by Julianna Baggott
People born on or around September 30th are usually the offspring of over-served, randy New Year's Eve party guests. Do the math.
And so here I am. Today is my birthday. And not just a small birthday -- like twenty-seven. No. Today is my 40th birthday, which sounds mathematically impossible. When people say that an event took place in, say, '89 and then add something horrific like, "twenty years ago," I get kind of go weak in the knees. 1989 was TWENTY years ago?
Last night someone asked me if I was reflecting at this point in time. I am. I don't want to have a midlife crisis -- I have no appreciation for very cool cars and no desire to date younger men (or older men or etc ...)
Unfortunately, I want to live a life of meaning.
The meaning of life? Eh. I'm not that lofty.
But a life of meaning? Yes. That sounds like a good thing. I just don't happen to know what it is.
This winter I'll publish my 15th book -- The Ever Cure (Random House) -- a novel for younger readers. This summer I'll publish my 16th book -- The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted (Bantam Dell/Random House).
I have four kids -- aged 14 to two.
I'm in love with my husband.
These things are all part of a life of meaning -- yes. I don't deny that.
But still...
This week I had a piece in the Boston Globe -- an op ed on a principal who called me up a week before my scheduled visit to tell me that she couldn't send out book orders before my visit because she didn't want to give parents the impression that the school was endorsing the "objectionable material" in my "book."
I had no idea what book she was talking about and had never had my work called "objectionable." She seemed surprised by the fact that I had written more than one and that I didn't have a ready-made list of my objectionable material. She provided this.
A difficult pregnancy -- which would be THE ANYBODIES -- and the use of the 'n word' in THE PRINCE OF FENWAY PARK, which is a book about racial tolerance with some historically relevant parts to it. The book provides an author's note on my use of the word.
She confessed that she was afraid of angry parents, and that hers had been one of the districts to opt out of Obama's address to school children.
If Obama's uplifting study-hard speech was worthy of censorship, now what isn't?
There's more to the story ... Here's the link:
There's been some rousing debate since, people taking both sides.
Does this seem like I'm inching closer toward a life of meaning? Is this what people with meaningful lives do?
Last night I went out with friends -- three amazing women. One who's just come back from a battle with cancer, a brilliant novelist, Sheila Curran; one who's just started her PhD in her early forties with two kids and is still working as a social worker in one of the poorest counties in the state; one is an innovative media specialist in a Title I school who'd just gotten a grant to start an after-school running program for the girls in her school. She has two kids -- one of which she and her husband adopted from Ethiopia.
I see each of them as living lives of meaning.
But, for some reason, I can't quite see it in my own. (As an writer alone, am I writing the work I SHOULD be writing? Am I just killing trees out there? Some days it seems so.)
And so I have an inkling of what my 40s might look like.
I will want to be a better person, and I will fall short -- by my own estimations. And I will then come to terms, somehow, hopefully before I hit 50 with this and accept myself -- my longing, my fight, my shortcomings. Even my harsh view of myself will be accepted.
Frankly, I was raised better than all of this earnest bullshit. People born on and around my birthday often are. Our folks tend to be the ones who know how to kick it up, who understand drunken desire, the importance of revelry, who've had sex with their party hats still on! And, really, when it comes to us human beings and our humanity, there's plenty of meaning in that.
For more on blogs from Baggott & her pen name Bridget Asher, click here.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Q and A with Debut Novelist Lisa Patton
In her debut novel Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter, Lisa Patton paints a hilarious portrait of life in Vermont as seen through the eyes of a southern belle readers won’t soon forget. A charming fish-out-of-water tale of one woman who learns to stand up for herself—in sandals and snow boots—against the odds. The novel goes on sale this week. To learn more and to read an excerpt please visit her web site.
First of all, thank you for inviting me to be a guest on A Good Blog is Hard to Find. It’s one of the great ones and I feel honored to be here. Karin, I think your blurb for Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter was my very first one and I’ll never forget your enthusiasm. Thank you!
What inspired you to turn your story into a fiction novel?
Well, I didn’t really turn my story into a novel. I was inspired by my own escapades as a southern innkeeper, but the story itself is fiction.
I hope I’m not making a major assumption, but I’m guessing you were the inspiration for the character of Leelee. How did it feel to write a character that [seems to be!] based on yourself? Did you ever find it difficult to separate your own personality from the fictional character?
Good question and a fair assumption at least at first glance. The whole experience of inn-keeping from a southerner’s perspective is rich for storytelling. The dichotomies between the two regions are quite colorful. When my time in Vermont had run its course and I was safely back on Southern soil, I knew I had a story to tell. There was so much about Vermont that I loved but I also knew that I was better off in the South. It’s too cold for me in Vermont! But I digress. Leelee Satterfield does have a couple of the same experiences that I had, yet she is a different person than me. One of the most important things I found about creating Leelee was that she needed to have a wide character arc. She starts out as naïve and somewhat spoiled but by the end of the book, she turns into a steel magnolia. I think whenever a first-time author writes in first person about someone with a similar background to that author - and especially the same gender - it can be hard to separate the two personalities.
How long did it take you to write this book?
I came up with the idea and title fourteen years ago, but the actual writing took me about three years. That’s because it went in and out of my drawer for nearly a decade until I developed the confidence to actually finish it. Plus, as a single mother of two very active little boys I could only write in my spare time, which was pretty much non-existent!
This is your debut novel – were there any surprises in the process of getting a book from a new author published?
Oh my goodness, yes! Although I have to say I had read millions of books on the subject of publishing so I was well familiar with the odds. The biggest surprise was when my agent called me about the sale. She caught me totally off-guard. I had planned a trip to New York with two of my best girlfriends (a significant birthday celebration for all of us) and I had planned to have lunch with Holly. Truth be told I was scared she might be discouraged because the book hadn’t sold, so I wanted to meet her in person. (Heaven forbid she might drop me.) When I heard her voice on the phone I told her that I was just getting ready to call her. She asked why, and I reminded her about our lunch. She told me that she was about to make that trip to New York so much better. We had a sale!! When I learned that Thomas Dunne also wanted a sequel I was flabbergasted. That was my biggest surprise.
What did you find to be the hardest part of writing a novel?
The first draft – bar none. Oops that’s not true, it’s the alone part. I’m a classic extravert and I found it hard to be by myself while I was writing. Finally, I started going to the library to finish the book so I’d at least have people all around me.
I believe you’re working on a sequel to Whistlin’ Dixie…are you finding any major differences between writing the second book than writing the first?
Well the first major difference is that I actually kinda/sorta know what I’m doing this time around. Plus I have more confidence knowing it’s going to be published.
What has been the most enjoyable part of this new profession?
I have joy in knowing that I have shown my two sons, now 19 and 21, that hard work and dedication really do bring about success – in whatever form that may be. They were only five and seven when I first dreamed about this project and I’m happy that I have been able to show them an example of tenacity - especially since I’m a single mom.
What’s currently on your ‘to read’ list?
Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
South of Broad by Pat Conroy
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
I just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I loved it.
What is your favorite eccentricity of the South?
Hhmmm. That’s a good one. My favorite eccentricity would probably be the large number of meat and threes that we have here in the South, and the fact that no meal would ever be served from one of those restaurants without a delicious piece of cornbread to go along with it. Ohh, I just thought of one more. I love it that Southern children everywhere still say “Yes ma’am and “Yes sir.” I think that’s very respectful.
And to include those above the Mason-Dixon line, what’s your favorite eccentricity of the North? [PS, I have never heard anyone describe the differences between the northern and southern living as well as you. It’s all the little things and people that haven’t lived in both regions just don’t get it! Like our obsession with Coke and the fact that ‘barbecue’ is not a food to them…it’s a verb!)
Thank you for the compliment! This one’s easy. The most peculiar thing to me about the North is the fact that you can’t bury people in the winter. That’s how I start my book by saying, “No one ever told me you can’t bury somebody up North in the wintertime.” As a Southerner, it never once crossed my mind that the ground up North froze in the first place and that it would keep people from having a winter funeral.
You have ties to rivalrous SEC schools. Where do your loyalties lie on Gameday? Go Vols or Roll Tide?
My blood is a deep crimson.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Raising my sons to be kind-hearted, tender men who love God and their mama!
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Keep in mind, I’m a hopeless romantic. My idea of perfect happiness would be to live in an antebellum house with a wonderful guy who has a killer sense of humor and loves me and loves my sons. There would be a beautiful view of the Southern sky out my porch where I could watch the sun rise and set and have my animals around me all the time. We would eat Alaskan King Crab Legs and home-grown tomatoes and caramel cake and dance to 70’s music under the stars. Travelling to fun places with my friends and family would be nice. Like Hawaii, Italy, the Caribbean, and off-the-beaten-path little hideaways right here in the States.
What inspired you to turn your story into a fiction novel?
Well, I didn’t really turn my story into a novel. I was inspired by my own escapades as a southern innkeeper, but the story itself is fiction.
I hope I’m not making a major assumption, but I’m guessing you were the inspiration for the character of Leelee. How did it feel to write a character that [seems to be!] based on yourself? Did you ever find it difficult to separate your own personality from the fictional character?
Good question and a fair assumption at least at first glance. The whole experience of inn-keeping from a southerner’s perspective is rich for storytelling. The dichotomies between the two regions are quite colorful. When my time in Vermont had run its course and I was safely back on Southern soil, I knew I had a story to tell. There was so much about Vermont that I loved but I also knew that I was better off in the South. It’s too cold for me in Vermont! But I digress. Leelee Satterfield does have a couple of the same experiences that I had, yet she is a different person than me. One of the most important things I found about creating Leelee was that she needed to have a wide character arc. She starts out as naïve and somewhat spoiled but by the end of the book, she turns into a steel magnolia. I think whenever a first-time author writes in first person about someone with a similar background to that author - and especially the same gender - it can be hard to separate the two personalities.
How long did it take you to write this book?
I came up with the idea and title fourteen years ago, but the actual writing took me about three years. That’s because it went in and out of my drawer for nearly a decade until I developed the confidence to actually finish it. Plus, as a single mother of two very active little boys I could only write in my spare time, which was pretty much non-existent!
This is your debut novel – were there any surprises in the process of getting a book from a new author published?
Oh my goodness, yes! Although I have to say I had read millions of books on the subject of publishing so I was well familiar with the odds. The biggest surprise was when my agent called me about the sale. She caught me totally off-guard. I had planned a trip to New York with two of my best girlfriends (a significant birthday celebration for all of us) and I had planned to have lunch with Holly. Truth be told I was scared she might be discouraged because the book hadn’t sold, so I wanted to meet her in person. (Heaven forbid she might drop me.) When I heard her voice on the phone I told her that I was just getting ready to call her. She asked why, and I reminded her about our lunch. She told me that she was about to make that trip to New York so much better. We had a sale!! When I learned that Thomas Dunne also wanted a sequel I was flabbergasted. That was my biggest surprise.
What did you find to be the hardest part of writing a novel?
The first draft – bar none. Oops that’s not true, it’s the alone part. I’m a classic extravert and I found it hard to be by myself while I was writing. Finally, I started going to the library to finish the book so I’d at least have people all around me.
I believe you’re working on a sequel to Whistlin’ Dixie…are you finding any major differences between writing the second book than writing the first?
Well the first major difference is that I actually kinda/sorta know what I’m doing this time around. Plus I have more confidence knowing it’s going to be published.
What has been the most enjoyable part of this new profession?
I have joy in knowing that I have shown my two sons, now 19 and 21, that hard work and dedication really do bring about success – in whatever form that may be. They were only five and seven when I first dreamed about this project and I’m happy that I have been able to show them an example of tenacity - especially since I’m a single mom.
What’s currently on your ‘to read’ list?
Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
South of Broad by Pat Conroy
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
I just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I loved it.
What is your favorite eccentricity of the South?
Hhmmm. That’s a good one. My favorite eccentricity would probably be the large number of meat and threes that we have here in the South, and the fact that no meal would ever be served from one of those restaurants without a delicious piece of cornbread to go along with it. Ohh, I just thought of one more. I love it that Southern children everywhere still say “Yes ma’am and “Yes sir.” I think that’s very respectful.
And to include those above the Mason-Dixon line, what’s your favorite eccentricity of the North? [PS, I have never heard anyone describe the differences between the northern and southern living as well as you. It’s all the little things and people that haven’t lived in both regions just don’t get it! Like our obsession with Coke and the fact that ‘barbecue’ is not a food to them…it’s a verb!)
Thank you for the compliment! This one’s easy. The most peculiar thing to me about the North is the fact that you can’t bury people in the winter. That’s how I start my book by saying, “No one ever told me you can’t bury somebody up North in the wintertime.” As a Southerner, it never once crossed my mind that the ground up North froze in the first place and that it would keep people from having a winter funeral.
You have ties to rivalrous SEC schools. Where do your loyalties lie on Gameday? Go Vols or Roll Tide?
My blood is a deep crimson.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Raising my sons to be kind-hearted, tender men who love God and their mama!
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Keep in mind, I’m a hopeless romantic. My idea of perfect happiness would be to live in an antebellum house with a wonderful guy who has a killer sense of humor and loves me and loves my sons. There would be a beautiful view of the Southern sky out my porch where I could watch the sun rise and set and have my animals around me all the time. We would eat Alaskan King Crab Legs and home-grown tomatoes and caramel cake and dance to 70’s music under the stars. Travelling to fun places with my friends and family would be nice. Like Hawaii, Italy, the Caribbean, and off-the-beaten-path little hideaways right here in the States.
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Pulpwood Queen's Reading and Writing Life for Me!
Oh, The Reading and Writing Life for Me!
I am not your typical writing author. Though I write everyday, I would much rather promote other author’s books. I toot my own horn loudly, but am I comfortable doing it, no way. It’s a lot more fun to toot someone else’s horn, kind of like it’s a lot more fun to clean somebody else’s house, but I digress, as usual.
For those that don’t know, I own a hair salon/book store, Beauty and the Book, the ONLY one in the country, perhaps the world, here in the piney woods of East Texas. We are not on the grand scale of the author sending literary map but I get my fair share of authors here as I offer FREE COMPLIMENTARY hair services besides hosting their book events. Now what other bookstore offers that kind of benefit, I ask you? I have a captive audience for selling books because as I cut, color, and style women and men’s hair, I talk those books, BIG TIME!
“Okay, Larry, just a trim as usual?”
“That’s right Kathy, maybe a little shorter over the ears. It grows like crazy there.”
“Great, will do” as I cape him up and start clipping, “so heard you took a little trip to Vegas? Get in any reading?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Kay was reading “South of Broad” by Pat Conroy. She couldn’t put the book down and read it on the way out loud. I got lost in the story too.”
Okay, now I have successfully transferred all thoughts of hair beauty to the beauty of books. I am in the door, pitching our next great read, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, our selection for October for the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs that I founded nearly ten years ago.
Now nothing pleases me more than giving a great hair cut or style. I am one hairdresser that takes great pride in my work. Shoot, I want these people to not only be happy but to come back to my shop again and again. What a novel thought! I also know that when they do, I will also be talking up books.
Years ago, I did the same thing with my hair salon, Town & Country Headquarters in my hometown of Eureka, Kansas but I was not a book store too. I talked books to everyone who came in and loaned half of everything I recommended. I learned an important lesson. Never loan a book that you ever want to see again. Half the people never returned the books. So when I opened my hair salon/book store, I now SELL the books I recommend and therefore, my library stays intact. There is nothing worse than to lose forever your first edition copy of any book, signed by one of your favorite authors to a friend. But my friends, life is about relationships and the lesson in this story is that no matter how much you love a book, the friendship is more important period. I solved that problem by just selling them the book and if I loan it, I say my own private goodbye to that book. You can imagine my delight when a friend actually returns a book. I have always perceived books too as my best friends so we are reunited at last! Serendipity!
I also believe in the power of the story. Coming from a family of storytellers, I get real excited when I read those first words in a book and I make a connection with the story. I can honestly tell you that I love all the books that I have made OFFICIAL Pulpwood Queen Book Club selections and listed all books that I have selected from inception to publication of my book in my first book, “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”, Grand Central Publishing. I call my book “the little book that could”. Because I think I can, I think I can, until I know I can make reading known that this pastime is quite simply the best entertainment in the world.
This week has been a big week for me as a lover of the printed word. In one day, I hosted the First Lady of Houston, author, Andrea White who brought a whole busload of bookloving women to my shop as part of her East Texas Conversations Tour as her husband, Mayor Bill White is running for U.S. Senate. It was and always is an honor to host a public reception for anyone running for public office. Bookstores should not only be a place to promote the literary word but should be a meeting place for the community on all things that promote the spoken word and public policy too! As Andrea handed out FREE her latest book to all attended I was overwhelmed by her generosity and kind spirit.
The next thing that happened was I was invited to speak at the Alabama Book Festival on my book and promoting literacy. I am always amazed how people hear of me far and wide, usually by word of mouth from friend. I happen to believe that I have some fine friends in Alabama and if you are reading this and responsible, I would like to thank you in person. I have many, many dear friends in Alabama and wrote all about this today at www.pulpwoodqueen.com. I hope we will check out my web blog and read it too.
Next, I was contacted by a film entertainment production company in California about the possibility of a reality show based upon me and my Beauty and the Book. Now I have been on television a lot, it’s thrilling, scary, and fleeting. I have had more than my fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol fame. But I still get excited about the possibilities because as I see it, here is yet another big way to help promote authors, books, and reading! I hope it works out but if it doesn’t, I still have my good works to do regardless of promoting authors, books, and reading.
And last, one of my dear author friends emailed to inform me my favorite author in the country would be attending my annual Girlfriend Weekend and with an author entourage! I can now die one happy woman but I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. I have a lot of literacy promoting work to do!
You see, after six years of writing my book to publication, I learned the most valuable lesson of my life. Put God first in your life and everything becomes really, really clear on how your life’s path should go. I have veered off the path more times than I cared to mention but it was not until I finished my book and read it as if for the first time, I realized that my life is not about me. What a revelation! It’s about what God has given me as my gifts and talents and what I should do with them. I do believe my gift is to promote reading. It’s my life mission. It’s about service above self. My service to all of you is to promote authors, books, and reading. I am your resource, I am your encourager, I give my life to God and the power of the printed word.
At the same time I am writing another book but this one is not for me, this book is for you. I call it “The Pulwpood Queens Guide to Reading and Writing for a Higher Purpose”. Because all my life I have been a reader but it wasn’t until I wrote my own story that I really got it. Life is about the story, the relationships with others. It is not about what kind of car you drive, where you live, how much you own. Life is about friendships and sharing our stories.
You see everybody has a story. Everybody has a story to tell, if not for you, for your family and friends. And if you don’t write your story, or record it, or tell it, a library of you has been lost to all your family and friends. Everybody is important, it’s just some of us have a way of telling a story that transforms lives. I think of Pat Conroy immediately when I think of the power of a great storyteller, or Rick Bragg, or Barbara Kingsolver, or Michael Morris, or you. Won’t you join me on the reading and writing life? I know because of all my author friend’s, I found out I was not alone. I have found that with my book club members, though I am a flawed queen, I have found the greatest relationships of my life. These women and men are so important to me and lift me places I never dreamed I could go.
As we embark on this fall season, let’s join together to become a nation of readers, a nation of readers who promote reading and relationships and leave the hate and cruelty of this world behind. I have a story and so do you. I do believe that when we come together as one, there is nothing that can stop us in making this world a better place. I have a dream too, and so do you. Let’s make dreams come true because as in the fairy tales of my youth, I always loved the happy ending!
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Author of “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”, Grand Central Publishing
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com
www.pulpwoodqueen.com
www.readinggroupguides.com
www.southernauthors.blogspot.com
P.S. I also invite all of you to attend my biggest event ever, the 10th Anniversary of my annual Pulpwood Queen hosted book club convention which we call our Girlfriend Weekend Author Extravaganza, January 13 – 17, 2010. With over 50 of the best in authors, speakers, actors, and musicians featured, we are offered an author workshop, two full days of author panels, two nights of the best entertainment including Friday night our Happy 50th Birthday Barbie Party with a Barbie Fashion Show featuring all our authors, Saturday night our infamous GREAT BIG BALL OF HAIR celebrating the 70th Anniversary of The Wizard of Oz themed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, and a Sunday Wine Down Party all in historic Jefferson, Texas. Email me at kathy@beautyandthebook.com and all send you all the details!
I am not your typical writing author. Though I write everyday, I would much rather promote other author’s books. I toot my own horn loudly, but am I comfortable doing it, no way. It’s a lot more fun to toot someone else’s horn, kind of like it’s a lot more fun to clean somebody else’s house, but I digress, as usual.
For those that don’t know, I own a hair salon/book store, Beauty and the Book, the ONLY one in the country, perhaps the world, here in the piney woods of East Texas. We are not on the grand scale of the author sending literary map but I get my fair share of authors here as I offer FREE COMPLIMENTARY hair services besides hosting their book events. Now what other bookstore offers that kind of benefit, I ask you? I have a captive audience for selling books because as I cut, color, and style women and men’s hair, I talk those books, BIG TIME!
“Okay, Larry, just a trim as usual?”
“That’s right Kathy, maybe a little shorter over the ears. It grows like crazy there.”
“Great, will do” as I cape him up and start clipping, “so heard you took a little trip to Vegas? Get in any reading?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Kay was reading “South of Broad” by Pat Conroy. She couldn’t put the book down and read it on the way out loud. I got lost in the story too.”
Okay, now I have successfully transferred all thoughts of hair beauty to the beauty of books. I am in the door, pitching our next great read, “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett, our selection for October for the Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Clubs that I founded nearly ten years ago.
Now nothing pleases me more than giving a great hair cut or style. I am one hairdresser that takes great pride in my work. Shoot, I want these people to not only be happy but to come back to my shop again and again. What a novel thought! I also know that when they do, I will also be talking up books.
Years ago, I did the same thing with my hair salon, Town & Country Headquarters in my hometown of Eureka, Kansas but I was not a book store too. I talked books to everyone who came in and loaned half of everything I recommended. I learned an important lesson. Never loan a book that you ever want to see again. Half the people never returned the books. So when I opened my hair salon/book store, I now SELL the books I recommend and therefore, my library stays intact. There is nothing worse than to lose forever your first edition copy of any book, signed by one of your favorite authors to a friend. But my friends, life is about relationships and the lesson in this story is that no matter how much you love a book, the friendship is more important period. I solved that problem by just selling them the book and if I loan it, I say my own private goodbye to that book. You can imagine my delight when a friend actually returns a book. I have always perceived books too as my best friends so we are reunited at last! Serendipity!
I also believe in the power of the story. Coming from a family of storytellers, I get real excited when I read those first words in a book and I make a connection with the story. I can honestly tell you that I love all the books that I have made OFFICIAL Pulpwood Queen Book Club selections and listed all books that I have selected from inception to publication of my book in my first book, “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”, Grand Central Publishing. I call my book “the little book that could”. Because I think I can, I think I can, until I know I can make reading known that this pastime is quite simply the best entertainment in the world.
This week has been a big week for me as a lover of the printed word. In one day, I hosted the First Lady of Houston, author, Andrea White who brought a whole busload of bookloving women to my shop as part of her East Texas Conversations Tour as her husband, Mayor Bill White is running for U.S. Senate. It was and always is an honor to host a public reception for anyone running for public office. Bookstores should not only be a place to promote the literary word but should be a meeting place for the community on all things that promote the spoken word and public policy too! As Andrea handed out FREE her latest book to all attended I was overwhelmed by her generosity and kind spirit.
The next thing that happened was I was invited to speak at the Alabama Book Festival on my book and promoting literacy. I am always amazed how people hear of me far and wide, usually by word of mouth from friend. I happen to believe that I have some fine friends in Alabama and if you are reading this and responsible, I would like to thank you in person. I have many, many dear friends in Alabama and wrote all about this today at www.pulpwoodqueen.com. I hope we will check out my web blog and read it too.
Next, I was contacted by a film entertainment production company in California about the possibility of a reality show based upon me and my Beauty and the Book. Now I have been on television a lot, it’s thrilling, scary, and fleeting. I have had more than my fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol fame. But I still get excited about the possibilities because as I see it, here is yet another big way to help promote authors, books, and reading! I hope it works out but if it doesn’t, I still have my good works to do regardless of promoting authors, books, and reading.
And last, one of my dear author friends emailed to inform me my favorite author in the country would be attending my annual Girlfriend Weekend and with an author entourage! I can now die one happy woman but I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. I have a lot of literacy promoting work to do!
You see, after six years of writing my book to publication, I learned the most valuable lesson of my life. Put God first in your life and everything becomes really, really clear on how your life’s path should go. I have veered off the path more times than I cared to mention but it was not until I finished my book and read it as if for the first time, I realized that my life is not about me. What a revelation! It’s about what God has given me as my gifts and talents and what I should do with them. I do believe my gift is to promote reading. It’s my life mission. It’s about service above self. My service to all of you is to promote authors, books, and reading. I am your resource, I am your encourager, I give my life to God and the power of the printed word.
At the same time I am writing another book but this one is not for me, this book is for you. I call it “The Pulwpood Queens Guide to Reading and Writing for a Higher Purpose”. Because all my life I have been a reader but it wasn’t until I wrote my own story that I really got it. Life is about the story, the relationships with others. It is not about what kind of car you drive, where you live, how much you own. Life is about friendships and sharing our stories.
You see everybody has a story. Everybody has a story to tell, if not for you, for your family and friends. And if you don’t write your story, or record it, or tell it, a library of you has been lost to all your family and friends. Everybody is important, it’s just some of us have a way of telling a story that transforms lives. I think of Pat Conroy immediately when I think of the power of a great storyteller, or Rick Bragg, or Barbara Kingsolver, or Michael Morris, or you. Won’t you join me on the reading and writing life? I know because of all my author friend’s, I found out I was not alone. I have found that with my book club members, though I am a flawed queen, I have found the greatest relationships of my life. These women and men are so important to me and lift me places I never dreamed I could go.
As we embark on this fall season, let’s join together to become a nation of readers, a nation of readers who promote reading and relationships and leave the hate and cruelty of this world behind. I have a story and so do you. I do believe that when we come together as one, there is nothing that can stop us in making this world a better place. I have a dream too, and so do you. Let’s make dreams come true because as in the fairy tales of my youth, I always loved the happy ending!
Tiara wearing and Book sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Author of “The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life”, Grand Central Publishing
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs
www.beautyandthebook.com
www.pulpwoodqueen.com
www.readinggroupguides.com
www.southernauthors.blogspot.com
P.S. I also invite all of you to attend my biggest event ever, the 10th Anniversary of my annual Pulpwood Queen hosted book club convention which we call our Girlfriend Weekend Author Extravaganza, January 13 – 17, 2010. With over 50 of the best in authors, speakers, actors, and musicians featured, we are offered an author workshop, two full days of author panels, two nights of the best entertainment including Friday night our Happy 50th Birthday Barbie Party with a Barbie Fashion Show featuring all our authors, Saturday night our infamous GREAT BIG BALL OF HAIR celebrating the 70th Anniversary of The Wizard of Oz themed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, and a Sunday Wine Down Party all in historic Jefferson, Texas. Email me at kathy@beautyandthebook.com and all send you all the details!
P.P.S. Photo of First Lady of Houston and Author, Andrea White and her entourage at Beauty and the Book in Jefferson, Texas!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Guest Blogger Dawn Goldsmith
Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles novel forthcoming -- sometime
By Dawn Goldsmith
© Dawn Goldsmith 2009
I have these women running wild. They are brandishing vicious weapons and demanding that I write their story – or else! But they keep morphing. One minute there’s Rita with a biker babe background, no wait, she’s a war widow. No, no that’s not right, she’s a small town woman harboring a painful secret. She won’t hold still long enough for me to write about her! And then there’s Claire – is she or is she not having an affair with the college president?
Characters! How do I get them to talk to me, to tell me their stories, to help me write it and make a gazillion dollars?
Several well-established, respected, successful (monied) writers seem to face that same hand-to-combat each time they sit down to start a new novel. Mary Higgins Clark has been known to say that everyone just backs off and stays out of her way when she’s starting a new book. They know what kind of funk and frustration she’ll sink into. Others mention stomping around their office lamenting, “What ever made me think I’m a writer?”
Eventually it comes together. And the advice that results: Persevere. Those of us who have not followed that advice are still working on the same novel two, ten, my goodness – thirty years later!
Once upon a time I knew my life’s path. It came into focus with a life-changing jolt when a mystery magazine assigned me a book to review. A mystery, fourth in a series new to me, but evidently well received. The premise and protagonist seemed a bit whacky, but from the first page it felt so familiar.
I don’t mean that I had read this author’s work before. No. It felt like she was writing about my life.
In this novel the author described my youngest son, used his name, placed him in his favorite situation and that was just the opening scene. The book is set in an agrarian setting (much like my home town) with a heroine who is a farmer and a biker. The author graduated from a Mennonite college -- like my husband. And the author as well as her protagonist sound remarkably like a former editor from my home region, who was also Mennonite and affiliated with bikers during her adventurous life. Even the author’s disease of choice hit close to home.
When I perused the author's webpage, I saw an interview conducted by my personal hero and former colleague at the newspaper where I worked and first grew into the title: writer. The author presides over a writing group in the heart of my old stomping grounds surrounded by local writers with whom I had attended writing meetings back when I lived in the land where I belonged.
And she's doing readings in my favorite libraries in my home landscape.
Is this what happens when we don't take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself? Was it simply fear that diverted me from my true destiny? When we don't follow through on the ideas we start to turn into novels and never complete -- someone else does it?
In my stash of unfinished fiction lies a biker story, several farm-related stories, a potential serial, a romance, a mystery or two, some based on my son’s heavy metal experiences – not unlike the opening scene of the assigned novel. And all of them are four to six chapters long. That seems to be the time when the doldrums hit and I lose the momentum to finish a novel.
I'm not saying she has done anything wrong. Not at all. I'm just saying -- she's living my life.
She's living my life! Or at least the life I expected to live in the location where I expected to grow old.
I sent this author a couple of emails and I imagine by now she thinks I'm a stalker or feels threatened or is thinking lawsuit. Nope. Nope. Nope. I am amazed at the synchonicity, the déjà vu feeling of seeing work so familiar coming from another hand, another mind.
I am dazed and shocked and suddenly aware of how far from my expected life I have wandered. Talk about the butterfly effect and Freaky Friday.
Maybe it is time I at least finished those novels I started. See if maybe I can recoup a bit of my life before the fates hand her my story ideas, too. But if I write about characters based on my own family and experiences -- will it sound like I'm copying her?
The universe is shrinking and we are all connected. Now I'm wondering just how connected are we?
By the way, her novel is great. I think mine would be better -- but the funny thing is -- publishers don't sell unfinished novels.
For now I plug away at trapping the girls in my office each morning and then when they escape, turn to writing my book reviews and blogs. If anyone would care to contribute to my Observations http://www.wordsogold.blogspot.com/ which focuses on writing, writers, books, wannabes and great advice and inspiration, please let me know. The same for my other blog, what else: Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles http://www.subversivestitch.blogspot.com/ Between the reviews, blogs, and wrestling matches, I also write personal essays and articles for a variety of publications including The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, NBC News, and Better Nutrition.
By Dawn Goldsmith
© Dawn Goldsmith 2009
I have these women running wild. They are brandishing vicious weapons and demanding that I write their story – or else! But they keep morphing. One minute there’s Rita with a biker babe background, no wait, she’s a war widow. No, no that’s not right, she’s a small town woman harboring a painful secret. She won’t hold still long enough for me to write about her! And then there’s Claire – is she or is she not having an affair with the college president?
Characters! How do I get them to talk to me, to tell me their stories, to help me write it and make a gazillion dollars?
Several well-established, respected, successful (monied) writers seem to face that same hand-to-combat each time they sit down to start a new novel. Mary Higgins Clark has been known to say that everyone just backs off and stays out of her way when she’s starting a new book. They know what kind of funk and frustration she’ll sink into. Others mention stomping around their office lamenting, “What ever made me think I’m a writer?”
Eventually it comes together. And the advice that results: Persevere. Those of us who have not followed that advice are still working on the same novel two, ten, my goodness – thirty years later!
Once upon a time I knew my life’s path. It came into focus with a life-changing jolt when a mystery magazine assigned me a book to review. A mystery, fourth in a series new to me, but evidently well received. The premise and protagonist seemed a bit whacky, but from the first page it felt so familiar.
I don’t mean that I had read this author’s work before. No. It felt like she was writing about my life.
In this novel the author described my youngest son, used his name, placed him in his favorite situation and that was just the opening scene. The book is set in an agrarian setting (much like my home town) with a heroine who is a farmer and a biker. The author graduated from a Mennonite college -- like my husband. And the author as well as her protagonist sound remarkably like a former editor from my home region, who was also Mennonite and affiliated with bikers during her adventurous life. Even the author’s disease of choice hit close to home.
When I perused the author's webpage, I saw an interview conducted by my personal hero and former colleague at the newspaper where I worked and first grew into the title: writer. The author presides over a writing group in the heart of my old stomping grounds surrounded by local writers with whom I had attended writing meetings back when I lived in the land where I belonged.
And she's doing readings in my favorite libraries in my home landscape.
Is this what happens when we don't take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself? Was it simply fear that diverted me from my true destiny? When we don't follow through on the ideas we start to turn into novels and never complete -- someone else does it?
In my stash of unfinished fiction lies a biker story, several farm-related stories, a potential serial, a romance, a mystery or two, some based on my son’s heavy metal experiences – not unlike the opening scene of the assigned novel. And all of them are four to six chapters long. That seems to be the time when the doldrums hit and I lose the momentum to finish a novel.
I'm not saying she has done anything wrong. Not at all. I'm just saying -- she's living my life.
She's living my life! Or at least the life I expected to live in the location where I expected to grow old.
I sent this author a couple of emails and I imagine by now she thinks I'm a stalker or feels threatened or is thinking lawsuit. Nope. Nope. Nope. I am amazed at the synchonicity, the déjà vu feeling of seeing work so familiar coming from another hand, another mind.
I am dazed and shocked and suddenly aware of how far from my expected life I have wandered. Talk about the butterfly effect and Freaky Friday.
Maybe it is time I at least finished those novels I started. See if maybe I can recoup a bit of my life before the fates hand her my story ideas, too. But if I write about characters based on my own family and experiences -- will it sound like I'm copying her?
The universe is shrinking and we are all connected. Now I'm wondering just how connected are we?
By the way, her novel is great. I think mine would be better -- but the funny thing is -- publishers don't sell unfinished novels.
For now I plug away at trapping the girls in my office each morning and then when they escape, turn to writing my book reviews and blogs. If anyone would care to contribute to my Observations http://www.wordsogold.blogspot.com/ which focuses on writing, writers, books, wannabes and great advice and inspiration, please let me know. The same for my other blog, what else: Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles http://www.subversivestitch.blogspot.com/ Between the reviews, blogs, and wrestling matches, I also write personal essays and articles for a variety of publications including The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, NBC News, and Better Nutrition.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
My First-Co-Authored Novel By Sharyn McCrumb
A Literary Drafting Partner
By Sharyn McCrumb
Co-author a novel with a NASCAR driver?
I wasn't sure if it could be done, but it sounded like an adventure.
I met Adam Edwards, my co-author of the new novel Faster Pastor, at the Bristol spring race, when he bought a copy of St Dale, my NASCAR homage to The Canterbury Tales, and offered to give me technical advice on an future projects.
He soon became my crew chief for Once Around the Track in which he is also the character Tony Lafon.
In December 2005, when Adam was trying out for ARCA in testing at Daytona, he and I lived the scene in Once Around the Track in which Taran takes photos of Tony Lafon in his fire suit in Victory Lane at Daytona, and he is engulfed by tourists who assume he is some famous race car driver. Adam posed for pictures, signed scraps of paper dug out of purses, and was charming to everyone, while I was elbowed into the fence by the crowd. And nobody ever asked who he was. “They nearly trampled a New York Times best-selling author to get to me,” Adam recalls. “It’s the fire suit. They’re magic.”
In July of 2006 he gave me my first ride-along in a race car at Lowes Motor Speedway: 170 mph, with me in a fire suit and helmet watching the wall come up in front of us only inches away. Trusting him to that extent required only a little less faith than taking him on as a co-author, something I have never done before. But, even though I don’t work and play well with others, this collaboration was my idea, and he was terrific.
In the final scenes of Once Around the Track, a character has to rescue a race car driver from a burning car in mid-race. Adam, who knew exactly how to do that, sent me the instructions in narrative form, and reading over it, I thought, “Hey, this is pretty good. I don’t have to change this too much.” In research, no matter how long it took or how complex the question, Adam always tried to make sure that I understood and got it right.
A friend and fellow Hokie Adam got his MBA from Virginia Tech, and is now director of a health care facility. Before that, he managed a Busch racing team, drove in both Pure Stock and in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series, and he taught the fine points of race car driving for the FastTrack School of Racing.
When I was writing Once Around the Track,Adam was instrumental in devising the 86 car’s winning edge, and his keen instinct for making the action scenes come alive for me was a key part of the narrative.
After I finished that novel, Adam did a number of programs with me at libraries and other venues to talk about the book, including: the Sullivan County Public Library, Bristol TN; the Roanoke VA Art Museum; the Montgomery County VA Art Museum; Radford University, VA; Don Beyer Volvo Authors Series, Falls Church VA; Barnes & Noble, Midlothian VA; Bristol TN Family Race Night; Patrick County VA High School; the Reynolds Homestead Cultural Center, Critz, VA.
Adam was patient, articulate and charming in public appearances, and he wrote pitch-perfect action scenes, and so one day I said, “Hey, do you want to try to write a book together? I have an idea that involves your field of expertise-- teaching middle-aged guys how to drive a race car.”
I told him the bare bones of the plot, which occurred to me as the plots of comic novels usually do, with the thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if…”
Camber Berkley, a young stock car driver, wrecks his car on aI’ll write the first thousand words, and send it to you via e-mail, and we’ll just go back and forth,” I told him. Writing requires a great deal of self-discipline, and I am a natural loner, definitely not the nagging type, so I thought, “If he doesn’t do his thousand words, we’ll just forget the whole thing. But he did. A thousand words came back, well-written and promptly sent. Warily now, I sent him another thousand words. Again, he sent another thousand back.
winding mountain road, landing right in the midst of the funeral of an elderly
NASCAR fan. As punishment for his spectacular car wreck, the local authorities
of the small Tennessee town of Judas Grove give him a choice: serve three months
in jail for reckless driving, or spend two weeks teaching the local ministers to
drive stock cars, so that they can compete in race whose prize is the $2 million
legacy left by that deceased NASCAR fan.
I called him up. “Look,” I said. “Writing a 100,000 word book is a long, tedious process. Most people never finish one. So here’s the deal. I’ll give you up to 22,000 words to get bored or stressed out and quit. No hard feelings. If you want out, just say so. But if we get to 22k, that is a viable literary fetus, and if you try to back out after that point, I will hunt you down.”
“No, no. I can do this.”
And he’s right. He could and did.
So we wrote Faster Pastor in a year’s time, found a publisher, and now the real adventure begins… We gave our first program together at the Hampton roads Writers Conference in Virginia Beach last weekend, but we expect to be on the road quite a lot in 2010 when Ingalls Publishing Group brings out the novel this spring.
Faster Pastor
By Sharyn McCrumb & Adam Edwards
INGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP
www.ingallspublishingroup.com
Hardcover
ISBN: 9781932158878 -$25.00
http://www.sharynmccrumb.com/
e-mail: order@atlasbooks.com
Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, set in the North Carolina/Tennessee mountains, including the New York Times Best Sellers She Walks These Hills and The Rosewood Casket. Her other best-selling novels include The Ballad of Frankie Silver and The Songcatcher. Ghost Riders, an account of the Civil War in the mountains of western North Carolina, won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature given by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Audie Award for Best Recorded Book. St. Dale, The Canterbury Tales in a NASCAR setting, won a 2006 Library of Virginia Award as well as the AWA Book of the Year Award. Her most recent novels are The Devil Amongst the Lawyers and Faster Pastor, the latter co-authored by NASCAR driver Adam Edwards.
McCrumb, was named a “Virginia Woman of History” in 2008 for Achievement in Literature. Other honors include: AWA Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature Award; the Chaffin Award for Southern Literature; the Plattner Award for Short Story; and AWA’s Best Appalachian Novel.
She lives and writes near Roanoke, Virginia.
Joshilyn Jackson: How ____ Really Are
Back in grad school, my friends and I were heartless and young and pretentious and in love with ourselves. I am pleased to report that we are quite different people now. (The first comedian to say, YES! BECAUSE NOW YOU ARE OLD! shall be taken out forthwith and fed unto lions. I’m just sayin’.)There is a certain kind of poisonous factionista mindset that quite often grows in the cracks and festers in creative writing graduate programs, and I am ashamed to say I indulged in it. A lot of us did. To be fair, there were quite a few writers who floated around our program trying to make something and be decent humans. Then there were ... the rest of us. Competitive to a fault, we divided ourselves into camps and glared out of trenches, our pop-guns loaded up with smug better-than-thou (or in my transplanted southerner in Chicago case, Little-bit-sugar-mouthed-better-than-y’all,-sorry!). There were three main camps.
First, a pod of men writing BIG MALE PHALLIC POWER FICTION---oh, it was SRS Bizness, lolcat, I assure you---and they spent their time not letting a cigar be just a cigar, not ever. In workshop they poo-poo’ed any word penned by a creature who had ovaries.
Second there was a droopy faction of oppressed hyperrealist women writing about hypersensitive female leads who floated haplessly in tepid lake water describing clouds and filtering silt and their sad histories through their emaciated, pale, long, lovely fingers.
The smallest faction was a mixed gender squad of experimental fiction whackjobs (That would be the team I played on, yes). We were...weirdier than thou. I ended up there because I was in madcap love with Samuel Beckett, and because a smart professor told to me I should befriend the writers in the program whose work I most admired. That was hands down Lydia (and my opinion of her writing has not changed), but at the time she was maybe 20, fresh out of an undergrad program, and she was in this pod.
If you had put all three of these factions on an island together, there would been a Lord of the Flies style pig roast based on aesthetics in RECORD time.
The man-pod, we easy-breezy-beautiful dismissed rather quickly. They needed, we said, to get a ruler, drop trou, and award the biggest fella an MFA. The rest could slink off home. But us expy ficcers and the hyperrealist hypersensitives made each other clinically insane for two years running.
They would slog through our stories and blink at us, puzzled. Invariably, one would ask, “Is the narrator CRAZY? Or is this actually HAPPENING?” and we would answer, “Where were you when Dada went by, trailing Surrealism like a crazy kite with trout instead of string?” Then they would say, “What?”
We would push our way through their stories waiting for something to HAPPEN or for the invariably female narrator to PERFORM AN ACTION instead of being acted upon by cruel men/fate/weather/pond frogs. We would blink at them, puzzled, and one of us would invariably ask, “Nothing happens, what is this even about?” They would say, “It is about how _____ really ARE.” And in the blank they would put, say, Manic-depressives. Victims of poverty. Victims of men. Victims of victimhood. Gardeners. Monkeys. HOPES! LOSSES! TRUTHS! SNICKERS BARS! In other words, they were slice of life stories from the plot-free wasteland of the early 90’s.
My final irritated response to being asked for the umpty-hundredth time if my narrator was insane or if a large waterfowl was REALLY following her all around Chicago was to drink umpty-hundred vodka/peppermint schnapps/chocolate milk shooters and write a TERRIBLE story called “How Nutria Really Are.”
Nutria really are large swim-happy rodents that infest the swamps around New Orleans, but my story was more about how Nutria REALLY secretly are tricky furry covered literal bombs waiting sentiently to be used in acts of murder or revenge by 90’s style victimized women. (As I recall, some Nutria really ARE, in that story, pseudo-machines that allow a moderate amount of convenient time travel. Um. Yeah. *cough*)
In my defense, no one could accuse that particular story of not having a plot. In my further defense, I wrote it in 45 minutes under the influence of really, just... SO much Schnapps.
Defense aside? It was a terrible story.
What made it most terrible was its small-minded cruelty. I wrote it to poke at the hyperrealist hypersensitives. And let's be clear---this wasn;t sly literary criticism. I wasn't making fun of an aesthetic. I was making fun of people. In the way of such things, it was funny if you were in on it, and absolutely impenetrable---murky with a side of mean---if you were not.
Another way to say the above is... I wrote it to make fun of People Not Like Us. I wrote it from outside of them, to mock them, not inside, to puncture the pretentions we writers, me included, betimes indulge in. I was uncomfortable with it the minute I was sober, and I should have been. It is the opposite of the way I am currently comfortable finding humor in small town southern living. I can gently mock the South and even angrily point out her inconsistencies and cruelties because I am in and of it ---and most of all, most of all, even with its flaws and blood-soaked history, I truly, truly love it. It is me. I am it.
A lot of writers come to book signings and speaking engagements. In some of them, I recognize my younger self. I can always spot my former kind, the heartless ones, young and ruthless and better-than, chins and shoulders forward, pugnaciously demanding that their betterness be recognized. I can spot them from space, because I used to be them.
One of the most F asked of the FAQ’s I hear on tour is, “What advice do you have for young writers?” and my favorite answer---especially if one my old kind is present---is to say, “Don’t compete. Don’t be slotty or narrow. Don’t make yourself feel better about your work by mocking the work of others. Be kinder than that. Love people more than that. All people. Even the irritating ones. Even the ones who you have wisely decided aren’t as special as you are, because probably they have gifts you are too narrowly focused to recognize."
I tell them that, to be a good writer, you have to grow up enough to love people. When you do, that’s when you can write about them from the inside, as one of them. If you love them, if you are OF them and IN them, not needing to put others down to raise yourself up, you will write without stock villains mustache twirling along to tie Sweet Polly-Sue to the nearest railroad track, without perfect heroes who actually are your sad idea of you with a better body. Be an insider, because when you write people, you have to write more than what you know. You have to write what you love.
New York Times Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson lives in Powder Springs, Georgia with her husband, their two kids, a hound dog, a scurrilous Boggart-cat, two legally separated Beta fish, and a twenty-two pound, one-eyed Main Coon cat named Franz Schubert. She wishes their neighborhood was zoned for goats. Her latest book is The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, and Entertainment Weekly called it “a wild, smartly calibrated achievement." It makes a great hostess-best friend-teacher gift, and plus your mom told me she wants a copy, so you should definitely run right out and get a couple. Oh heck, get three, they are small.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Water from the Porch
Hello folks, let's chat...Tell me, what did you think of when you saw the title to this post? I can't say the words without thinking about my grandmother's porch in Natchez, MS, the one framed by the big beautiful hydrangeas, the one where I joined with my sister and our favorite cousin to take refuge from sudden storms and hold endless talent contests and beauty pageants-- acting as both contestants and judges. (My sister Rhonda always won the beauty pageant, and though Lisa and I secretly decried the results you really must give us our props for the honesty with which we continued to cast our votes.)
To be sure, the porch really belonged to the small country church next door were my grandfather preached his heart out, as did that house and every other house they ever lived in as a young married couple, and later as a growing family with four kids.
At first glance, I almost pass by this bit of porch information, considering it irrelevant to what it is I want to share today, but upon taking a closer look, it begins to dawn on me just how integral it is.
You see, it was from that porch that I watched my grandmother offer water over and again to men who came down Pine Ridge Road in Natchez, Mississippi, down on their luck and in sore need of a friend. Food was offered, too, and whatever spare money could be raked together. My grandparents always gave what they could. Only now do I realize that not once did they give out of an abundance of anything other than love. This is my heritage. Forgive me for being so nostalgic with y'all, dear friends and complete strangers, but my eyes have begun to water at the memory and the realization that such a heritage is a treasure without price. Water from the Porch. It's funny that I didn't see that connection until now.
I suppose it's a bit late for a proper introduction, we've backed into this thing from the get go, but in short, I'm the host of All Things Southern and right now "water" is on my heart and soul, pushing and pulling me to act.
I hate inertia. I hate to allow feelings of powerless over the size of a problem paralyze me from taking action at all. And yet, I do it all the time. All. The. Time. I do it when I change the channel from a commercial that breaks my heart. Reminding myself of the different ministries my husband and I support helps-- for about... two seconds, and then I realize that I could do more. I could always do more.
I pushed this cause away the first time it fell into my heart, knowing full well I would be just ONE MORE VOICE asking people for action, (not to mention suspecting that I'd possibly drive off readers who were as weary as I am about bad news and had thought they were coming to the All Things Southern porch for something else entirely.) The idea pushed back, again and again. Every time I saw Life Today's Water for Life program, every time I thought, "How cool would it be to partner with them to drill a well, not to offer a thirsty soul a drink of water once, but to be a part of giving an entire community fresh water for a lifetime!"
Even so, I continued to war with myself. Why this program, I asked, why when there are just as many other wonderful people doing wonderful work, (like my own dear sister-in-law and husband who faithfully operate a feeding ministry and orphanage in Kipsongo, Africa). The only answer I have is that not only did the idea refuse to go away, it grew! It beat within me like the tell tale heart from Edgar Allan Poe. (Sorry for the obscure reference.)
And then I realized that while I rationalized, a mother looked from a contaminated water source to her dying thirsty child and rationalized in her own way. Would she give her baby water that may kill him eventually or let him die of thirst before her eyes?
And so, I moved. I recently asked my dearly loved readers, to join with me to drill a well of life-giving water in cooperation with Life Today's Water for Life outreach program. A single well sustains a village of 1000 people for an entire lifetime, a worthy goal by anyone's measure. Our goal at All Things Southern is to raise $4800 so that children just like yours, grandchildren just like ours, won't have to drink contaminated water because it is all they have.
Oh, yes, I know people are hurting right here in America. I didn't choose this cause, it chose me. And yes, I know pocketbooks are tight and the economy is sickly. I live in the real world with you. (As I type this the rain is coming down and my husband and I are praying that it will stop so we can harvest.)
I also know I didn't dream this up. The Lord gave it to me, so I will see it through. Our current running total is $1,836.00. If you'd consider helping, I've asked my readers to give as little as ten dollars each. You can use the paypal button at my website to donate, or you may send your donation to:
All Things Southern
Water from the Porch
610 Schneider Lane
Lake Providence, LA 71254
Also, if you would be so kind as to post this on your facebook pages, twitter profiles, and or blogs, I'd be greatly indebted. "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name... I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." Mark 9:41
Thanks for listening! And now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging... ~smile~
Hugs,
Shellie
To be sure, the porch really belonged to the small country church next door were my grandfather preached his heart out, as did that house and every other house they ever lived in as a young married couple, and later as a growing family with four kids.
At first glance, I almost pass by this bit of porch information, considering it irrelevant to what it is I want to share today, but upon taking a closer look, it begins to dawn on me just how integral it is.
You see, it was from that porch that I watched my grandmother offer water over and again to men who came down Pine Ridge Road in Natchez, Mississippi, down on their luck and in sore need of a friend. Food was offered, too, and whatever spare money could be raked together. My grandparents always gave what they could. Only now do I realize that not once did they give out of an abundance of anything other than love. This is my heritage. Forgive me for being so nostalgic with y'all, dear friends and complete strangers, but my eyes have begun to water at the memory and the realization that such a heritage is a treasure without price. Water from the Porch. It's funny that I didn't see that connection until now.
I suppose it's a bit late for a proper introduction, we've backed into this thing from the get go, but in short, I'm the host of All Things Southern and right now "water" is on my heart and soul, pushing and pulling me to act.
I hate inertia. I hate to allow feelings of powerless over the size of a problem paralyze me from taking action at all. And yet, I do it all the time. All. The. Time. I do it when I change the channel from a commercial that breaks my heart. Reminding myself of the different ministries my husband and I support helps-- for about... two seconds, and then I realize that I could do more. I could always do more.
I pushed this cause away the first time it fell into my heart, knowing full well I would be just ONE MORE VOICE asking people for action, (not to mention suspecting that I'd possibly drive off readers who were as weary as I am about bad news and had thought they were coming to the All Things Southern porch for something else entirely.) The idea pushed back, again and again. Every time I saw Life Today's Water for Life program, every time I thought, "How cool would it be to partner with them to drill a well, not to offer a thirsty soul a drink of water once, but to be a part of giving an entire community fresh water for a lifetime!"
Even so, I continued to war with myself. Why this program, I asked, why when there are just as many other wonderful people doing wonderful work, (like my own dear sister-in-law and husband who faithfully operate a feeding ministry and orphanage in Kipsongo, Africa). The only answer I have is that not only did the idea refuse to go away, it grew! It beat within me like the tell tale heart from Edgar Allan Poe. (Sorry for the obscure reference.)
And then I realized that while I rationalized, a mother looked from a contaminated water source to her dying thirsty child and rationalized in her own way. Would she give her baby water that may kill him eventually or let him die of thirst before her eyes?
And so, I moved. I recently asked my dearly loved readers, to join with me to drill a well of life-giving water in cooperation with Life Today's Water for Life outreach program. A single well sustains a village of 1000 people for an entire lifetime, a worthy goal by anyone's measure. Our goal at All Things Southern is to raise $4800 so that children just like yours, grandchildren just like ours, won't have to drink contaminated water because it is all they have.
Oh, yes, I know people are hurting right here in America. I didn't choose this cause, it chose me. And yes, I know pocketbooks are tight and the economy is sickly. I live in the real world with you. (As I type this the rain is coming down and my husband and I are praying that it will stop so we can harvest.)
I also know I didn't dream this up. The Lord gave it to me, so I will see it through. Our current running total is $1,836.00. If you'd consider helping, I've asked my readers to give as little as ten dollars each. You can use the paypal button at my website to donate, or you may send your donation to:
All Things Southern
Water from the Porch
610 Schneider Lane
Lake Providence, LA 71254
Also, if you would be so kind as to post this on your facebook pages, twitter profiles, and or blogs, I'd be greatly indebted. "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name... I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." Mark 9:41
Thanks for listening! And now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging... ~smile~
Hugs,
Shellie
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