Bad-Ass Southern Book Tour

When I was in Tucson, AZ, at the very start of what I have been calling my Big, Bad-ass Southern Book Tour, a musician friend who had grown up in Austin broke down the southern part of the country to me. "Arizona is the west, really just an extended version of California. Texas is Texas; it's its own thing. And once you get past that, then you're in the south."

Leave it to a Northerner to think Arizona is the south, right?

I've been driving since the beginning of January in support of the paperback version of The Kept Man, my second book of fiction. (It came out a year ago in hardcover.) I'm at the halfway point now. I'll be reading at a bookstore in the French Quarter in New Orleans during the first Mardi Gras parade, and then a half-dozen more cities after that, before I make my way back to Brooklyn. Every stop along the way has had its own purpose and charm, and I have no regrets except that I have apparently picked the coldest winter in years to make my grand sweep.

I chose to tour the South for a few reasons. I was curious about this part of the county I knew little about. I'm a real road warrior – I've driven cross country about a dozen times, sometimes on book tours, sometimes just for fun – but I'm usually an I-90 girl. America's heartland. The Pacific northwest. Cool and green. But lately I'd been wondering: what kind of landscape was I missing?

And there were professional reasons, as well. I figured if I didn't come down here and introduce myself to people, no one would ever know who I was. I wrote a book about an artist in a coma in Brooklyn, New York, and I wasn't sure if people would connect to it. Of course I hope that it has something to say to just about everyone, so I thought it was worth a shot. If I don't believe in my own work, who will?

Plus, I wanted to visit some of the legendary bookstores that I have been hearing about for so long. I wanted to see what people were reading and talking about and thinking about, and how we could meet in the middle. Because, ultimately, I think of myself not just as a New York writer, but an American writer. But I've got a ways to go and a lot to learn to get there.

So halfway through my tour, what have I learned? I've learned that Southerners are fiercely protective of their authenticity and culture. I've learned that people love to talk politics, feverishly so, and that it's ok to hold your tongue on occasion. And I've learned that people are open to a little saucy language, as long as it's not at the dinner table. With apologies to everywhere I've visited – I've determined West Texas just might be the most beautiful place on the earth. And finally, I've learned to always take a bite of the sweet potato pie if someone's offering. Because I will never taste anything so good ever again. Until the next tour.

Jami Attenberg is the author of two books of fiction, Instant Love and The Kept Man. She has written for Jane, Nylon, Salon, New York, Nerve and many other publications, and her essays have been collection in various anthologies, including the forthcoming Love is a Four-letter Word: True Stories of Breakups, Bad Relationships, and Broken Hearts. Her third book, The Melting Season, will be published by Riverhead Books sometime in 2010. Visit her at whatever-whenever.net or watch her tour diaries at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=nycjami&view=videos.

Q and A with author Patricia Harman

The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir

Patricia Harman, a nurse-midwife, manages a women’s health clinic with her husband, Tom, an ob-gyn, in West Virginia—a practice where patients open their hearts, where they find care and sometimes refuge. Patsy’s memoir juxtaposes the tales of these women with her own story of keeping a small medical practice solvent and coping with personal challenges. Her patients range from Appalachian mothers who haven’t had the opportunity to attend secondary school to Ph.D.’s on cell phones. They come to Patsy’s small, windowless exam room and sit covered only by blue cotton gowns, and their infinitely varied stories are in equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting. The nurse-midwife tells of their lives over the course of a year and a quarter, a time when her outwardly successful practice is in deep financial trouble, when she is coping with malpractice threats, confronting her own serious medical problems, and fearing that her thirty-year marriage may be on the verge of collapse.

Why did you write this book?

I've always been so impressed with the courage of the ordinary women. Patients of all walks of life come into my exam room and I ask them, "So how are you doing? How's your stress level? At first they may make a joke about it."

"Oh, terrible, but isn't everyone's…." But then I draw my rolling exam stool forward and they tell me their stories. I leave the exam room shaken and in awe by the very difficult situations women are in and the courage they have to have just to march on. Since I had insomnia, I began to get up at night and write down their stories. I felt there was something majestic about them. These women, with all their imperfections, are like all of us, and they're my heroes."

Who is The Blue Cotton Gown written for?

I wrote the Blue Cotton Gown primarily for other women, but the men that have picked it up have been fascinated. That's partly because one of the male protagonist is my husband, a mild mannered physician, who like the women in the stories has his own troubles. I think, in addition to women of all ages, the book is interesting to health care providers because it illuminates some of the difficulties of trying to maintain a private practice in the midst of a health care system in crisis.

Did it concern you that you might say more about your patients than they would want you to?

I went to great lengths to disguise each patient. If you were an Asian Teacher I'd make you a Hispanic Bank President. I also let each major patient read her own chapters to see if she wanted them to be in the book, or if she wanted me to change anything. Not one said no. One women spoke for them all when she told me, 'If my story can help another woman not feel alone, I want it to be in there.'

Of all the many problems that women have, and that you address in the book, what strikes you as the most difficult?

Women carry great burdens, often in silence. When I ask patients about their stress level, most of the time it is a 9 or 10. This is not good for their health. I am also concerned that women have so little support and feel alone. All this affects their health. Women take care of everyone else and themselves last. How did you decide which women to write about? I chose women who came back to the office several times over the course of a year and women of all ages so there's someone in The Blue Cotton Gown that every reader can relate to.

Most people think of nurse-midwives as providers that deliver babies, but you're taking care of women who aren't pregnant, is that unusual for a midwife?

Traditionally midwives did only deliver babies and give care in the prenatal and postnatal period but more and more women see their nurse-midwives for gyn because they appreciate the respectful, gentle and holistic approach they provide. I have patients that are 10 and patients that are 80.

The book has a lot of information about you and your family. How did your husband, Dr. Harman, and your sons feel about this?

My husband Tom is my partner and back-up physician in our practice. I didn't start out to write about myself, or the practice, the health care system or our marriage and family, but it turned out to be an integral part of the Blue Cotton Gown. Our story is interwoven with the stories of patients. Tom and my boys were incredibly generous in letting me write about our difficulties and our love. I guess we all believe that honesty is the best policy and that people can learn from other's experiences.

What's been the most rewarding thing about writing and getting The Blue Cotton Gown published?

The letters from readers. The Blue Cotton Gown celebrates the courage of the ordinary women and all professionals who struggles to survive with their souls intact. I get emails every day from readers who are touched by the book. It makes a difference to their lives.

Patricia Harman has spent over thirty years caring for women as a midwife, first as a lay-midwife, delivering babies in cabins and on communal farms in West Virginia, and later as a nurse-midwife in teaching hospitals and in a community hospital birthing center. Visit her at http://www.patriciaharman.com

Guest Blogger

On Writing and Roast Chicken
By Susan Rebecca White


My writing life is cyclical. Sometimes—and this is my favorite cycle—I am completely immersed. I’ll spend long days at my computer, not aware of time passing. I’ll eat something simple for supper, pasta with jarred sauce, or a tuna fish sandwich. At night I’ll dream of my characters.

That’s how I was during the last two months of writing my novel Bound South. I was living in Atlanta—where I still live—and each morning I’d drive to the windowless office where I write, playing the same song again and again on my car’s CD player. The song was “Black Flowers” by Yo La Tengo, and depending on traffic, I could usually play it through three times before I arrived. Hearing that song would get me pumped up, would let me know that I was about to re-enter the fertile world of my imagination.

Other times, I’m empty. I will go to my office to write, but I’ll only feel sleepy, not inspired. I’ll take naps on the floor, jump up for cupcake breaks (to the detriment of my blood sugar levels, there is an excellent bakery in my office complex), and leave early, without having accomplished much of anything. At least not anything concrete.

During the empty times, I cook. A lot. Indeed during those times, when attempting to write, I will become distracted by thoughts of what I might make that night for dinner. Will it be braised chicken finished with mustard and cream, pasta with a sauce of sundried tomatoes and sausage, or maybe a whole trout, stuffed with shallots, parsley and breadcrumbs? Such thoughts of cooking are quite seductive because, let’s face it: creating an elaborate meal is far more satisfying than nodding off in front of a blank computer screen.

A few years ago, during one of my “empty times,” I was living in San Francisco, where I had moved after graduating from the MFA program at Hollins in Roanoke, VA. I had lived in San Francisco before and had loved it. But to my surprise, this time around, living on the west coast felt strange, foreign, and I found myself yearning for the south. (Which was particularly surprising, because growing up in the south all I wanted to do was escape.) While I was in San Francisco my mom sent me Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis’s The Gift of Southern Cooking, an exhaustively researched and gorgeously written cookbook that is as compelling as any memoir I’ve ever read. My friends Kasey and Christa lived nearby, and they were good enough friends that I could call them up at the spur of the moment to see if they wanted to come over and eat dinner with my husband and me. They almost always did. This was great, because it’s more fun to cook for four than for two.

During that time of missing the south and not being able to write, I prepared almost all of the recipes from The Gift of Southern Cooking, from candied bacon to macaroni and cheese to a roast duck stuffed with red rice and oysters. Kasey and Christa would come over and we would listen to Lucinda Williams, drink too much, eat too much, and in general have a fine time. It helped that Kasey was also a southern ex-pat, and was thrilled by Scott and Edna’s dishes.

Of all the meals I prepared during that time, my favorite was roast chicken. Growing up, all my mom ever fixed was boneless, skinless breasts, so using the whole chicken was a revelation for me. Scott and Edna’s version is brined, then rubbed in herbed butter, then cooked in a hot oven. The meat is salty and tender, the skin brown and crisp. It is a deeply satisfying dish to eat, especially when coupled with roasted potatoes with rosemary and sea salt.

As much fun as it was to cook southern food for my husband, Kasey, and Christa, I felt a little ashamed during the days that followed those nights of cooking, eating and drinking. I wondered: Had I lost my writing ambition? Would I ever return to my novel?

Not long after, an opportunity presented itself that gave me access to an empty room in a San Francisco private school to use as my writing office. Free from my kitchen, and free from other distractions, I returned to writing Bound South. And having taken what was probably a necessary hiatus, I was ready to re-immerse myself in its world. I resumed writing at the point where Caroline Parker, a privileged daughter of the south, is living in San Francisco with her new husband. Caroline is struggling. Disconnected from her husband, disconnected from her family, disconnected from her southern roots (however mixed her feelings are about them), she comforts herself by cooking. The first book she reaches for is The Gift of Southern Cooking. She learns how to brine then roast a chicken. She feeds herself. She feeds her loneliness.

Now, Bound South is not autobiographical, and Caroline Parker and I are cut from different cloths. But I discovered, through the process of writing, that we both share the same interest in cooking, and that cooking helps us through the empty, lonely times. What a discovery, to realize that the time during which I thought I was being least creative would inspire a future writing streak.

All of life is material, I suppose.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Susan White graduated from Brown University and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Hollins University where she was awarded a teaching fellowship and the James Purdy Prize for outstanding fiction. In 2007 she was awarded a fellowship at the Hambidge Center, an artist colony in the north Georgia mountains. Her debut novel, Bound South, is forthcoming from Touchstone / Simon and Schuster in February 2009. An excerpt from Bound South was published in Atlanta magazine’s May 2007 fiction issue. Currently Susan is working on her second novel. She lives near downtown Atlanta with her husband, Alan Deutschman, dog Raney, and cats Moses.

Visit her at http://www.susanrebeccawhite.com/

Do you read epigraphs?

by Karen Harrington, author Janeology



I have a confession to make: I didn't know the term 'epigraph' until I published my book. When I was working with my editor, I kept referring to it as the 'quote page.' He quickly schooled me on the use and importance of epigraphs. When I told him I had the following quote taped to my desk for years while writing my novel, Janeology, he just said "Yes!"

"In almost every generation, nevertheless, there happened to be some one descendant of the family gifted with a portion of the hard, keen sense, and practical energy, that had so remarkably distinguished the original founder." - Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables

Because the theme of my book centers on the genetic inheritance of multiple generations of one family, this epigraph felt like a gift. And it still thrills me a little to see the name Hawthorne on the opening pages.

And here’s the one I’ve chosen for my next work, Prodigal Son.

He who seeks revenge should dig two graves. – Chinese proverb.

Intriguing, huh? This simple phrase sets the perfect ominous mood for this story.

But I have another confession. Until I had an epigraph of my own, I tended to give them a cursory look in my hurry to get to Chapter One. Now, I linger on the epigraph page. I understand that, through her epigraph, the writer wants you to catch a whiff of what's to come, provoke a question, or set a mood. It has even been suggested that an epigraph is like the appetizer to the great meal that awaits.

What about you? Do you like epigraphs? Do you read them? Skip them? Have a favorite? If you are writing a book, have you chosen an epigraph?

--
Visit me at http://www.karenharringtonbooks.com/ or at my blog - Scobberlotch

New Release From One of Our Own

Southern attorney Avery Andrews finds herself following the money as she pieces together a very cold case and a very cold-blooded murder, complete with a carnival fright-house mummy who turns out to be frighteningly real.

Cathy Pickens http://www.cathypickens.com/

In a Cook’s Kitchen By Augusta Scattergood

“I often think to make a friend’s fine recipe is to celebrate her once more, and in that cheeriest, most aromatic of places to celebrate in - the home kitchen."
Eudora Welty

I’m a better writer than a cook. In fact, I once started an essay for Mississippi Magazine with I’m not a serious cook, but I have a serious cookbook collection. And it’s true. My shelves are filled with cookbooks. I’m especially drawn to books published by schools and women’s auxiliaries, featuring dishes with intriguing names like Last Minute Leftover Casserole, Tomato Soup Aspic, and Dr. Carr’s Prescription (vodka, peach brandy, lime juice, sugar and ice).

My most spattered and dog-eared cookbooks are compiled by church ladies, mostly Southern. Into each recipe, I read a story. Sometimes the cooks’ familiar names take me back to a bridesmaid’s brunch, a baby shower, a funeral. My grandmother’s Canasta partner’s homemade Divinity Fudge, the football coach’s Lemon Chess Pie, my friend Irene’s mother’s asparagus balls fill up the pages of those spiral-bound volumes with memories.

And I feel that way about kitchens. I love their stories.

This New Year’s Eve, standing in the Mississippi kitchen that originally belonged to my sister’s mother-in-law, Christine Carlson, the talk turned to artichoke pickles. I’d never seen a Jerusalem artichoke till I met the Carlsons. Dr. Carlson grew them in his garden, Christine pickled them, and I ate them. With great appreciation. After her death, I knew I’d never taste such a delicacy again. I saw Jerusalem artichokes for sale once in my hometown supermarket in New Jersey, and I almost bought them. Then I saw the price. And realized they required peeling. So unless somebody steps up to the plate and plants Jerusalem artichokes in my sister’s backyard, scrapes and jars them, Christine Carlson’s pickles will remain a perfect culinary memory.

After my friends the Alleys have thrown a party, I like to land in their kitchen. Their food never ceases to amaze me. This year they served Hopping John and cornbread on New Year’s, homemade bread with basil butter and shrimp casserole for Christmas supper. Topped off with pound cake and lime curd. Sadly, I missed the original celebrations. But appearing at their house, post holiday festivities, guarantees not only the most fabulous leftovers but also stories that never stop. When we dug up a journal documenting a trip we took together ten years ago, we laughed at our stories of subway rides, rooftop bars, exotic foods we have eaten and lived to tell about. There’s nothing like a belly laugh to make you forget whatever holiday slight, the gift Santa overlooked this year, or even the arduous flight delays it took to get you there.

Stories that waft out of the kitchen like oregano in the soup pot end up in my writing, even if it’s hard to recognize them. Fig preserves a child turned her nose up at, biscuits shared on a front porch swing, the sweet tea, the artichoke pickles.

Southerners, even those who are fair-to-middling cooks, love to talk about food, love to eat it, and- if so inclined- to sprinkle it into their writing. My friend Helen Hemphill, author of popular kids’ books not necessarily about food, once told me her editor (himself a Yankee for sure) pointed out way too many food references in her first middle-grade manuscript. “I had my characters eating pimento cheese sandwiches every time they turned around,” she told me.

Well, of course, that’s what we do.

Like Miss Eudora, most of my best recipes bear the name of the friend who first made them. And although I wish my kitchen produced original, memorable dishes worth passing along, I’ll probably stick to writing about them. After all, is a story really a story without a pimento cheese sandwich or Aunt Emma’s fig preserves?

Standing in a familiar kitchen, handing the chef a wooden spoon, a red and green pot holder, a new microplaner to zest the lemon, I say hats off to my friends, the cooks. And, please, keep those stories coming.

Augusta Scattergood is a contributing writer for Skirt! Magazine where she writes about Book Groups and would love to hear about yours. Her essays and book reviews appear in Mississippi Magazine, Delta Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and various websites. Read more about her reading and writing at her own blog: http://ascattergood.blogspot.com/

The Wall: An Author's Confession about Her Father's War

By Nicole Seitz, author of The Spirit of Sweetgrass, Trouble the Water and A Hundred Years of Happiness

I have a confession: I never wanted to know about war. When reading the newspaper, I would skim over the attacks in the Middle East. I would pause only briefly to read about fallen American soldiers before tearing up and moving on to some rosier section. I found it easy to avoid watching Platoon and Black Hawk Down. “But you’re a woman,” you might say, “and war is more of a masculine interest.” And I might agree and feel better about my head being stuck in the sand for so long, except for this simple fact: I am the daughter of a war veteran. As such, my avoidance of war things has had less to do with the stereotypical traits of females and more to do with my relationship with my stepfather.

There’s an age-old question: would you rather be loved or understood? I say they go hand in hand. If you love someone, then deeper understanding leads to deeper love. I would argue that I’ve always loved my stepfather, but until I began trying to understand him, my love was limited. It fell upon the brick wall he surrounds himself with. It is this same brick wall that thousands of war veterans build brick by brick in order to protect themselves from what lies in their own heads. Their own hearts. And there must be millions of children and grandchildren and spouses who have banged their heads on these walls in an effort to love and understand the veterans in their lives.

I am a wife and mother of two. I have a close-knit family. My stepfather has been in my life for thirty years, and I thought I had him pegged. He’s loud sometimes. He’s emotional others. He’s the most giving person I’ve ever met. He sometimes speaks what he should keep in his head. My mother used to have to kick him under the table to stop him from sharing too much information. Alcohol has been both friend and foe. He takes risks. He’s a hard-worker, a road warrior, a drill sergeant—a loving grandfather. I thought I knew this man who raised me, but I didn’t. In fact, I’m only beginning to now.

Two years ago, my husband and I took my parents out for their 29th anniversary to a posh Asian-fusion restaurant in downtown Charleston, SC. We ate heartily and sipped mojitos and wine, and then my father did something I’d never seen him do before. He started talking about his time in Vietnam. He described things he never had before. He admitted things I never wanted to hear. Tears rolled down his face as he shed the burden that sat heavy on his soul. My eyes stung. I felt connected to my father in those moments. I felt convicted of my purposeful avoidance of his war. I wondered why I had never taken the time to face the images, the sounds, and the history of what he went through nearly forty years ago. In those moments, my eyes and spirit locked with my father’s, and my life changed because all of a sudden I wasn’t afraid of what I’d learn about war, about him. For the first time, I desired deeply to crawl in his head and be there for him, with him, so he wouldn’t have to suffer those memories alone.

I am a writer. I deal with things through words on paper. I came home and wrote a scene that my father had told us, something that had happened to him recently when he found himself face to face with “the enemy” again after all these years, and how the emotions, the instincts, the haunting memories rose up again from their quiet resting place. I showed my husband the scene and he loved it. I showed it to my mother next and she whispered, “Oh don’t write about this.” I knew in that moment that this was exactly what I needed to write about. It was time I faced the truth of my relationship with my stepfather, and if I was going through this with a veteran, there must be thousands more, millions even, who might relate.

Upon beginning my third novel, A Hundred Years of Happiness, I became obsessed with the Vietnam War. I watched footage that made me ill. I read books I might never have read and listened to sounds I once shunned. I spoke with veterans—never with dry eyes. I attended a gala for Medal of Honor recipients. I tried to get into the head of a war veteran in order to create my main character, John Porter, inspired by my own stepfather. But the book is not really about war. It’s about family and war’s lingering effects. Ultimately, I wrote a book that I hope shows my stepfather how much I love him. How much I desire to understand him. How I will always be here for him if he ever wants to open up…again.

You know my stepfather. He’s the life of the party. He’s unpredictable, moody. You have someone just like him in your own life. Perhaps he’s your grandfather, your crazy uncle, your father, your son, your brother. In today’s times, perhaps he’s even your sister, mother, daughter—women who are fighting valiantly overseas in Afghanistan or Iraq. If I might offer my humble advice, I would say this:

It may take years for your loved one to open up about war. In fact, most vets don’t talk about it, and you may never be as fortunate as I was to have him or her open up. But please do yourself a favor. Don’t hide your head in the sand and act as if those things never happened. Because they did. War happened. And war has lasting effects on families and next generations. Never be afraid to read the difficult news or watch the films or read the books or look at the pictures of war. Our veterans overcame their fears and fought for our country. I will honor my stepfather and all the others who fought and are still fighting today by learning about their wars, talking about their wars, and working to break down the walls that stand between me and the heroes I rub shoulders with every day. Our veterans deserve not only our unconditional love but our boundless understanding.
_________________

Nicole Seitz lives in the Charleston, SC area and is the author of Trouble the Water (chosen as one of the "Best Books of 2008" by Library Journal) and The Spirit of Sweetgrass. She also paints the covers for her books. Her latest novel, A Hundred Years of Happiness, is being called "the must-read book of the year" by best-selling author of The Sunday Wife, Cassandra King. It releases from warehouses today. Visit Nicole's website at http://www.nicoleseitz.com/ to watch a book trailer and learn more.