Life and Death in a Big City

My daughter-in-law just died. She was thirty-two years old. Not an up subject, I know. But, there it is, right in your face—for real—as in dead and she’s gone, and it hurts so bad, and how can we stand it, and will this never end, and we’re all gonna be there someday, so get ready.

Alana came into my son’s life when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. She had the smile I wanted all my life. Big and bold and beautiful with perfect teeth. She was traveling with her dance company that she’d been part of since she was five years old. My son was traveling with his wrestling team. Amidst a backdrop of teenage ballet dancers and wrestlers they made an undeniable connection. Several conversations and a farewell breakfast at Perkins later all my son had was her address on a piece of hotel stationary and an empty bottle of Sundance Raspberry Sparkler they’d shared the night before.

They each went back to their respective home towns. A week later a long-distance romance began with a flurry of letters flying back and forth. For a year and a half the letters and a handful of phone calls sustained them. Then the unexpected happened. Alana’s Grandmama offered to pay the airfare for my son to visit. She put him up in her condominium, probably to keep a watchful eye on the lovebirds. The sparks were flying.

He brought back all these really cute pictures of them, but my son moaned around the house, one lovesick pup. Then we’d grant permission for another phone call—long distance charges in those days were horrendous—and he made pancakes for breakfast and whistled Dixie—okay we lived in the north, he whistled something else I can’t remember—and then they’d be back to their letter writing and so it went.

My son graduated high school and went on to college. More time passed. The young couple never wavered in their devotion. Alana graduated from high school six months early and they decided to move to Salt Lake City. There she would continue her dance career at the University of Utah, and my son would decide what to do when he got there. Being with Alana was all that mattered to him at the time.

They were doing great and then sort of great and then not so great. Alana had many goals in her life that included becoming a professional ballet dancer, traveling the world, and earning a PhD in medicine or science. And my lovelorn son aspired—well, frankly—to be with her. Young love is like a soap opera. You never know what will happen next.

She ran off with a professional football player. And she became a professional dancer and she went on to get her undergraduate degree in Biology. My son kept in touch as best he could. Years went by. They exchanged two letters, eight phone calls and got together for a single twenty-five minute visit when she had a layover in Phoenix where my son was living at the time. Then Alana went about pursuing her dreams. Meanwhile my son mostly went into depression. He recovered from the heartbreak of his first grown up love but never married and continued to compare all the other women in his life to her—sad and so futile, right? I wrote many letters to no avail.

Then, the unexpected happened. When he was in his thirties, still a bachelor, he typed in her name and did a google search, but used her maiden name for Petey’s sake. Good luck! But up she popped, freshly divorced and back to her maiden moniker. Go figure. They conversed. Thirteen years had gone by—lots to talk about. She never married the football player. She married and divorced a doctor. She was in Minneapolis. He was in Phoenix. They flew back and forth. They clicked. Here’s where the drama comes in.

She’d been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. That’s how he happened to find her. The article on google said she’d defied the odds, gone on to Princeton, and gotten her master’s degree as a Molecular Biologist all the while smitten with a brain tumor. All the while my son was still smitten with her.

They married. She moved to Arizona. They bought a house. And the cancer grew. Two years went by. The doctors said, “Look’n good.” And the cancer grew. They decorated their home. They met the neighbors. The doctors said, “Doing fine.” And the cancer grew. They painted and laughed and cooked spaghetti. The doctors said, “No problem.” And the cancer grew. They bought two miniatures dachshunds. They named them Dave and Jack. And the cancer grew. The doctors said, “Way to go!” They climbed Mount Sonoma and camped out and made love. And the cancer grew. The doctors said, “You’re amazing.” And the cancer grew. They danced and planted their yard and bought a new car and had company visit. And the cancer grew. The doctors said, “You’re doing great.” And the cancer grew.

But, one day her back hurt, and her head hurt, and she collapsed, and they took her to the hospital, and the doctors said. “It’s bad. The cancer’s back. And the cancer said, “That’s right! And I’m going to kill you.”

And it did.

If you’d like to read Alana’s story go to http://www.helptgen.org/. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Alana’s Story.

J. L. Miles is the author or Divorcing Dwayne, Cold Rock River, and Roseflower Creek. Email her at jackie@jlmiles.com. Or check out her website at http://www.jlmiles.com/.

A Trip to the Groccery Store

In prehistoric times, when a child wailed, “There’s nothing to eat around here!” it was a major hassle. Dad was forced to get out the bow and arrow and hunt down a wild boar. Mom had to go out and forage for berries, nuts and the occasional grub.

Nowadays putting food on the table is a much more civilized affair, but it still comes with trials, especially if you’re shopping with kids

The first obstacle is the wall of gumball machines just inside the entrance, which is the grocery store’s diabolical method of getting you to pay a cover charge just to get inside. After you’ve fed the machines five dollars in quarters, you’re allowed entry.

Once inside, you discover you’re stuck with the bad cart, one with a wheel so wobbly it should be taken out to the back of the store and shot. You rattle through the aisles, as your youngsters scatter to pick out assorted kiddy litter that will add at least fifty bucks to your food bill, and thousands to your dentist bill.

You head to the meat section and, as usual, nothing is on sale except unappetizing cuts like butts, shoulders and shanks. Since there is no such thing as Pork Butt Helper, you opt for a couple of pounds of hamburger.

Rounding the corner, you spot the dreaded Sample Lady. You’d be delighted to see the Sample Lady if she gave away good stuff like dark chocolate or Dixie cups of Chardonnay, but the Sample Lady is almost always peddling weird food you’d never want to eat.

“Don’t make eye contact,” you mutter to yourself as you try to duck behind a display of Little Debbies.

Too late! Sample Lady heads you off at the pass.

“Would you like to try this new yogurt?” she gushes. “It’s beet-flavored.”

The look on Sample Lady’s face is so hopeful you hate to turn her down. You take the yogurt and plan to ditch it somewhere in produce.

Recently you’ve vowed to purchase healthier foods so you stroll down a rarely visited part of the grocery store, the organic aisle. Suddenly you’re surrounded by oddities like oat cakes, soy milk, and gluten-free bread. Do people really eat this stuff? Feeling overwhelmed, you finally see a food you recognize, all-natural Cheetos. Feeling virtuous, you toss it into your basket.

You get into the checkout line. As your kids pillage the candy rack, you try not to look at the tabloid display.

“Junk food for the mind,” you sniff but then, out of the corner of your eye, you see the headline, “Ashton Begs Demi, “No More Plastic Surgery.”

“I knew she had some work done,” you cackle to yourself as you add the magazine to the cart.

Once you’re all checked out, the clerk announces your total. “$250.75.”

“WHAT!!!”

“Do you have your grocery card?”

Of course, you have your grocery card. With today’s prices a person would be stark raving mad to go shopping without it.

“Your total is now $250. 25.”

“That’s more like it,” you huff.

You get home, unload the groceries and unwind from your excursion. Two hours later, one of the kids takes a peek into the refrigerator and cries, “I’m starving and there’s nothing to eat!”
You tell him to go in the yard and dig for grubs.

Karen Neches was single for over twenty years. She used to tell people she was in the “hospice stage” of being single as she never expected to recover. Then at the age of forty-three she finally met her soul mate. Earthly Pleasures, Booksense Notable is dedicated to him. She maintains a web site at www.karenneches.com. P.S Some people alsos know her as Karin Gillespie, founder of this blog.

TRAVELS WITH NORAH, ALABAMA DIARY by Kerry Madden

A painting by Liz Jones of Kerry and Norah (the fairy) in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, the setting of my Maggie Valley Trilogy.

TRAVELS WITH NORAH

"ALABAMA DIARY"

I’m just home from driving up and down the state of Alabama with my nine-year-old daughter, Norah, as my traveling companion. It was a week of writing workshops in rural schools in Lower Alabama (the other L.A.). We live in the “real” L.A. and watching Alabama unfold before Norah’s eyes made me so grateful and happy to have a kid along with me on a trip through the South. (It can get lonesome on the road, book-stumping and doing writing workshops.) She made the whole journey a lot more fun with detours to Dairy Queen and watching her tremendous excitement at the sight of buzzards and wild turkeys on the back roads. Here is what our week looked liked as we traveled from Birmingham to Fort Deposit to Monroeville to Packers Bend/Lower Peachtree to Jackson to Montgomery and back to Birmingham. (I was traveling to schools and working with kids as part of ALABAMA VOICES, and I asked the directors, Betsy Panhorst and Jay Lamar, to send me to rural schools around Monroeville where the students wouldn’t typically meet an author. I got my wish!)

Saturday, February 23, 2008…BIRMINGHAM BOUND
We leave at the crack of dawn for Alabama from LAX. I haven’t looked at the ticket carefully, and we have a three-hour layover in Houston, but that’s okay. We eat Texas barbecue, and Norah becomes my “secret guest blogger” on my Live Journal blog http://mountainmist.livejournal.com/ aging herself three years and writing under the pseudonym “Donna, Age 12.” She dictates her impressions to me of the upcoming trip and Texas barbecue. We arrive in Birmingham and stay at the home of Daniel Anderson, a poet and professor at the University of Alabama, and his lovely wife, Hilary Elkins. Danny and I used to teach at the Sewanee Young Writers Conference in Tennessee for teens, and the four of us having a night of catching up on stories and folks. His books are DRUNK IN SUNLIGHT and JANUARY RAIN, and I always have my students read SUNFLOWERS IN A FIELD, one of my most favorite poems of his. It feels so good to start the huge week with dear friends.

Sunday, February 24, 2008…FORT DEPOST/MONROEVILLE
Norah wakes up and says to me, “Be very quiet so we don’t disturb them.” But she’s too wriggly to stay in bed, so she gets up and greets them in the kitchen and the three of them make a “lumberjack breakfast” of pancakes, sausage, eggs, bacon, and juice and coffee. We get on the road late morning with instructions to stop at Fort Deposit for Priester’s Pecans. We sample pecans, buy little gifts for Flannery and Lucy (Norah’s older brother and sister) and eat ice cream on the front porch. Then we head down to Monroeville, Alabama and drive straight to the Old Courthouse. Norah has seen TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, and she is thrilled to see the Courthouse and the old Clock Tower. She gathers up red, white, and pink Camellias and studies the flats in the play depicting the homes of the Finches, Boo Radley, and Miss Maudie & Miss Stephanie. The courthouse bell rings five times, and she says, “This place feels beautiful and abandoned.” But it’s five pm on a Sunday, so the Square is quiet…we look at murals and old storefronts. I’m so glad she’s with me. We head over to Susan Brown’s home where we will be staying for the next three nights. Norah immediately is smitten with sixteen-year-old, Hanna, Susan’s daughter, who shows her how to feed donkeys and plays music for her on her MP3 player. Hanna played Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD at the Courthouse, and now she plays Mayella. Susan is a professor of Art History at Alabama Southern. We have supper at Susan’s cabin with her mother, Betty, and a close family friend, Kathryn. It’s a lovely night of a campfire and stories. It’s a brand new cabin made of cherrywood and walnut, and Susan and a friend built it themselves. I cannot imagine building a cabin myself. She also had to shoot some of the wild pigs running roughshod over her land…I cannot imagine shooting a wild pig either, but I can imagine living in the South again on some land…It always feels like coming home. Norah loves the donkeys and toasting her marshmallows to a black crisp.

Monday, February 25, 2008 PACKERS BEND/LOWER PEACHTREE
My cell phone rings at 6:00 a.m. It’s the principal from Monroe Intermediate, Betty Madison, and she says, “Kerry, you can’t take the ferry. The river is too high. You’ll have to come the long way around.” Monroe Intermediate is located at Packers Bend in Lower Peachtree. I found the school last year when doing research in Monroeville with my sister, Keely. A local artist showed us how to take the ferry (it holds three cars and is operated by an old bus engine)…I email Mrs. Madison the directions I have for the “long way around,” and she emails right back that they are not correct. So we talk on the phone, and she gives me very specific directions with landmarks like “store on the hill” and “curvy roads” and “the last six miles, no cell phone reception. You’re on your own.” I am terrified I won’t find it…Norah’s up and ready to go…As the roads become more narrow, a wild turkey races across the road, and Norah is beside herself with excitement. We come upon a flock of buzzards having a snack and again, she is riveted. I am more focused on finding the school, but Mrs. Madison’s directions are perfect. The phone quits exactly where she said it would, but we pull up to the school an hour from Monroeville and are welcomed by staff and students. There are 78 students in the school - grades K-8. Some of the teachers are graduates of Monroe Intermediate themselves. We do writing workshops all day long, and the students write about their favorite secret places, and one boy says to me, “I want to write about my soul mate.” He is a third grader and I ask him, “What do you know about soul mates?” He smiles and says, “She is sitting over there.” He points to Norah with a big grin. He is the cutest kid…the sixth graders invite Norah to eat lunch with her, and she is thrilled. Before we leave, they give us a scrapbook of the day, which I will always treasure. We drive back and I take a wrong turn into Chance, Alabama, but we figure it out soon enough. I think Chance, Alabama would make a great title or setting or both.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 JACKSON, CLARK COUNTY
We wake up to the sound of cracking thunder, rain, and hail. Norah cuddles close and whispers, “Call the school and cancel.” I pray the hail doesn’t damage the rental car. The storm blows over and we get on the road. We have a GPS for Jackson Intermediate over in Clark County. Our friend, Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, has offered the GPS. We ate dinner with him on Monday night at Radley’s Café in Monroeville. Norah loves the GPS, because the voice is very perky until we make a wrong-turn, and then she says in a very testy tone, “RECALCULATING.” Norah finds this hilarious and wants me to keep making wrong turns to annoy the GPS lady, who seems quite real to both of us. We spend the day at Jackson doing writing workshops for classes of forty kids. The librarian, Jennifer Hendricks, is great, and she really helps me get the kids focused. So does her assistant, Helen, who treats us to a lunch of SUBWAY, Norah’s favorite. One little girl in one of the workshops is already mad at me and says, “I’m so mad at you! I’m missing my Dodge-ball Tournament to come write because of you!” I tell her, “I’d be mad too! I think you ought to write about how mad you are and tell me everything you can about dodge-ball and about your coach and the way the whistle sounds and if you’re fast or slow and what it’s like.” She says, “I am VERY fast! Can I really write about dodge-ball?” I say, “Yes! Please do!” And she writes a great piece about being furious at missing the tournament, filled with passion and rage and what it’s like to win. I hope she emails it to me – I invite kids to be the “Writer of the Day” on my blog. After school, we hit the Dairy Queen, and on the way home, Norah takes pictures of more abandoned houses. Then we drove back to Monroeville for a night with Susan and Hanna. They live in a beautiful Victorian home built in 1923…Susan shows me a wreath behind a frame of locks of guests hair woven into flowers. Her aunts would cut a lock of hair from a guest and weave it into the wreath…It has a name, but I can’t remember what…Hanna talks about applying to Northwestern and studying theatre. She’s a wonderful actress and a lovely girl. She makes Norah a mix CD, which we will play the rest of the trip in Alabama. The trip is flying by so fast, and I don’t want it to be over yet.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008 MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
The next morning, it’s icy cold – a real winter day after summery/spring days. We pack up to leave for Montgomery, but first go to Monroeville High School and speak to Mrs. Turner’s students. They have made us a huge breakfast spread, and a reporter, Mary Tomlinson, from the Monroe Journal is there to cover the workshop. Mrs. Tomlinson used to be Mrs. Turner’s English teacher. I speak to a class of sophomores, Hanna’s class, and they ask great questions about writing. I always talk about growing up in college football and how that formed me as a writer - working hard, no quitting. Mrs. Turner promises to come to Los Angeles…she and Norah make an immediate connection. Then we go to the Courthouse, so I can show her the Harper Lee and Truman Capote rooms and the courtroom itself, which is an exact replica of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (or the other way around actually – it’s one of the few oval-shaped courtrooms in the country). She knows A CHRISTMAS MEMORY very well and loves seeing Aunt Sook’s coat under glass. We visit so briefly with Jane Ellen, the curator, and buy some folk art. It’s too quick a trip. We meet George Thomas Jones and AB Blass for lunch at Radleys, and then we stop by the library to say hello to Bunny Hines. Norah wants to go to the Sweet Tooth Bakery on the Square, but there isn’t time, as I have to be in Montgomery by 3:00 at the latest for another workshops. We get on the road and Norah realizes she’s left her Edgar Allen Poe journal at Radley’s, and I call Susan who promises to mail it to her. We stop by Priester’s Pecans on the way back up, because I know they serve espresso, and we make it to Montgomery in record time! We do a workshop at the Molina Center in Montgomery with Dr. Nancy Grisham Anderson. These kids live in the projects and some are refugees from Hurricane Katrina. It is a packed workshop, and the kids all write stories of their favorite secret places. They also write their favorite foods – ice cream, cornbread, and strawberries! Norah says, “I’ve run out of favorite secret places to write about, so I’m writing comics.” One of the highlights of the trip for her is going to SHOGUN that night, a Japanese restaurant of PERFORMANCE FOOD! (Hanna said she would love it!) The chef cooks everything right in front of us, whipping the spatula like a whip, lighting up onion volcanoes and chopping chicken and vegetables with great style and flair!

Thursday, February 28, 2008 SELMA and MARION, ALABAMA…and Montgomery/Birmingham
We meet Nancy Anderson early, (mad dash of flinging items in suitcase) and she drives us to Mary Ward Brown’s home in Marion, Alabama. We drive through Selma, and Nancy describes the EDMUND PETTUS Bridge to Norah. It is one of the best days/best interviews…Mary Ward Brown, age 90, wrote IT WASN’T ALL DANCING and TONGUES OF FLAME, my most favorite short stories - beautiful gems so anchored in time and place and longing. Nancy and Norah go off shopping, so Mary and I can talk, and Mary tells me so many stories of growing up in the white, two-story farmhouse her father built from a plan in a magazine. She still lives in the farmhouse. We sit her at her table, watching cardinals and robins flit around her birdfeeder. She said when she published one of her first stories in McCall’s, folks finally stopped asking her to “join the garden club” or “the D.A.R.” They’d say instead, “You still writing out there?” I’ll be weaving her interview into two other interviews I did with Helen Norris Bell and Kathryn Tucker Windham in 2007. It is a magical day, and then Nancy brings us back a country lunch of fried chicken, cornbread, black-eyed peas, butter beans, and coconut cake. We eat lunch together, and Norah goes outside to try to pet the feral cats, but they won’t have it. We all say good-bye and Nancy drives us to Capitol Books where I have a book signing at three. It’s a packed day, a packed week…I love visiting with Cheryl and Thomas and Eleanor Upchurch of Capitol Books…several kids come in to talk about writing their stories. Norah goes back to the Molina Center with Nancy and shows the kids her own Alabama stories on the blog. We meet back at Capitol Books, and soon it is time to head up to Birmingham. We will fly home in the morning, but leaving Montgomery, the sky is washed peach and lavender. I say, “Look, it’s an Alabama sky.” Norah says, “You say that every night in Alabama.” I say, “Really?” She says, “Yep.” And we drive to up to Birmingham.

BIOGRAPHY
Kerry Madden's debut children's novel, Gentle's Holler, (Viking, 2005) was released in Penguin Puffin paperback in 2007, received starred reviews in both Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly, and is the first in a trilogy of Smoky Mountain novels. Louisiana's Song (SCIBA and CYBILS Award Finalist) was published in 2007 and has been selected for the California Readers Collection for Middle Grade Fiction. Jessie's Mountain was published on Valentine's in 2008 by Viking. She is currently working on a biography of Harper Lee for teens for Viking's UpClose Series. She may be reached at www.kerrymadden.com. She conducts writing workshops for kids of all ages across the country. She is also the author OFFSIDES, New York Public Library Pick for the Teenage in 1997 and WRITING SMARTS. (AMERICAN GIRL LIBRARY, 2002).

SOUTHERN RULES OF STRANGER SPEAK

In spite of the fact that I'm a Southern girl (capitol 's' for all it's worth!) I've lived in some pretty exotic locations. Okay - not Egypt or India yet but Like Ft. Lauderdale which is a blend of everything and Kansas City which is just like the South except totally different and Taos, New Mexico which really is the land of Enchantment. And these and other experiences like them have rounded out my life, made it about more than only looking out my familiar backdoor. When I was out west, I gloried in red chilies and Chamisa on the mesa. In the fact that the very light is a tangible thing that you can reach out and touch, that artists walked around 24/7 in pants with smears of color trailing through their fingertips. I loved the postman Carl with his long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and knowing that when he went home to the Reservation, that he shedded those clothes, and even the name Carl, like a snake sheds his skin. He stepped into his true identity and was comfortable on and off the reservation and I want to be like him. Balanced, trusting of myself, certain of my identity. And every place that I have put down temporal roots and called home have offered that kind of education, and integration into another society or microcosm of the world. But here's the thing. My microcosm lies down in the Southern netherlands. And never has that been more transparent than the day that I had arrived in Pensacola working my way home to Panama City after years out west. My Daddy had taken ill, his health not a good prognosis, and so I was headed east and home and my sister, a little north and away, was headed south and home. We were converging on homeland which caught me standing out on the porch of a little country style restaurant that used to be in Pensacola called Mama's. The sun was out and I remember I was just standing there like someone crossing over into a new world, my skin drinking in the humidity like a frazzled lizard. Ahhh, wet water in the air, a stomach full of comfort food, fried chicken and cornbread and dumplings, and pie. And standing there next to me is a round little women. She could have been the mascot for all that was Southern and good. White hair in a bun. Flat old, sensible shoes. Those special stockings all pulled up earlier but now rolling down around the tops so that they peek out from under that cotton dress. Not a Sunday dress, but a good go to town dress. Good enough for Mama's on a Saturday. She was carrying a pocketbook, not a purse. The pocketbook had a small handle and her arm was shoved through the handle, so that it pulled it up to the crook in her arm where it hung there obediently. Then she turned to me: "Sure is a pretty day." Only the pretty is more like purty and I'm drinking it in, that purse, those shoes, that hair, that voice. And I realized how empty that place had been. That part of my soul that was hungry for a little something more than wet air and fried food. I was hungry for a strangers voice. For conversation that passed as comfortably as if you had been born and raised as brethern. If you are from the South you know about this kinship of strangers who will strike up words as easy as match stuck across the red line. "Oh yes mamn," I tell her, "It is some kind of day." I pause a minute. Out west we don't talk so quickly to strangers. Not in grocery store lines, passing in hallways, standing on porches. But I'm not out west. "I just came home - or I'm almost home.' "Is that right?" "Oh, yes mamn. Been out west for awhile." "Well, that's something." She looks out past the trees lining the street, "I never been that far out west. Never been past the Mississippi." "Well, it's nice but it's different. You have to be ready for the different." "What's brought you back home?" "Daddy took sick." "Oh," she shuffles the pocket book, moves it down to both hands where she holds the straps and lets it hang in front of her, "Good thing you come then." "Yes mamn." "Chances are, you only get one Daddy." "Yes, mamn." "Gotta make it all count, don't you know? Every bit of it." And then she is walking down the steps, her ride pulled around and up to get her. She turns back and waves, "Nice talkin' to you, honey. You take care of your Daddy now." And I wave and think, Home. That was the day I realized that talking to strangers means a whole lot to me. It puts me squarely where I need to be. If talking in the post office line, grocery story line, bank line is off limits, then I'm outta position. After all, I'm living for the story and the story is this continuing on going everyday bubble around me. The story is the people walking in and out of my life. Even if its only for a moment. Tonight its raining in Nashville. This after a Sunday that ripped off the curtain of Winter and dared to shine in all it's glory. 60 something. Birds. Bees. Trees. Picnics. People walking, running, biking, blanketing. The whole city was alive and giddy. Today - rain. More rain. A never ending downpour accompanied by bouts of thunder, streaks of lighting. I step outside a restaurant as we are leaving, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for Mr. Wonderful to pull that truck around. A woman looks up at a flash as thunder rolls and claps above our heads. She turns to me and says, "Now, that was something!" And I look at her and smile. There's a story there between those crashes and flashes. She takes another drag on that cigarette, hides her nerves over the storm with a laugh. "Nothing but an early Summer Storm," I tell her. "It'll pass." And she believes me, smiles a little easier, and steps off the curb as I call,”You take care, honey," as she dodges raindrops and dives into a waiting car. Fifteen more minutes and I'd have known it all. All. The marriage that didn't work out and the one she was hoping was right around the corner that would. That finally this year, this leap year, would be her year and things would take a turn. That her daddy and momma had lived to be almost old and then died within a year of one another and ain't that just the blasted shame? Yes, Fifteen minutes would be all it takes. Because we are a strange people down this way. We'll tell a stranger the truth in nothing flat. About anything, anywhere, anytime. Now, granted there is the genteel south, the ladies and gentlemen with more good sense and proper manners. And even then, even them, the right clap of thunder, the right streak of lightning, and they're out in the open with it. Because we love to tell a story and we love to hear one in the making. I once had a card my good friend Virginia had given me that said "American by Birth, Southerner by the Grace of God." The writer in me nods and figures that about sums it up. Because the South is where good folks will peel the covers clean back off their hearts and tell their story full of aches and breaks in no time flat, and then they'll turn right around and listen to me run on and on as if they love me deeply and that the ending of their story is completely waiting to be determined by the ending of mine. Like we are all sacred and connected for all time and eternally and into the sweet by and by. And so we are. Even if we did just meet in the checkout line.

RIVER JORDAN is a southerner with a global perspective. Primarily, she’s a storyteller of the southern variety and has been cast most frequently in the company of Flannery O’Connor and Harper Lee. Jordan’s writing career began as a playwright with the Loblolly Theatre group where she received productions of her original works for the stage including Mama Jewels: Tales from Mullet Creek; Soul, Rhythm and Blues; and Virga. Jordan’s novel 2nd novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street, (HarperSanFrancisco) was published in January 2006. Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as “a beautifully written atmospheric tale.” The Messenger of Magnolia Street was applauded as “a tale of wonder” by Southern Living Magazine, who chose The Messenger of Magnolia Street as their Selects feature for March 2006, and by other reviewers as “a riveting, magical mystery” and “a remarkable book.” Ms. Jordan teaches and speaks on ‘The Power of Story’, and produces and hosts the radio program BACKSTORY, on WRFN, 98.9 FM, Nashville Saturday’s 4:00-6:00 CST. She has just completed a new work of fiction. Jordan and her husband live in Nashville, TN. You may visit the author at www.riverjordan.us

A Reviewer's Life

For years I have been a film critic. I see three movies a week and I write my opinion for several newspapers, websites, and then I appear on TV once a week and spout off there too. I say what I think and let the chips fall where they might. After all it is only my opinion which is no better or no worse than anyone else's. Occasionally it gets awkward as when I recently interviewed Will Ferrell just after I had seen his bomb "Semi Pro." All through that interview I was praying he would not ask me what I thought.

Still for the most part I can do my movie reviews with no thought as to what the actors think. Brad, Angelina and I do not do lunch. It has been a while since Julia called, and I really just don't get George Clooney. So there is nothing personal to be worried about when I rave or rant about a movie.

But I also do book reviews and those can be a problem. The problem is I know a lot of authors and consider some authors to be really good friends of mine. In many cases I review their efforts and in some cases I like what they have done and in others I do not. Believe it or not I say what I think. If I didn't what good would the review be. It would just be a false pretense of a review.

Can that be awkward, absolutely. There was a book I reviewed several months ago. It was a book I had looked forward to reading because I knew the other works of this woman. I liked everything I had read and the information about the new book made it sound interesting.

As I was reading it I thought uh-oh, I am in trouble. I absolutely did not like it and when I wrote my review I said so. Again it is just my opinion and nothing more. My comments were not going to make or break this lady's career. It has been awkward when I have seen this person since then. We never mention the review but talk about other things.

Another problem is I like to review my friends' books. I am a firm believer in publicity being the root of success in the publishing world. Now you have to have a good product but after that you have to get the word out about your book. Reviews and publicity are crucial so I like to get my friends' titles out there whenever possible.

I have been to a lot of Festivals, writing courses, other assemblies of authors and fans and have gotten to know a lot of writers. And most of the writers I have gotten to know, I have liked. From my reviews I have started correspondence with many national writers. We e-mail back and forth and act like friends. From this I have begun to anticipate the next Jeffery Deaver novel, or the newest from John Lescroart, Jodi Picoult, Harlan Coben, etc. I have to make an actual concentrated effort to pick up books by new authors.

Finally there is the problem of the self-published author. My newspapers do not want a review of a self-published book and neither does my TV station. I am sorry it is like that but it is. I get copies of self-published books every week and I hate to set them aside, but it is the way things are.

I love to read. I love good writing. I love seeing talent shine. If I ever review one of your books please remember I am only being honest - and it is only one man's opinion.

Jackie K Cooper is the author of THE BOOKBINDER. His next book, THE SUNRISE REMEMBERS, will be published by Mercer University Press in September 2008.

Leap Day

There’s no doubt that extra Friday in February threw me off. Leap Day. A full twenty-four hours, an eagerly anticipated bonus that arrives only once every four years. I had an early morning meeting, but the rest of the day was mine. Such a gift of time should be honored, I told myself. It was beautiful on our Lowcountry island, the breeze off the ocean still a little chilly, but with bright sunshine. I sat on the front porch awhile and read, pausing every now and then to turn my face up to the warmth and the cloudless sky. My husband and I took a walk, marveling at how the azaleas had popped out seemingly overnight. That evening we lingered over dinner at one of our favorite hangouts by the beach.

Just before heading for bed, I flipped the page in my planner over to March and gasped. I had a book signing scheduled for 10:30 on Saturday morning! It had gone completely out of my head. I scrambled around getting all my authorly paraphernalia together—bookmarks, business cards, handouts, my favorite signing pen. With all that stuffed in my briefcase, I stood for a long time staring into my closet trying to figure out what to wear based on the fact I hadn’t done laundry for more than a week.

Luckily the venue was less than a half hour away, and the morning went off without a hitch.

Back home, I changed into comfortable clothes and sat down at the desk to study my appointment book. Other than Saturday’s signing, I have four more events scheduled this month. Two require overnight travel, including the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville. That one is an eight-hour-plus trek from our home in Hilton Head, and we’ll probably take an extra day on each end. My husband doesn’t like to be behind the wheel on freeways anymore, so that makes me the designated driver for the whole trip.

In addition, as a newly elected member of the Board of Directors of Literacy Volunteers of the Lowcountry, I have my first official board meeting this month. I’m also on the committee for their annual fundraiser—two meetings on that, too. For some strange reason, a good many of my husband’s family decided to be born in March. Six birthdays are noted in red on my calendar. Some just require cards, but I always buy books for the kids, so shopping needs to happen—and quickly. Two blogs. My sales tax report to the State of South Carolina. Our personal income tax. The Sisters in Crime financials and report to the CPA.

And oh, yes. I need to write. The 2009 manuscript is due August 1, and I’m only about halfway finished with the first draft.

While I was there at the desk, I took a quick peek at April and quickly slapped the page back down. More meetings and events, including Malice Domestic in Washington, D.C. And the release of the newest Bay Tanner, The Mercy Oak, on April 29, so May will offer no respite. The winter doldrums are definitely over.

I know. You’re all thinking, Would she like some cheese with that whine?

When I was trying to find an agent and/or publisher for my first book, I dreamed of dashing from signing to signing, event to event. I envisioned my days filled with writing, planning, speaking, attending conferences, interacting with fellow authors. Now that I’m almost ten years into it, a little of the bloom is off that particular rose. I know that many of my sister bloggers on this site have fulltime careers and young families, and I honestly don’t know how you manage. Maybe it’s youth. Or perhaps I’ve become one of those ladies whom fellow author Patricia Sprinkle calls “Women Who Do Too Much.”

There was a reminder in today’s church bulletin that Daylight Savings Time begins next weekend. They’ve changed it so many times I can’t remember where it originally fell when I was a kid, but I do know it wasn’t this early. So if a simple stroke of the Congressional pen can give us an extra hour’s daylight, why can’t they manage an additional day more often than once every four years?

I don’t know about you, but I could use about one a month. Starting in March.

Kathy Wall grew up in a small town in northern Ohio. She and her husband Norman have lived on Hilton Head Island since 1994. Her 8th Bay Tanner mystery, The Mercy Oak, will be released April 29 by St. Martin’s Press

New Release from One of Our Own

JOSHILYN JACKSON'S THE GIRL WHO STOPPED SWIMMING

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"Jackson matches effortless Southern storytelling with a keen eye for character and heart-stopping circumstances... What makes this novel shine are its revelations about the dark side of Southern society and Thalia and Laurel's finely honed relationship, which shows just how much thicker blood is than water." - Publishers Weekly

"On the heels of the successful Gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia, both #1 BookSense picks, Jackson again reinvents the GRITS (Girls Raised in the South) novel...With the appearance of a ghost on the first page, you'll feel compelled to race to the end, but slow down for Jackson's great descriptions; you'll be rewarded for the effort. - Library Journal

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"Jackson has a keen ear for dialect, an unerring eye for the mundane, and an easy, natural wit... there are plenty of dark places, long-harbored secrets, and genuine surprises.--Atlanta Magazine

Laurel Gray Hawthorne needs to make things pretty, whether she's helping her mother make sure the very literal family skeleton stays buried or turning scraps of fabric into nationally acclaimed art quilts. Her estranged sister Thalia, an impoverished Actress with a capital A, is her polar opposite, priding herself on exposing the lurid truth lurking behind middle class niceties. While Laurel's life seems neat and on track--a passionate marriage, a treasured daughter, and a lovely home in suburban Victorianna--everything she holds dear is suddenly thrown into question the night she is visited by the ghost of a her 14-year old neighbor Molly Dufresne.

The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly floating lifelessly in the Hawthorne's backyard pool. Molly's death is inexplicable--an unseemly mystery Laurel knows no one in her whitewashed neighborhood is up to solving. Only her wayward, unpredictable sister is right for the task, but calling in a favor from Thalia is like walking straight into a frying pan protected only by a thin coating of Crisco. Enlisting Thalia's help, Laurel sets out on a life-altering journey that triggers startling revelations about her family's guarded past, the true state of her marriage, and what happened to the girl who stopped swimming.