Voracious Reader

by Mindy Friddle

I was an Army brat. We moved from South Carolina to Bremerhaven, Germany when I was nine.  Then something happened that had an impact on my life -- a big old crater-sized impact.

Our television didn't work.  

Me, at nine, before my voracious tear.

Actually, all the televisons on the American base didn't work-- there was some weird technical reason. You had to connect a big buzzing transformer to use your blow dryer, for Pete's sake, and the base wasn't big enough to have its own television station.

There  was a library on base, a tiny place crammed with books. And that winter, I read just about every book in the kid's section. Hattie, Heidi, The Hobbit, all the Nancy Drews; I plowed through Little Women and Johnny Tremain and A Wrinkle in Time, to name a few I remember.

By 11, I was working my way through the adult books. I read Benchely's  Jaws, Marilyn French's The Women's Room, Stephen King's Carrie,  John Updike's Couples, James  Jones' Some Came Running, and Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker  before I could wear lipstick. {I didn't check that one out...I found it in Mrs. Terry's house while I babysat her children. They weren't good children. I deserved it.]

By the time I was 12, Carson McCuller's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Member of the Wedding pretty much blew me away. 

What I learned?  Censorship is untenable. Don't worry about what the kids are reading-- worry when they aren't.

Mindy Friddle is the author of The Garden Angel (St. Martin's Press/Picador), selected for Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers program in 2004. 
Her second novel, Secret Keepers (St. Martin 's Press/Picador), won the 2009 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction.

It Takes A Lot Of Nerve For A Yankee to Write Southern Novels

By Karin Gillespie

Several years ago, I was a baby writer attending my very first conference. I ducked into a session called “What’s Hot; What’s Not” In the session, I learned that Southern lit was so hot New York editors were out on the streets, rattling their tin cups, begging for it. All you had to do was toss a few sweet iced tea and kudzu references into your novel, and you were practically guaranteed a six-figure deal. After that session I believe everybody and his mama went home to dash off a Southern novel, me included.

I had a couple of things working against me. First, I wasn’t born and raised in the South therefore lacked a rich vein of authentic Southern experiences to draw from. No memories of Aunt Catfish getting tipsy on scuppernong wine and substituting salt for sugar in her chess pie. No fond childhood recollections of slapping no-see-ums as I pulled on a green glass bottle of Co-Cola. Until recently, I didn’t know a no-see-um from a mosquito and I’d never tasted chess pie. Being from Minnesota, most of my memories include snow drifts, Viking games and tater-tot hot dishes.

But my Yankee background was not my greatest disadvantage. My greatest disadvantage was I’d read very little classic Southern Lit. For instance, I didn’t know that all of Flannery O’Conner’s stories are about finding grace, or that Carson McCullers writes novels about loneliness and isolation, and I’d never even heard of Eudora Welty. (Bless my poor, frostbitten Midwestern heart).

With two grievous strikes against me, you’d think my Southern novel would end up moldering away in a streamer trunk, ink fading, pages yellowing and decaying to dust, a sham and an affront to Southern novelists everywhere.

You’d think that… but you’d be wrong.

Call it beginner’s luck or some freakish twist of fate, but my little Southern novel didn’t desiccate like a dead beetle in an anonymous trunk. Instead it was bought by Simon and Schuster in a three-book deal and ended up on the shelves of every bookstore in America. During my book tours throughout the Southeast, I’d typically be asked, “Who are your literary influences?”

Stephen King was not the answer they were waiting to hear.

Looking back, I realize it took a lot of nerve to think I could write a Southern novel without ever having read the Southern authors who came before me. One reviewer remarked of my books, “Karin Gillespie is no Katherine Anne Porter.” I may have been more insulted if I’d known who she was.

Recently I’ went back to school for my MFA and was asked to read several Flannery O’Connor stories. Frankly I wasn’t looking forward to the assignment. All I knew about her was that she wrote a depressing story about a serial-killer. You may actually be familiar with it; it inspired the name of this blog.

You can guess what happened. Once I got a nibble of O’Connor, I wanted to gobble up her whole luscious literary pie. Who couldn’t blame me with prose this?

“The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled.”

After I’d exhausted her work, I slaked my thirst on McCullers. How could I stop myself when confronted with passages like this?

“Her head was big and loose. The beer made her legs feel peculiar too, almost as if she had four legs to manage instead of two.”

Next I gorged on Kaye Gibbons, lapped up Lee Smith and feasted on Faulker (I ended up spitting some of Faulkner out).

Now I can’t imagine what my life would be like without Flannery, Carson and the rest. I’d love to sleep every night with “A Member of the Wedding” or “Bastard Our of Carolina” under my pillow and dream that I could write prose half as transformative. Classic Southern Lit may not have informed my previous work but it will definitely influence my future novels. As for me not being a true Southerner, you know what we non-natives say, “I wasn’t born in the South but I got here as fast as I could.”

That oughta count for something.

So what about you? What authors rock your world, Southern or otherwise? I’d love to hear.

WIN A BOOK!

If you leave a comment you’ll be eligible to win a paperback copy of “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt” by our Beth Hoffman or a hardcover copy of "Ravens" by fellow Southerner George Dawes Green. (Your choice.) Speaking of George, he has a new project he’s doing on behalf of indie booksellers in Georgia. He and others bought an old 1975 Blue Bird schoolbus, and 25 artists have painted it up with scenes of Georgia stories, and next week they’re loading up the bus with brilliant Moth raconteurs and beautiful musicians, and traveling to 13 cities and towns around the state. They call it the Unchained Tour because they’re hoping to inspire folks to commit to their indie bookstores, and also to cut back on shallow surfing and get back to deep reading. And to sharing events with real breathing people instead of avatars. Website is theunchainedtour.org and the fb page is The Unchained Tour.

The Challenge of Writing Both Drama and Sass by Jackie Lee Miles

I spent five years writing my second novel Cold Rock River. When I finally finished I was looking for a respite. At the time I was touring with the Dixie Darlin’s, three additional published authors with a passion for promotion. We call ourselves Thelma and Louise Squared, so we’re a pretty zany bunch.

I was also looking for an agent at the time, as mine had recently birthed two babies and left the industry. An author friend of mine said to be careful when crafting letters to agents; that one should never try to be funny in a query letter. For those not in the know, this is a letter writers use to pitch stories to literary agents, hoping to get representation.

I disagreed with my writer friend, figuring I could write something funny from a character’s point of view that would grab an agent’s attention. The result was the tumultuous tale of Francine Harper and her comically troubled marriage to her no-good husband named Dwayne. I wrote the first book Divorcing Dwayne and outlined the second two in the series and immediately sold it to Cumberland House.

I called it The Dwayne Series. It included Divorcing Dwayne, Dear Dwayne and Dating Dwayne. Sort of sounds backwards, but it actually just came full circle, as she divoreced him, wrote him letters to get him off her chest, and then having been recently widowed, started dating him again.

The letter to the agents that I sent out included the opening line to Divorcing Dwayne, the first book in The Dwayne Series:

Me and Dwayne met at a pig-pull. I only married him once, but I ended up divorcing him twice. Dwayne’s a hard man to get rid of.

I went on to describe some of the problems Francine was having with Dwayne and ended with:

Would you like to hear some more of what’s going on down here in Pickville Springs? Like the time I drove Dwayne’s tractor right through the plate glass window of his new topless barber shop? It seats two, so I took my best friend Ray Anne with me. You know I never could understand a tractor having two seats. Is one gonna finish plowing the field if the other has a heart attack or what?

Francine eventually redeems herself after a trial and many errors. The story is a genre removed from what I normally write, but it did provide the respite I was looking for. On the other hand, my debut novel Roseflower Creek was inspired by an actual death penalty case in Georgia. It covers the short life and death of ten-year-old Lori Jean, a sensitive dreamer of a child who longs for a normal family life. Lori Jean discovers a secret that leads to her untimely death. Earl Hamner, creator of The Waltons calls is, “A powerful, extraordinary novel.” My second novel Cold Rock River is the parallel journey of two young women born a century apart. In 1960’s rural Georgia, with the Vietnam War cranking up, seventeen-year-old Adie Jenkins discovers the diary of seventeen-year-old Tempe Jordan, a slave girl, with the Civil War well under way. Adie is haunted by the death of her baby sister. Tempe is grieving the sale of her three children sired by her white master. What’s buried in the diary could destroy Adie’s life. New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank writes, “Cold Rock River is a powerful story of family, love and loss that will keep you reading into the wee hours. Absolutely wonderful! Beautifully told and straight from the heart of an exquisitely talented writer.”

I decided I best re-design my web page to reflect my two diverse genres and settled on: Introducing Author Jackie Lee Miles, author of Southern Drama and Southern Sass. I listed my debut novels along with the Dwayne Series. Shortly thereafter Sourcebooks bought out Cumberland House. They were intrigued with the “Drama”, but not overjoyed with the “Sass” and decided to drop the Dwayne series, which broke my heart, as the second book in the series Dear Dwayne was scheduled to be released and the cover was adorable. But such is the nature of publishing. One has to move with the flow.

I’m back to writing drama, but naturally with a comic element woven in. My latest ALL THAT’S TRUE is scheduled to be released January 2011. Sourcebooks calls it “an authentic coming-of-age tale with a terrific takeaway.” It follows Andrea St. James’s (Andi for short), privileged life, which is interrupted in the fall of 1991 when she discovers her father is having an affair with her best friend Bridget’s sexy new step-mother. With an equal mix of joy and sorrow the novel celebrates Andi’s journey to young adulthood, where she struggles with the elusive nature of truth and the devastating consequences of deception.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy when it releases!

All best,

Jackie Lee Miles

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKYN and Other Adventures in Reading by Kerry Madden

There are books for me that I can climb back into and walk around and breathe again. I believe the most important one is Betty Smith's A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. I don't even know how many times I have read this book. I remember that I ordered it from a Scholastic Book Order when I was in 7th grade at St. Teresa's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was worried that it would be too hard for me or possibly too boring. After all, I had just read the movie/book adaptation of Linda Blair's BORN INNOCENT and PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE ALCOHOLIC, so I wasn't sure if A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN would suit my reading tastes. But Betty Smith went and ruined many books for me besides the Linda Blair movie adaptations. She also showed me a young girl growing up at the turn of the century in Brooklyn in a place called Williamsburg, and I knew those people. I knew them like my own family, and I couldn't get enough of them. I adored Aunt Evie and Aunt Sissy, and Francie's mother, Katie, and of course, Johnny Nolan, the dreamer, who loved his children and his stories and of course, drinking. I'm of Irish decent, and I recognized Johnny Nolan in a few Irish relatives of mine. I also recognized the no-nonsense, practicality of Katie Nolan from the women on both sides of the family. I read everything by Betty Smith from JOY IN THE MORNING, MAGGIE NOW, and TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER, but nothing was better than A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN although JOY IN THE MORNING was a joy to read.

I grew up in a house without a lot of books. Mother got us a library card in every new football town, but we didn't have many books with all the moving around. We had SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and LADIES HOME JOURNAL, and I learned to read the delicious "Can This Marriage Be Saved" in that magazine. I can recall a menacing green book that sat on the shelf called DARE TO DISCIPLINE by Dr. James Dodson. I also remember my mother reading GREEN DARKNESS by Anya Seton at the adult pool where we would go beg her for money for the snack bar and she'd shoo us away, warning:  "This is the adult pool! Beat it!" My father read Dale Carnegie's HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE and a slew of books about achieving the perfect golf swing. I also remember them both loving the book THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD by Don Robertson and reading parts of it aloud to us.

In 8th grade, I discovered Irwin Shaw's RICH MAN POOR MAN, and I became consumed by the lives of those two very different brothers during a weekend state basketball tournament for the Saint Teresa Titans. Seventh and eighth graders jumped on beds and took tons of pictures, and in every single picture I was in the corner reading. Later, when the pictures got developed, kids said, "Did you do anything at State besides read? We won by the way!" I was embarrassed. Of course, I knew the boys basketball team had won.

But A TREE GROWS IN THE BROOKLYN was the book I returned to again even as an adult, maybe especially as an adult. I loved this paragraph about Sunday Mass in Brooklyn: "On Sunday, most people crowded into the eleven o'clock mass. Well, some people, a few, went to the early six o'clock mass. They were given credit for this but they deserved none for they were the ones who had stayed out so late that it was morning when they got home. So they went to early mass, got it over with, and went home and slept all day absolved from sin."

I used to think about those people who stayed up all night in New York and then slept all day long. I wanted to be like them when I grew up and explore the city, and go to the theatre and eat Italian or Indian at midnight and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I was utterly and completely with Francie Nolan eating the peppermint wafers reading IF I WERE KING on the fire-escape beneath the Tree of Heaven when Betty Smith wrote: "It was a sunny afternoon. A lazy warm wind carried a warm sea smell. The leaves of the trees made fugitive patterns on the white pillow-case. Nobody was in the yard and that was nice. Usually, it was pre-empted by the boy whose father rented the store on the ground floor. The boy played an interminable game of graveyard. He dug miniature graves, put live captured caterpillars into little match boxes, buried them with informal ceremony and erected little pebble headstones over the tiny earth mounds. The whole game was accompanied by fake sobbing and heavings of his chest. But today the dismal boy was away visiting an aunt in Bensonhurst. To know that he was away was almost as good as getting a present."


A LAMAZE FOCAL POINT?

Yes, I even brought A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN with me to be a "focal point" while giving birth to my son, Flannery, at the Natural Childbirth Institute in Culver City, California in 1988. The midwife, Nancy McNeese Marshutz, whom I adored, advised me to bring pictures or objects that would help me focus during labor as suggested in Lamaze. Well, I set out A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN on a table, but when labor slammed into me with a force that I described at the time as "cinderblock surrealism,"A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN was the last thing on my mind. I never found my glasses, which meant I couldn't see a thing anyway, so I didn't focus on jack except having the baby. When I begged for painkillers, Nancy said, "Having the baby will be your painkiller." Of course, I'd like to think that I closed my eyes and thought of how Francie helped her mother, Katie, through the home birth of her little sister, Annie Laurie, but I know I didn't. I do remember telling my husband, Kiffen, and Nancy, the midwife, in the middle of things, "Please let me go home. I'll come back on Thursday and do this. I swear." It was Tuesday, and Nancy said, "You're not going anywhere. The baby is coming today." And he did...November 8, 1988. I even had this idea I might vote on the way home from birth in the Presidential Election. That didn't happen either.


BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

It's hokey, I suppose, to say that books saved me from a childhood of loneliness but they did. I didn't really learn how to be a discriminating reader until I was an exchange student in England at Manchester University. I took a Women in 19th Century Literature tutorial, and discovered Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Thomas Hardy, George Sand, George Eliot (we share the same birthday!), Guy de Maupassant, Honore de Balzac's COUSIN BETTE (I felt like Bette because my nickname growing up was "Gertrude Marblecake," and I was known for bursting into tears over nothing and having no sense of humor and for being able to clean a kitchen with gusto). I also discovered Emile Zola, Henry James and so many more in that tiny tutorial in the professor's office where we met on rainy Monday mornings. It always rained in Manchester and I loved it. In bake shops filled with "scones and biccies," clerks, pronounced "clarks" would say to me, "How are you, luv" or "Ta, luv" and I felt loved.

I became friends with a group of British Drama students who had their books all lined up on shelves, and I knew that for the rest of my life I would always make sure to have shelves and shelves of books no matter where I lived. I came home and gave my family required reading lists. Mother read MIDDLEMARCH by the swimming pool that summer, and my sister, who was in 9th grade, attempted PORTRAIT OF A LADY, but her heart wasn't in it as she was preparing to do GODSPELL in the fall. I can't remember which brother refused to read Hardy's RETURN OF THE NATIVE, but one or both of them did. My father was coaching for the Detroit Lions, so I didn't push any novels on him as I knew they would have been refused. 

THE STORIES MY OWN CHILDREN LOVED....

The first book I read to my son, Flannery, was WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, and we danced the wild rumpus to that book for years, which became his favorite part. He ate up Roald Dahl books as a boy followed by CS Lewis, Gary Paulsen, Lois Lowry, J.R.R. Tolkein, and now he can't get enough of Raymond Chandler as he drives around Los Angeles thinking of Noir plots and stories. He is 21 and a filmmaker-actor-musician, who got his first job three weeks ago as a PA on a film in pre-production. He sent me a picture of his employment badge and first paycheck.

My daughter, Lucy, loved Laurie Halse Anderson as a young teen, but as a little girl, we read everything from The VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR  to THE STORY OF FERDINAND to SYLVESTER AND THE MAGIC PEBBLE to SWAMP ANGEL to BUZZ to THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS to CHRYSANTHEMUM and later Frances Hodgson Burnett, but now Lucy loves Joan Didion, Dave Eggers, and Raymond Carver and so many more. But the love of Joan Didion was due to a cruel English teacher, who informed her in the beginning of 9th grade that she was "No Flannery" when it came to books and reading and intelligence, (she'd been in his class two weeks). I despised him on the spot and wanted to take her out of the class, but Lucy wanted to prove this teacher wrong (and not wreck her sports schedule at school). She did exactly that and along the way fell in love with Joan Didion and is now a student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She wants to be a photo-journalist.

Our youngest, Norah, is reading CATCHING FIRE to me, but she won't let me read it at night because she's worried I'll be too sad. She was very unhappy with MOCKINGJAY and isn't sure if I should read it at all. She reads aloud to me when we drive the back roads exploring Alabama together. She has often told me that she prefers fantasy over historical fiction, and her favorite authors include: Diane Wynne Jones, Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, Lois Lowry, Garth Nix, Michael Scott, Kristen Miller, Jean Auel, and too many more to name. She has to find a stopping place in a book whenever we arrive somewhere in the car, which may take her anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes, sometimes longer.

THE STORY-CATCHERS

I just gave a talk on literacy to the DIVAS of Birmingham, (Developing Initiatives and Values Among Sisters) who were raising money for the UNITED WAY literacy campaign. I told them that I tell kids to be "Story-Catchers" in my writing workshops and to write their stories down or paint them in pictures or simply tell them...I tell young writers to ask questions and listen to the stories and read read read! The DIVAS  gave me a fabulous centerpiece, which now sits on my table next to the Courthouse of Monroeville, Alabama where Harper Lee set another of my most favorite books in the world, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

ALL THE PLACES I USED TO READ...

As a child, I read in a front yard on Central Avenue every summer in Leavenworth, Kansas visiting my grandmother, Elizabeth, who'd bring me a plate of Swiss steak and cucumber salad to devour along with my library books. I read on the side porch in Washington DC and my other grandmother, GranMary, would let me read my book at the "hot shop" where we'd go for chocolate milkshakes. I read in the backseat of a Buick through thousands of miles across the country to football towns in the South and Midwest with two brothers, a sister, parents, a styrofoam ice chest that NEVER survived the trip, and a drooling black lab named Clancy. I read in trees and attics. I read in the woods and at football games. I read under my desk at school in Sister's Joel's geometry class (I don't recommend it) and late into the night and on the beach and in mountain cabins and on Greyhound buses and in China where Kiffen and I spent our first year of marriage. I read A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN aloud to my sister, Keely, on trips to Kansas to visit the grandparents, and Kiffen has read parts of it to me over the years.

BOOKS, PEACHES, AND LUST

At the age of thirteen, I told my cousin, Mary Margaret, that I "lusted for peaches." She looked at me and said, "You read too many books, and by the way, a person can't lust for peaches." But I did, and I know I lusted for books too. In fact, Mother used to find tons of peach seeds in my room because nothing was better than eating a summer peach on a Saturday afternoon and reading a book.

Betty Smith said it best in the opening words of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN:

"Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer."

* * *

Kerry Madden is the author of OFFSIDES (a football novel), WRITING SMARTS (book to spark story ideas in young authors), GENTLE'S HOLLER, LOUISIANA'S SONG, and JESSIE'S MOUNTAIN (the Maggie Valley Trilogy of the Smoky Mountains), and UP CLOSE: HARPER LEE. She's an assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and lives in Birmingham with her daughter, Norah, and commutes (once in a while) to her dear husband and home in Los Angeles.

www.kerrymadden.com
http://mountainmist.livejournal.com/

Inspirations from other writers by Susan Reinhardt

Inspirations in Writing by Susan Reinhardt




My mother keeps the well-worn hard copy of “Cinderella” in a nightstand drawer of her Spartanburg, S.C. sprawling rancher.

It is the book, beautifully illustrated, I read hundreds of times as a child in awe of Cinderella’s gowns. And even her rags as she swept the ashes from the fireplace.

This is the book that launched my love of reading. It is the same book my own daughter, now 12, forced me to read repeatedly from her toddler into her pre-school years.

Throwing that book aside or hauling it to Goodwill would constitute nothing short of sacrifice. Like tossing the heirloom quilts my great-grandmother left behind.

And so it’s tucked in the drawer, pages and bindings loose and tattered, yet waiting for the next generation of ears and eyes.

I also recall a childhood spent with piles of Little Golden Books and my mother’s enthusiastic voice as she chanted, “I think I can, I think I can,” from “The Little Engine that Could.” She would often repeat the words from “The Little Red Hen,” to guilt my sister and me into helping her do chores around the house. As you recall, no one would help the hen bake her bread from scratch.

In elementary school, I read a book that has stayed with me for over 40 years. It was called the “Boxcar Children,” and about three orphaned kids living and surviving on their own in an abandoned boxcar. It feels as if I just read it weeks ago, and that is the mark of excellent writing and characterization.

In junior high I fell in love with Dinny Gordon books. This was my introduction into series reading. And then in high school, I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember reading much more than my English classes required. I even fudged on the books I considered snoozers at the time, but would love to revisit in my middle years.

As an older teenager, books took a back burner and my social life boiled with activity, both good and well…wild!

College was about the same. I didn’t have time for books. They morphed into chores instead of pleasures. It’s hard to admit, now that I’m a writer, that I quit reading for about seven years. I cringe to think of some classics I now wish I’d read.

After graduation from the University of Georgia, I headed down to Myrtle Beach to write for the local paper. I met a man 20 years my senior who reintroduced me into reading via the nearly unmatchable comedic talents of John Kennedy Toole’s novel “A Confederacy of Dunces.” I never laughed so hard in my entire life and have read or listened to the book countless times – the only book I’ve ever read more than once.

I am saddened the author took his own life 11 years before the novel snagged a publisher. At first it became a cult classic then later enjoyed mainstream success and a Pulitzer. I’ve read a lot of humor, it’s the genre I enjoy most, but nothing can match my love with this quirky story of a hefty lunatic and his mother muddling around New Orleans’ culture.

This is the book that took my newspaper career and turned it into a means to an end. I’d keep writing for newspapers, until my own humor books were published. This took more than 20 years, but that’s another story.

This is about books and favorite authors. I’d have to say my three favorites, besides all the ones who blog here, are Toole, Anne Tyler and Sophie Kinsella. Of course then there’s Barbara Kingsolver and way too many more who’ve influenced my writing and infused my heart with the ongoing desire to write.

I had a best friend in college, Julie Cannon. We were sorority sisters and got into gobs of trouble. I had always been fascinated by her artwork, but never imagined she’d become an author, much less such a successful one. I had no idea until long after we graduated that she liked to write.

While Julie Cannon, also a blogger here, may not list me as her best author friend doesn’t matter. She’s mine. I can go to her for anything – from agent blues to the pits of publicity.

There are other authors I’ve befriended, all of whom are extremely helpful. Without these friendships with other writers and the hope and help that bridge the insecurity of this business with the wishful successes, I couldn’t carry on.

And with that, I think all of us find a “best” friend in Pulpwood Queen Kathy Patrick, now leading our pack on this blog. She’s fueled more careers than Oprah in my book.

Susan Reinhardt is author of “Not Tonight Honey, Wait ‘Til I’m a Size 6,” “Don’t Sleep with a Bubba,” and “Dishing with the Kitchen Virgin.”

She is also a stand-up comic and Sarah Palin impersonator. Go to www.susanreinhardt.com to check out the crazy videos.

A Week in the Life of Mary Alice Monroe

My name is Mary Alice Monroe and I’m happy to meet you all!

We’ve been asked to introduce ourselves as we re-launch our Southern Authors Blog. I’ve always liked doing this at large meetings or conferences because often we smile politely and say hello when we have no idea who we are speaking to and we’re too embarrassed to ask the name. Or during a book signing when a reader steps up to the table for an autograph and says, “It’s for me.” So I think this is a great idea.

If you read my bio below you’ll read about the number of books I’ve written but it doesn’t tell you who I am or what I write about. Perhaps if I tell you how I spent the past typical week, you’ll know more about me and the themes of my work.

I am a “turtle lady” on the Isle of Palms, SC. I basically serve as midwife and guardian over the loggerhead sea turtle nests on Isle of Palms and Sullivans Island in South Carolina. Most nights since July I’ve been sitting on the beach waiting for sand to move. But it’s the camaraderie between the women that keeps us chatting under the moon for hours, even if the wind is blowing sand in our hair and teeth or, if it’s hot and sweaty, the mosquitoes swarm. This bonding of women is a central part for most of my novels.

Last night was our farewell to the turtle season at our last nest inventory. I’d just flown in from a Women’s Weekend in Amelia Island where I spoke on creativity and rushed to change into my team T-shirt and jeans. I showed up still wearing my pearls! The girls teased me, but that’s pretty much who I am-- a combination of outdoor wear and pearls!

Today I’m back in my office for a day’s writing. But first I have to replenish the milkweed supply for the two dozen plus monarch caterpillars I’m raising on my porch. When I write a novel my research involves rolling up my sleeves and getting intimately involved with the topic. I love my job because with each book I learn something new and dive into a new story world. Only by doing this can I bring that authentic story world back to you. The Butterfly’s Daughter is finished and I’m making plans with my publisher, Simon and Schuster, for its release in May 2011. Now I’m in a hurry to finish the children’s book, A Butterfly Called Hope. I’m always feeling like that that saying, the faster I go the behinder I get.

Fall is an introspective time and I feel the change in seasons intensely. As I approach a new novel, the characters from the novel I’ve finished are flying away like the migrating birds and my mind must become fallow, ready for the new seeds of inspiration. My family, too, is in transition as my son enters the US Marine Corps, my daughter moves to LA, and my other daughter skypes weekly so I can witness the changes in my grandbabies. My family is my heart and my stories are about family bonds, hopes, dreams, struggles, and joys.

So, that was my last week. This week I will write, speak at a Pink Ribbon event, and hopefully release a dozen monarchs to the garden. I hope you’ll enjoy my books. It was a pleasure meeting you!

Mary Alice Monroe is the NY Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels. Her most recent is LAST LIGHT OVER CAROLINA, a saga of a shrimp boat captain and his wife. She’s won several awards and speaks at conferences and events. Her books are sold worldwide. Mary Alice lives with her husband and menagerie of pets on a barrier island outside Charleston, SC. Please visit her on Facebooks and http://www.maryalicemonroe.com/

The Pulpwood Queen Announces FALL BACK INTO READING at A Good Blog is Hard to Find and MORE!

Dear Readers,

I run this southern author blog outfit but goodness, gracious, I'm an author on the go!  SO!  We had a lapse in author blogs, I am making up for it and now we are back on schedule!  First the photos!

The bottom photo is taken at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  Author, Deeanne Gist of "Maid to Match", a Houston, Texas author had an open invitation to take a "Getaway with Deeanne" at the Biltmore!  This was the Ultimate Girlfriend and Booklover getaway as we not only were able to experience the Biltmore Estate from top to bottom of the home to every end of the all the fascinating places on the estate we had our sparkly southern author to lead us!  Author, Deanne is the third person on your left!  I'm that READhead in the back!

Now her book "Maid to Match" was set at the Biltmore and girlfriends, why didn't I think of this.  Note to author, set your book where you most want to go, hehhhehee!  For more photos and story go to www.deeannegist.com!

Now that reminds me of more Girlfriend Getaways that are involving authors and books.  Check out my Event page at www.beautyandthebook.com for all the many literary loving adventures I am planning through the next coming year including, Books Alive and Girlfriend Weekend in Jefferson, Texas featuring authors, Sam Bracken, Echo Garrett, Pat Conroy, Fannie Flagg, Rick Bragg, Mark Childress, Marshall Chapman to name just a few as close to 75 author featured at those two little ole literacy promoting shindigs.

Then if that isn't enough, check out my Pulpwood Queen Cruise to the Bahamas with the authors and so far booked to go are authors, Echo Garrett, M.L. Malcolm, and Deeanne Gist.  Friend me on Facebook at Kathy Louise Patrick and I'll send you the cruise info!  It's going to be amazing! I have already almost two dozen signed up and we launch that cruise, June 24 - 27, 2011 out of Miami, Florida!

Last is the photo of Nashville born and raised author, Sam McLeod, who wrote "Big Appetite: My Southern Friend Search for the Meaning of Life", which currently stands as the #1 Bestseller on my Pulpwoodqueen Top Twenty Countdown of Bestsellers for September at www.pulpwoodqueen.com!  You'll recognize many of you there!  That's Sam McLeod, my minister, Allison Byerley, me, Sara Whittaker, my co-youth leader and youth group members, Sarah Jones and Paige Huntington of the First United Methodist Church of Jefferson, Texas.  Sam spoke and brought in The Waffle House to serve a breakfast dinner for this fundraiser to help pay for our NEW Youth Group Building!  We raised over $2,000 because of this southern author who also just happens now to live in Walla Walla, Washington.  You see great things and good can happen when you feature southern authors and all share a meal!  We learned that COMMUNITY can do good works and so can our Southern Author COMMUNITY!  Thanks for joining us!

Next up will be all our authors writing of their most beloved books, favorite author and who their best friend is that is an author!  It's the story behind their stories so stay tuned tomorrow as we begin this NEW southern author reading journey.  What are you waiting for?  Reading changes lives so please share with all your friends and remember!  A book is a gift that keeps on giving and this blog does too, share it big time everyday!

Last, heading out this week to the southern festivals of all festivals, The Southern Festival of the Book in Nashville as moderating two panels on Friday and Saturday, The Pulpwood Queen Presents the BEST in Southern Authors!  I hope to meet and greet, mingle and tingle with all my NEW and old bookloving friends there!  It's FALL back into reading time and nobody, I mean nobody is as excited as ME!

Your NEW Southern Author Blogger Fearless Leader!
Kathy L. Patrick
Author of "The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life", Grand Central Publishing
Founder of  the largest "meeting and discussing" book club in the world, The Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys!
www.beautyandthebook.com to join the fastest growing book club in the world!
www.pulpwoodqueen.com, my daily to weekly blog with PHOTOS!
www.readinggroupguides.com, of which I periodically contribute and an excellent resource for readers!