As a columnist for a local newspaper, I get all kinds of crazy stories. Just like the one that follows.

My friend Angela Moore, of Marion, is known as the hillbilly psychic. She’s so good at what she does, national Court TV has sought her out as a guest. Just this week, matter of fact.
But that’s not why she came to me in fits of embarrassment. The other night she and her husband decided to go to the movies. That wasn’t the bad part. The bad part came because women have small bladders — and other “problem” parts.

“It was the most horrible embarrassing thing,” she said of what happened while in her seat and watching “Balls of Fury.” “We always sit near the front and on the outside row, with me next to the aisle.”

Angela excused herself to go to the restroom. As she returned, something had happened to a character in the movie, so she leaned into her husband as she went to sit down.
She kept leaning, trying to figure out what was happening on the screen.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, and affectionately placed a hand on his leg. “What did I miss?”

“Huh?” a voice questioned.
“

I said, ‘WHAT IS GOING ON? I missed it while in the bathroom.”

She inched closer and tried to give her man a nice hug. The lighting on the screen brightened, and Angela noticed the fellow she was rubbing on wasn’t her husband.

“Nope, it was the startled face of an Asian teenager,” she said, wondering how she could have mixed up the two. “He had spiked hair that enhanced his look of horror, and I am telling you, it was pure horror on his face.”

She stammered around apologizing profusely, trying to right her wrongs. Then the second unthinkable occurred. This is something never discussed in polite company, so if you’re POLITE COMPANY, don’t read another word.

“I was bent over and started backing up when, because of the popcorn I’d consumed, I broke wind, a mild puff, but nonetheless, the wind was broken.”

Thankfully, it was dark, and Angela was hoping her moment of less-than-glory had been masked by the sounds from the movie.

“I started to walk up the aisle, when good Lord, it happened again,” she said. “I start to walk more quickly, and I swear each step caused a small gaseous emission — like a very muffled machine gun.”

Never in her life has something like this ever happened, she said. She swooned much like Marie Osmond on “Dancing with the Stars.

"I finally couldn’t take it anymore and literally collapsed on the floor in a fit of suppressed laughter,” she said. “It was due to mortification. James was watching this whole thing and was rolling in his seat. Every time I’d try to get up, I’d start laughing or he would, so I just laid there until it all passed.”

About that time, Angela caught sight of an alarmed young woman in the back row who thought she was suffering a heart attack and proceeded down the aisle to perform CPR.
Poor Angela scurried back to her seat and hid, escaping before the lights ever came on.

“That’s why God made DVDs,” I told her. “It’s much safer than venturing out into the world as a middle-aged woman who’s half blind.”

This is the opinion of Susan Reinhardt. Contact her at sreinhardt@CITIZEN-TIMES.com. and visit her at http://www.susanreinhardt.com/

Biscuit lovin'.

As you may or may not be aware, a few weeks ago one of those unfortunate little virtual web-hiccups (it's a real phenomenon that happens when, uh, I guess when the internet drinks its vodka and sodas too quickly) ended up plaguing this group blog. A collective "oh no" went up, but of course it was in that southern sort-of-hushed way. A lot of really, really good writing, at times off-the-cuff, at times hyper-plotted like a connect-the-dots puzzle-either way, though, I'd heard from several folks that A Good Blog Is Hard To Find had become very high-quality very quickly.

It's good fortunate for all, then that in the Great Blog Fire-nado my introductory blog was lost, burned to the ground, I'm told, ashes like Margaret Mitchell's original house (from what I know, she never actually resided in what's now labeled The Margaret Mitchell House-but then, I don't know that much) .

Good fortune for me, as well-at least in terms of grouping myself amongst the growing legion of really, really good writers that all gather together here. Last time, if you'll recall (and you probably don't-I don't fault you for that at all!), I said that I felt a bit sheepish (read as: very, very much like a nervous, antsy sheep) being labeled a "southern author". I write, kinda-in that new form of journalistic-ish-ness that's called, a bit sarcastically, "blogging". I'm southern-I mean, I live in Decatur, Georgia.

That was where, when last we spoke, the Venn diagram overlapping ended. Lo and behold, surprise surprise, I was wrong-you and I, we're not so different after all.

We both have a love affair with biscuits.

I learned this the good, old-fashioned way-through experience. For the past few months, I've been attempting to put together what we in the book-selling industry call "a book event that will make money and also make people happy and leave them feeling wonderful". I know it's a hefty and scientific term, but what can I say- it's necessary, and the book-selling biz is nothing if not, uh, hefty...and...scientific?

I digress.

When I saw that Delia Champion, owner and chef of the Flying Biscuit cafe, one of those pretty-much-vital-to-the-Georgia-experience nook-ish dining establishments, had a new cook book coming out, I did the bookstore publicist thing, waved my magic wand, and conjured up an event with Delia here at Wordsmiths Books.



(Now, I'd like to point out that in no way shape or form does my job involve magic wands, unless Amy Sedaris is involved. However, since anytime folks wander through and ask things like "so can you get Tom Brokaw to make cupcakes with Alexander McCall Smith? My book club of four ladies who play canasta would LOOOOOVE it" I have the distinct impression that magic wands are in the popular conscious in regards to bookstore author events, I don't want to break anyone's spangly gossamer unicorn dreams.)

Actually, given the fact that The Flying Biscuit has (to some misplaced discontent) recently opened itself up to franchise and that, as such, Delia Champion had been running herself ragged attempting to make sure the newly opened Biscuit locations, the "cookbook launch" event here at the store actually took place about a month or two after the book actually released, but pay that no mind. What matters is that, on a cool Sunday afternoon here at the end of October, Delia Champion of the Flying Biscuit (assisted by one of her catering folk, whose name slips my too-sieve-like memory, and armed with fluffy flying biscuits, cran-apple butter, hummingbird cupcakes, and more...a seemingly endless variety of the beloved treats and tasties) drew a crowd of around 50 here to the store, of all demographics, all united in one thing:

Biscuit Lovin'.

Delia brought warmth, she brought wit, she brought a hell of a lot of inspiration for those of us involved in this crazy idea of DIY Decaturism (she opened the Flying Biscuit on a wing and a prayer...Wordsmiths Books opened on the same).

Most importantly, though, as I've already said: she brought biscuits. (Delia Champion discusses The Flying biscuit on Wordsmiths Books' stage, decked out for Halloween. No, we just don't clean. No, really, it was Halloween.)

Those delicious, light-as-feather biscuits, the uniting force amongst the Eggers readers and the egg eaters, the fans of Proust and the lovers of mass-market thrillers and everyone in between. When I was introducing Delia, my original idea was to regale the gathered crowd, which grew ever moment, with a story of a break-up that happened to me several years back, and how a very good friend took me for the first time to The Flying Biscuits original (and, in my opinion, best) location in Candler Park to drown my woes in that addictive cran-apple butter.

Thank god I decided to simply let the food do the talking.

My girlfriend's Lucy's family was visiting from their home in Maine, and they were as captivated by these heavenly little baked goods as were those of us who grew up with 'em as a back-of-your-brain comfort food-something you always know is there when you need it.

That Sunday afternoon was really a joyous day to be a fan of the decidedly-Southern comforts of The Flying Biscuit. It was a joyous day in general, really-folks eating food, discussing dreams made reality, and generally having a pretty darn great time.

That was when I realized I get to wear that Southerner merit badge with pride-I do, I do, because I'm part of that collective that derives pride, comfort and solace from what is arguably the south's finest achievement in the culinary world thus far: the damn-near-perfect biscuit, and our love for it. If biscuits made noise, let's face it: they'd be the soundtrack to many a life's moment here in the south. And that's a simple, tasty truth.

Hot, flaky, fluffy, buttery, it's the best kind of love: Biscuit Lovin'. It's like Janet Evanovich, only with more buttermilk.
Russ Marshalek is, happily enough, still the marketing and publicity director for Wordsmiths Books, the largest independent bookstore in the state of Georgia, located in Decatur. He retains this title despite his above disclosure that his job does not, in fact, require use of a magic wand. He blogs regularly for the store blog.

He also has realized that he's become more fond of the term "book shoppe" than "book store" and as such will begin using the former. Possibly.

Nicole Seitz

What's in a Cover?

Have you ever thought about what makes you pick up a book? Is it word of mouth? Have you heard 'so many great things' about that one? Read a review? Perhaps it's the prestigious placement up in the way-front of the bookstore that catches your eye. Well, I'm sort of a visual person, so I'm going to say, for me, it's all in the cover.

I love book covers. Great book cover design makes strolling the aisles of my favorite book stores the most fun. That, and the coffee. Often, the caffeine mixed with just the right color combination and graphics make my eyes pop and my hand grab for a book that I may otherwise never, ever pick up.

Take, for instance, J.L. Miles' Roseflower Creek. I'd not heard of Ms. Miles before her debut novel, but it was placed very close to the front of the store AND had a terrific cover of a young girl with water, ghostly...just drew me in. How about The Alchemist with it's ethereal fairy-tale-castle-in-the-sky look? Or Water for Elephants...just where IS that circus guy going? I want to come too!

But sometimes, covers can be misleading. Take for instance Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale. Now, this one was in the front of the store, was a bestseller, I'd heard of it, etc., BUT I didn't pick it up for the longest time. Why? I thought it was scary. There, I said it. I'm a big chicken, and the cover looked very dark along with the number Thirteen and well...I finally asked someone if it was scary and they looked at me like I had a marshmallow nose. I LOVED the book and was not scared a bit once I finally read it.

So, this business of book covers? It's big business...a very big deal. The cover of my first novel, The Spirit of Sweetgrass, has gotten very positive feedback. I will tell you outright that it is my painting there, so I'm doubly thrilled. Readers and booksellers alike who do not know it's my painting have told me the cover is what made them pick it up. For a new author, a good cover is essential, seeing as your name means nada.

My next novel, Trouble the Water, will feature a painting of mine too, but this one has not been so easy. I did one, loved it. The publisher didn't think it was right for the book. Did another that I didn't love so much, same deal. Finally, I said, "Well, here's a painting a neighbor of mine who just walked in my house liked...you like it? It has water in it." And voila, the new cover was born. HOWEVER, lately I've been promoting advanced copies of Trouble the Water, and people still remark about The Spirit of Sweetgrass cover but say NOTHING about the new book cover. Got my knees shaking, it did. So, I prayed about it. Then, I painted again. This time, I think we have a winner. I love it, the publisher loves it. Now, let's just hope the reader loves it. Can you tell me what you think? The book is about hope and healing on a South Carolina sea island. Would this cover make you pick it up? Tell me at nicole@nicoleseitz.com. Thanks, friend. New authors can use all the help we can get.

--------------------------
Nicole Seitz is the author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass and upcoming novel, Trouble the Water (March 2008). Visit her website at http://www.nicoleseitz.com/.

Cathy Pickens

Good Eatin': (Previously published Sept. 24. Retrieved from lost blog.)
Greetings from Cathy Pickens

It’s been fun meeting the fellow Southern bloggers as we get started on this adventure, so, by way of “how-do,” I write the Southern Fried mysteries, featuring small-town South Carolina lawyer Avery Andrews. The first in the series, Southern Fried, won the St. Martin’s Malice Domestic Award for Best Traditional Mystery.

The first cover featured a picnic basket with some appetizing fried chicken any Southerner would have been pleased and proud to carry off on a tailgate or a hike in the woods. Frankly, though, all things Southern ended at that point. Instead of potato salad, the basket had some lovely – fruit? Oddest of all, instead of a flaky, golden cat’s head biscuit (translation for the uninitiated: “big as a cat’s head”), it had a baguette.

With all due deference to the benefits of bunches of servings of fruit in your daily diet, to the crunchy softness of a fresh baguette, and to the artistic enterprise of cover artists everywhere, that ain’t no Southern picnic. But it was a fun cover.

So fun, the next two books had food on the covers, too, even though the pictures had nothing to do with the book, the title, or even what Southerners would actually eat.

I love the internet age, and I love emails from readers, even when they want to know why there are no &*(!@ recipes in the books. “There’s food on the cover, I expect recipes, you hear?”

I’m not really much of a cook. True, I’ve had recipes appear in regional cookbooks, but I stole them. From my mother. I sent them in because I like to eat them and thought other people might, too. I can cook them in a pinch, but my real talent is knowing where to head when I’m hungry – and it’s rarely my own kitchen.

That’s when I hit on an idea: I’ll tell you some of the places I like to eat. Then maybe you’ll tell me (and whoever else is reading) your favorite places to eat good Southern cooking.

A note on terminology: Some people call it Soul Food. Good name, of course, because it feeds your soul – along with your cholesterol and sugar levels. But down here, black folks and white folks pretty much eat the same food, and we just call it “good.” Not good for you because we like all four of our basic food groups fried. But definitely good.

I live in Charlotte, North Carolina now, and top of my list in town is La’wan’s Soul Food Restaurant, in a strip shopping center on South Tryon at Arrowood Road, just a bit north of I-485. THE BEST macaroni and cheese anywhere, cornbread that’ll melt in your mouth, and the nicest people ever. La’Wan’s is a finalist in the Steve Harvey Hoodie Awards, to be announced in Las Vegas in October 2007. Wish I could’ve told you to vote for them. I’ll just tell you to visit them instead. Address: 7705 S Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28217 Phone: (704)665-7225

The essential of any Southern cook’s repertoire is fried chicken, and the pinnacle is Price’s Chicken Coop in Charlotte. Don’t come expecting to sit and eat, ‘cuz you have to take it with you. And don’t be discouraged by the line out the door, ‘cuz those folks know how to move chickens and people out the door. I don’t know what makes it so good – maybe it’s because it doesn’t have time to sit around after they fry it, in huge fryers right in front of you. Take it to the park, to your hotel, to a friend’s house (with a greasy cardboard box that says “Price’s,” trust me, you’ll have friends), add some fixings (maybe from La’Wan’s?), and prepare to be addicted. Located a block off Tryon Street (which, incidentally, would be Charlotte’s Main Street, if Charlotte was down-home enough to have a Main Street). Address: 1614 Camden Rd., Charlotte, NC 28203 Phone: (704)333-9866

Speaking of fried chicken, another must-stop is in Walhalla, South Carolina, my hometown (and a place that looks amazingly like imaginary Dacus, Avery Andrews’ hometown – but that’s only so I can keep the streets straight). Legions of Clemson University alums, dating back to the days when it was an all-male military school, know The Steak House.

Back in the day, that’s what they served: steak. Now, they’re even better known for their fried chicken. That’s what happens when a fellow from Saudi Arabia marries a local Oconee County girl and they start selling Arabian Rooster Fried Chicken. The cafeteria lines wrap around the restaurant on busy days, which is most days, but it’s worth the short wait. They’ll have somewhere to sit by the time you get your tray so full you can’t carry it. Address: 316 E. Main St., Walhalla, SC 29691 Phone: (864) 638-3311

Need some other ideas? Try my new friend Fred W. Sauceman’s books The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South (Mercer Univ. Press: 2006) and The Place Setting: Second Serving (2007). He knows where the good stuff is and doesn’t mind telling you.

Older books (so you’ll have to hunt up a copy and call ahead since some of the good places are no more) include:

Backroad Buffets and Country Cafes: A Southern Guide to Meat-and-Threes & Downhome Dining by Don O’Briant (John F. Blair: 1998, 1999)

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South by John T. Edge (Hill Street Press, Athens, GA: 2000)

A Local’s Guide to South Carolina’s Best Kept Dining Secrets by Brian Katonak with Lynne Katonak (Sandlapper: 1999).

If a place is still in business, you know it’s probably good.

Let me know where your favorite Southern homecooking places are. After all, you have to eat to read, don’t you?

I really got to go now. I’m starvin’.

Mindy Friddle: Secret Keepers

Since I came across the letter from J. Edgar Hoover in my grandmother's trunk, I've been thinking a lot about secrets.

Family secrets. Open secrets.

My grandmother died at 93 in February, and left behind a house and attic and shed full of stuff. I was helping my mother go through it all when we came across the trunk. Actually, it was my great-grandmother's trunk, which she'd brought along in 1950 when she moved in with my grandparents here in Greenville, SC. My great-grandmother came from Franklin, NC, a little town up in the mountains, and it must have been hard for her to leave the place she'd grown up in, but, alas, widowed and the mother of an only child, she came down to Greenville reluctantly, dutifully, bringing along her trunk. Opening it just those few weeks ago felt like peering into a time capsule-- my great-grandmother's hairpins and sewing kit, dried flowers, a bible, newspaper clipping and lots and lots of photographs. Unlabeled, most of them: photos of farmers and fiddlers, of a woman smoking a pipe holding a goat, a baptism at the river, of brides and grave stones. Postcards too. From Atlantic City in 1910. My dear, it is beautiful here. There are so many people! And telegraphs. Sorry to inform you. STOP. Your son died in battle. Stop.

And letters. THE letter. From J. Edgar Hoover to the Sheriff of Macon County. About a missing person? The FBI..."Oh, that's about Aunt Lily," my mother said. "You know...your great-grandmother's sister. She disappeared...and they never found her." Huh?

My mother was only 13 when her Great-aunt Lily disappeared. My grandmother never talked about it much. And my great-grandmother and her people didn't much discuss it, either. She just worked quietly, diligently, writing to the sheriff of her hometown for years, begging him to keep trying to find her sister. Her only sister. Who had married late in life, married a man who came through town--no one knew his people, no one knew anything much about him-- but she--Lily-- left with him, heading to California. "I reckon they eloped," a relative tells me. "She just ran off with him." A preacher's daughter, a spinster? No children. With a salesman? She lost her head--and other things maybe, too-- headed off to California, where her letters were regular for months, then stopped, and then...she disappeared. Never a trace. No funeral. The husband disappeared, too. He killed her, is what my great-grandmother suspected. No one said it outright, but they knew, they knew.

That kind of open secret-- something everyone knows about but doesn't acknowledge-- is common around these parts. I live an hour away from Gastonia-- home of the Communist-led strike in 1929, the bloody Loray Mill strike which left two people dead-- and finally, after 78 years! the town is allowing the state of NC to put up a historical marker at the site of the mill. I live near Honea Path, where the General Textile Strike of 1934 was not publicly acknowledged for over 60 years, where seven strikers were killed. When ETV did a documentary about it a few years ago, there was a big stink about showing it. And was anyone who grew up in the South shocked when the media "discovered" that Strom Thurmond in 1925, when he was 22, fathered a child with a black teenage housekeeper? I'd heard that all my life.

A few weeks ago, I was at a writers' conference telling the story about my finding the letter from Hoover in my great-grandmother's trunk. The table full of writers dropped silverware, jaws, conversation. I had given them the barest dry details, but it was enough to ignite a whole bonfire of possibilities. She left because of sex. No, she was in love. He was a serial killer.
(Cold Case fans.) No, SHE killed him. (A Rose for Emily, anyone?). Or maybe he left her and she was just too ashamed to come back home and fled to Mexico? Or ...swam out in the choppy Pacific and...

Family secrets, open secrets...I find them the perfect breeding ground for stories.

Mindy Friddle is the author of The Garden Angel (St. Martin's Press/Picador). Visit her website www.mindyfriddle.com and her blog, Novel Thoughts, at http://mindyfriddle.blogspot.com/

News This Week

Book Releases from our bloggers.

How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words

(Cathy Pickens has an essay in this one.)

Charleston Mysteries: Ghostly Haunts in the Holy City by Cathy Pickens

If you have book news, please email me kgillespie@knology.net

Hail to the Dixie Divas

When I found out my novel was going to be published I talked to lots of other authors and they scared me to death. “The book signings are killers,” they warned. “Usually the only people who will show up the events coordinator and your mother.”

I also discovered a book called Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame. How terrifying! I thought there had to be some way to attract an audience to book signings. I talked to a mystery author, Denise Swanson. She traveled with other mystery writer and they called themselves the Deadly Divas. She said they sometimes attracted hundreds of people to their signings.

I decided I would borrow Denise’s idea. Since I was a Southern author, I formed a group called the Dixie Divas. I asked J.L. Miles, Julie Cannon, and Patricia Sprinkle to join me in my venture.

We decided we would have fun book signings. We wear boas and tiaras and other silly accessories. Patty, our mystery writer wears black and yellow crime tape. We tell jokes and stories. No staid, stuffy readings for the Divas. We aim to entertain.

Because we have to watch our pennies we often pile into one car and one hotel room. (Thankfully none of the divas snore.) I call us Thelma and Louise squared.

And yes, for the most part, our signings are wonderful. Sometimes we sell over a hundred books and present to packed houses. The press loves us and we have enjoyed half-page feature article spreads in many Southeastern newspapers, coverage we would have never gotten as solo authors.

But every now and then we have a dud signing. Once we spoke at Cocoa Florida library and the crowd was sparse and composed primarily of elderly retirees. The librarian apologized for the small turnout. A retiree who was listening in said, “You should have been here last week. There was an author who had a long line out the door.”

“Who was the author?” I asked wearily.

“I don’t remember,” said the retiree. “I just remember the name of his book. It was called Overcoming Incontinence.”

So yes, dear friends, we were upstaged by incontinence.

On another occasion we visited a small-town library in Georgia. The cub reporter interviewing us was wet behind the ears. His story had many inaccuracies but the most glaring was the title of his piece, which read, “Dixie Beavers to Visit Local Library.”

We’ve traveled together over three years and we’ve shared a heap of embarrassments as well as countless triumphs. You get to know a lot about people when you swill wine together, share long car rides and sleep in the same bed. The Divas and I have become as close as sisters and we cherish our relationships. I can’t imagine doing signings without them. When I’m with the Divas it doesn’t matter how many people are at our book signings. I know J.L. Miles will make me laugh, Julie Cannon will have a word of encouragement and Patty Sprinkle will give me valuable advice. That’s all I care about. Now it’s less about selling books and more about spending time with my darling Divas.

Karin Gillespie is the founder of this blog. Visit her and her books at http://www.karingillespie.com/. She is also know as Karen Neches (http://www.karenneches.com/ ) and her latest novel Earthly Pleasures will release in February and it has the MOST beautiful cover in the world. See above