybe once a month, I can’t remember. When we first cleared a couple fields to set up the firing range, I was ten tears old or so, and my idea of fun included running the hills with the owner’s German Shepherd, Fudgie, or swimming in the large pond called Packard’s Puddle, or simply lying on the ground and watching the adults brushhog everything. Then I’d burrow into the grass and tree limbs pile before we burned it later in the day. The mess made a great fort.
read more here/
Gunpowder Cowboy Boots and Mascara:
You might be surprised to learn that I can name every one of the Disciples. I can list the books of the New Testament and make a pretty fair run at the Old. I always get hung up in and around the Kings and can't get going, again until the Psalms and Proverbs section. It is a function of memory not of divinity. I can also say the Declaration, the Preamble to the Constitution and damn near every word of The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.
Johnny was at the Back Table at lunch, today. He said he was real close to getting married and we all congratulated him. I asked him how long he'd been going with his girlfriend and he answered, "September 15th, 1968."
We ain't much for rushing into things down here. read more here
 A Novel Experience Video Blog: The House on Royal Oak watch it here
A Reading Life: My dog and I have a routine in the summer. Every day we go for a walk during the hottest part of the day, ambling down the road that skirts our small neighborhood boat dock, aiming for the fields of as-yet-undeveloped properties at the end of the road. We turn, wander through the scrubby sand hills, and end up at the edge of the sound—an expanse of waving green spartina grass, marked out by deer trails, mounded banks of oysters shells and sand bars. Here I slip off my sandals and, barefoot even at high tide, we wander out into the marsh, heading for a small strip of sand at the edge of the Intracoastal Waterway several hundred yards out… The response I get from people when I tell them about this little daily ritual is almost universally the same: “You walk through a swamp, barefoot? What about snakes!?” read more
Blue Bicycle Books: Signing books while holding babies and boiling peanuts. Is there no end to the talents of the Lee Brothers? read more
Book Witches (Spellbound Books): Don’t be alarmed if you spy some unusually large ladybugs downtown today; there hasn’t been an accident at the atomic power…Lady Bug books at story time. read more
 Bound to be read: The book club discusses Postcards from a Dead Girl (Harper Perennial, 2010, 272 pp., pbk., reg. $13.99; sale $12.59) by Kirk Farber on Thursday, July 15, 2010. “Kirk Farber has a style very similar to Chuck Palahniuk, with offbeat observations, a view of our world through a slightly distorted lens, and a tone that’s … hilarious and tragic at the same time.” —Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain Sid is going crazy . . .
A telemarketer at a travel agency, Sid is becoming unhinged and superneurotic. Lately he’s been obsessed with car washes and mud baths. His hypochondria is driving his doctor sister mad. And it’s all because of his ex-girlfriend, Zoe, who’s sending him postcards from her European adventure, one that they were supposed to take together. It’s all quite upsetting. read more
Burry Bookstore: Trenton, New Jersey, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has inherited a "lucky" bottle from her Uncle Pip. Problem is, Uncle Pip didn't specify if the bottle brought good luck or bad luck. . . .BAD LUCK: Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, has run up a gambling debt of $786,000 with mobster Bobby Sunflower and is being held until the cash can be produced. Nobody else will pay to get Vinnie back, leaving it up to Stephanie, office manager Connie, and file clerk Lula to raise the money if they want to save their jobs. GOOD LUCK: Being in the business of tracking down people, Stephanie, Lula, and Connie have an advantage in finding Vinnie. If they can rescue him, it will buy them some time to raise the cash. BAD LUCK: Finding a safe place to hide Vinnie turns out to be harder than raising $786,000. read more
Pulpwood Queen: TOP TWENTY COUNTDOWN FOR JUNE 2010 PULPWOOD QUEENS' BESTSELLER LIST OF HITS!!!!
1) My Orange Duffel Bag by Sam Bracken and Echo Garrett
2) The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin
3) Where Southern Cross the Dog by Allen Whitley
4) The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life" by Kathy L. Patrick
read the full list here
Regulator: The e-book and publishing industries were thrown into turmoil yesterday by a little noticed announcement from an upstart technology company. Reeve Hobbs, CEO of tiny Kumquat Technologies, unveiled his company’s surprising new “R-Book,” which seems likely to leave current e-book technologies in the dust.“Unlike the competition,” Hobbs said, “The R-Book is designed to do just one thing--to serve as the best possible platform for reading books. And it quite simply kicks butt at what it does.” read more here
Page 854: "Slow" has become the new cool. Perhaps this is most evident in the slow food movement, which emphasizes locally grown products and a true appreciation of eating. Now, there is a "slow reading" movement that is gaining attention and followers. Is isn't so much a reaction to "speed reading" as it is a reaction to distracted reading. The internet's effect on our attention span has been widely discussed, but there is also its effect on our seeing reading as a matter of consuming as much information as we can as quickly as possible, by, for example, jumping from one page to another by the use of hyperlinks (such as the one I created in the previous paragraph). To reestablish a deeper connection with books and words, teachers are returning to such "old-fashioned" strategies as reading aloud in the classroom, and memorization (of poems, for example). As Lindsay Waters of Harvard University put it, "Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don't even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words." Chew those words slowly. read more here
It’s a hundred degrees in the shade out there—why, it must be Okra Season! Southern Indie Booksellers have a selected a basket full of books for the Summer Okra Picks —great southern books, fresh off the vine. From backseats to blueberries, freedom to folklore (and good Southern food!), these titles highlight just what it is that makes Southern literature great. All the books have the following things in common: 1) They are Southern in nature. 2) They are 2010 Summer releases and 3) There is a SIBA member Bookstore who is really excited about the book. Southern booksellers love their Southern authors—we grow good books!
The Okra Picks, 2010 Summer Edition:
Fiction
      
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
Grand Central Publishing, June 2010
9780446582346 24.99
By Accident by Susan Kelly
Pegasus Books, May 2010
9781605980881 24.00
Countdown by Deborah Wiles
Scholastic Press, May 2010
9780545106054 $17.99
The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller
Razorbill, August 2010
9781595143082 17.99
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore
Shaye Areheart Books, August 2010
9780307395030 23.00
On Folly Beach by Karen White
New American Library, May 2010
9780451229212 15.00
The Secret Child by Marti Healy
Design Group Press, June 2010
9780979127779 24.95
Nonfiction
    
Big Appetite: My Southern-Fried Search for theMeaning of Life by Sam McLeod
Touchstone Books, June 2010
9781439188163 23.00
The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family by Jim Minick
Thomas Dunne Books , August 2010
9780312571429 27.99
The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking: A Celebration of the Foods, History, and Romance Handed Down from England, Africa, the Caribbean,France by Joseph Earl Dabney
Cumberland House Publishing, May 2010
9781402230981 29.99
Freedom Summer: The Savage Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy by Bruce Watson
Viking Books, June 2010
9780670021703 27.95
Oraien Catledge: Photographs by Oraien E Catledge,
University Press of Mississippi , August 2010
9781604735000 35.00
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