PRESS CONFERENCE

May 15, 2008--Carolyn Haines

SARAH BOOTH EXPLAINS HER WAYWARD CONDUCT


With WISHBONES hitting the bookshelves (June 24), I’ve received a lot of e-mail from readers who have suggestions—or criticisms--of Sarah Booth Delaney’s behavior or life choices.

I have no real control over Sarah Booth, but I thought this would be a great time for people to express their views and opinions and let Sarah Booth explain herself. If she can. If Jitty let’s her get a word in edgeways.

Over the years, I’ve received thoughtful and thought-provoking letters from people who view the Zinnia gang as I do, as friends. While the experience of Sarah Booth, Tinkie, Jitty, Cece, Millie, Chablis and Sweetie Pie lasts for a few hours or days or weeks for the reader, I spend a good part of each year in the town of Zinnia, following along behind Sarah Booth and her cohorts. In many ways, I’m like the personal secretary taking down the events of Sarah Booth’s life. I am her Watson.

At first this was very strange. I’m always involved with the characters of my stories, but I’ve never gone “undercover” as deeply as I have with this cast. As the eighth book is coming into print, I’m hard at work on the ninth, tentatively called BONES OF CONTENTION.
I don’t know how other writers relate to their characters. I suppose it’s a bit different with each book, as it is with me. But series characters give writers a unique opportunity to “grow” each character slowly and with careful thought. In a stand-alone book, the character arc is generally clearly defined. The protagonist changes greatly over the course of the book—or perhaps it’s the reader who changes. But the events covered in the single-title book have a clear beginning, middle and end.

In a series, the writer has to figure out the character arc for each book, while remembering there’s a totally different arc for the entire series. This is complicated for someone who has two functioning brain cells and a bossy ghost who keeps interfering with the process of writing.

The letters I’ve received, even the ones where people have been upset with Sarah Booth, have shown me one thing--one very important thing that’s balm to a tired writer’s heart—my readers care about these characters. This is the highest compliment any writer can receive. When a reader cares enough to sit down and pen a note to an author, that’s a big deal. A huge deal! It shows the reader has connected with these characters in the same way I do. The characters must be real to me or I can’t write them.

The act of reading and writing involves real magic. The reader is an equal part of the equation. To make it happen, the connection between the reader and the page must click.
Every time I pick up a book by a wonderful writer and I’m drawn into his/her world, I find myself amazed at this conjuring act. I’m always saddened by people who tell me they don’t read. To miss out on this intimate, exciting, and miraculous experience is too bad. To be able to write a book that gives this experience to a reader is remarkable.

HAM BONES brought about the largest amount of reader letters that I’ve ever received. WISHBONES will answer some of the most burning questions about Sarah Booth’s acting career and her relationship with Coleman and the land she loves. (Of course I can’t give anything away.)
Throughout the series, Sarah Booth’s relationship with Tinkie and Millie and Cece has deepened, and the bonds of friendship have grown strong. These friends, and the land itself, is at the heart of who Sarah Booth is.

And while Sarah Booth has put some ghosts to bed, there is one pesky, opinionated, decade-hopping ghost who won’t be silenced.

So I invite all of you to please put your questions, opinions, rants, and praise out on the table. Tell it to Sarah Booth and Jitty straight! Hit the comment button and share your thoughts about anything regarding the Zinnia gang. I’ve summoned up Sarah Booth and Jitty to account for themselves.

You can comment at any time and I’ll respond, but I’ll be at my keyboard from 9-12 to do my best to force my errant characters to reveal their secrets.

Carolyn
http://www.carolynhaines.com/

Tee Ball: Lessons for Us All

by Sarah Smiley (www.SarahSmiley.com)

Last year, my son Ford, then 6, was, let’s face it, the worst athlete on his tee-ball team. He was also the smallest, youngest and least experienced. Not surprisingly, the coaches often stuck him in the outfield. Sometimes they left him in the dugout for whole innings.

Ford, God love him, never lost heart. At times I was sure he’d want to quit. But then, to my surprise, he was ready for every practice and standing in the outfield for every game, that characteristic half-moon smile--the one he’s had to grow into since it covered most of his face as a baby--shining out from the shadows of his baseball cap. He always believed that the next game, the next practice, would be his big chance. Sometimes, that faith made me cry myself to sleep at night. If only he could play the infield just once, I prayed, it would make him so happy.

But Ford never got that chance. He displayed the generic at-least-you-participated trophy on the special shelf in his bedroom anyway.

“Next year,” he told me, “when all the big kids have moved up a league, I’ll be the oldest player and maybe I’ll get to play first base.”

“Yes, maybe,” I said.

“Next year” came last week. On our way to the first practice of the season, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Ford smiling to himself, staring confidently out the window. His baseball glove was in his lap. I knew he was daydreaming about playing the infield. With the same faith that one knows the daffodils will bloom each Spring, Ford believed that this day would be his big break.

In the parking lot, he jumped out of the car and ran across the dusty field, calling out “See ya mom,” over his shoulder. He was too excited to wait for me to unbuckle his brother and put the baby in the stroller. My eyes grew wet when I noticed that his grey baseball pants, the ones that needed a belt and hung down to his ankles last year, now almost looked too tight and short as he ran to the field. Maybe this will be his big day after all, I thought.

I took my seat on the splintered stands and said a little prayer before the practice began. The sparkles in Ford’s eyes nearly danced and he couldn’t contain the smile on his face as the new coach introduced himself to the team. The coach split the children into two groups. One groups went to practice in the infield. The other group went to the outfield. Ford was in the second group. I could not stop myself from crying, and I hoped that the other mothers didn’t see. While he fielded grounders and caught pop-fly’s, Ford constantly glanced longingly at the kids in the infield. Perhaps, like me, he thought the coach would switch the groups halfway through practice. But we were both wrong. One hour passed, and Ford was still in the outfield.

When he came to me on the stands after practice, Ford said, “I really thought I’d be in the infield this year.”

“I know, Honey,” was all I could say. What else was there? I was prepared for him to say that he wanted to quit.

“I’m going to go talk to the coach,” Ford said.

Uh-oh.

He ran across the dirt, waited for the coach to finish picking up stray balls and baseball bats, while I turned around in my seat and whistled at the wind, pretending not to know this assertive little boy. Then I heard Ford say, “Coach, I’ve been practicing real hard all summer, and if you just give me one shot at the infield, I think I can do it.”

The coach smiled. “Sure, we’ll give you a shot next practice,” he said.

Ford ran back to me yelling, “Yes! He said he’d give me a chance, Mom!”

All weekend, Ford practiced in the front yard. He studied major league games on television. And when Monday night’s practice finally arrived, there he was in my rearview mirror again, smiling out the window.

He ran out onto the baseball field and the coach put him on first base. I have never smiled so much. There was my child, standing in a cloud of red baseball dust, his hands on his knees, ready for whatever came his way. He caught some and missed others, but he was there, and I knew he would remember that moment for the rest of his life.

After practice, Ford told me, “I’m glad they gave me a chance, because without a chance, how can anybody ever know what someone can do?”

It occurred to me then that with his patience, his faith and determination, Ford will be able to do absolutely anything. And I hope he always has the chance.

Writers, Get Thee to the Movies!

By Sarah R. Shaber


Recently I saw Wonder Boys, a great film from the novel by Michael Chabon. I watched it with a group of writer friends, and we were beside ourselves because it was ABOUT WRITERS AND WRITING! It was sad, and hilarious, and sweet, and IT WAS ABOUT US!

Michael Douglas stars as Prof. Grady Tripp, a writing teacher who is hopelessly blocked on his second novel, Wonder Boys, which is scheduled to follow his well-reviewed and well-received first novel, The Arsonist’s Daughter. We know that feeling, don’t we, boys and girls?

In one wild weekend Tripp’s wife leaves him, he struggles to protect a promising student (Tobey McGuire) from the clutches, both literary and sexual, of Tripp’s best friend and editor (Robert Downey Jr, brilliant here, and in Iron Man and Zodiac, I am so over Jake Gyllenhaal), deal with his pregnant girlfriend (Frances McDormand), and receive a blisteringly negative review of his manuscript from one of his own students (Katie Holmes, who knew she could act?) who is all of twenty years old.

I won’t spoil the movie for you, but the best parts, for me, anyway, are the inside writing jokes. You must see this movie. There was something about watching a good film about writing that was so validating and cathartic that a month later I’m still getting good vibrations from it.

So I bought Stranger Than Ficton, the movie with Emma Thompson and Will Farrell about a man (Ferrell) who realizes he’s a character in a book being written by a famous writer (Thompson) whose signature, get this, is that in all her books the main character dies! Needless to say Farrell’s boring, predictable life is turned upside down as he enlists the help of a literature professor (Dustin Hoffman) to identify the writer so he can save his life.

Emma Thompson as the writer is perfect. She’s unkempt, obsessed with her plot, driven to sit at her typewriter for hours every day. She resides in an empty apartment because she lives inside her mind, not in the world. She spends most of her time dreaming up ways to kill her characters.

Again, I don’t want to spoil the plot for you, but Farrell shows up at her door to plead for his life. Her reaction is priceless. She recognizes him instantly, and becomes beset with guilt and anxiety as she plans his demise. I identify so with her reaction. I have no doubt I would recognize my own characters if I met them, and I often must remind myself, as I burden their lives with murders, broken love affairs, and problems galore, that they aren’t real people—I hope!

Over the weekend my friend Brenda Witchger reminded me about Adaptation, a 2002 film starring Nicholas Cage as twin film writers Charlie and Donald Kaufman. Charlie’s got a gig adapting The Orchid Thief, a best-selling nonfiction book about orchid poaching, into a fiction screenplay that is set to star Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. Charlie, so committed to his art, is tormented beyond belief by his assignment to do justice to the book. He faces self-doubt, writer’s block, and frustration. Watching him sit at a makeshift desk, roll paper into his typewriter and stare, paralyzed, at the keyboard, with only the company of his unmade bed, is a scene we all recognize. If you haven’t been there, you’re not a writer. Then there’s his freeloading and superficial twin brother Donald, typing away at a clichéd screenplay about a serial killer that gets bought immediately by Hollywood. Of course Charlie Kaufman is a real screenwriter—he also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Donald is his imaginary “evil” twin, who takes the easy way out of the writer’s dilemma.

Most people aren’t writers. No matter how much your spouse, children, and friends care about you, they don’t understand the writing process. You need the company of other writers for that. And a few good movies to reassure you that you’re not alone. For those of you who aren’t writers, but are interesting in writer, these films will give you insight into the writing life.

Guest Blogger: Terri DuLong

THEE Call . . .

Yes, everyone.......after ten years of writing, rejection letters, disappointments, ups and downs.......I am beyond thrilled to let you readers know........I was offered a two book contract with Kensington Books in New York City yesterday afternoon! I got THEE call......from my new editor!

I'm so excited I don't think I've touched ground since I spoke to her. Kensington had shown an interest in my manuscript in December and had requested a full, which I promptly sent off to them.

Well, last Wednesday evening I received an email from my editor, Audrey LeFehr, telling me she was very interested in my manuscript and she asked what I had in mind for a second book. I emailed her back and told her I'd begun working on a second novel for a series. The next contact was an email yesterday afternoon, with the subject title, "Good News!" and she told me she wanted to offer me a book contract and would it be convenient to call that afternoon.

When she called she explained that her Editorial Assistant had read it first and rated it very high. She then said she read it and felt the same. She loved my story! She went on to say it does not need any revisions, but made a few suggestions on a couple of minor points. Audrey then said, "These are not revisions. I only want you to change a few lines here and there in relation to what we discussed."

She then explained the highlights and pertinent information of the two book contract she was offering. It's a sweet contract and a very nice deal and I'm very pleased. Needless to say, I accepted. She said Seeking Sydney will be released spring of '09. She also mentioned perhaps we might change the title and again, what we discussed was fine with me.

I was told the contract will be arriving in about four weeks. In the meantime, I'll make those minor changes she suggested and then......back to work on the second book. She also told me to be thinking of covers and to let them know of any that I like and what I might have in mind. She said they have an excellent art department and when I browsed their site, I have to agree. They have some lovely covers.

I can't tell you how many times I fantasized about getting THEE call......when it would happen, IF it would ever happen, the circumstances, how a book contract might be offered.......and I have to say, the reality of it surpasses all my imagining.

Writing has been my passion since I was a child, but I only got serious about it ten years ago. I've attended numerous writers conferences over the years, tried to keep improving my craft of writing, did networking, made contacts and finally......I feel all of it is coming to fruition.

My dad will be gone five years on April 10, but I have to say, I'm feeling him mighty close to me right now. He was the one that taught me as a young child that if I wanted it bad enough, I would attain it. You were right, Dad! Dreams really do come true and I'm proof of that!

Now I'm off to try and get these feet back on the ground. And I'll see you here next time............

Terri DuLong lives on an island off the west coast of Florida with her husband, two dogs, three cats, numerous pond fish and unlimited birds to her feeders. All of it adds to her inspiration for writing. Visit her at http://www.islandwriter.net

ESCAPING TO THE FRENCH QUARTER

In 2006 I was asked to participate in a New Orleans Tribute at ALA. In honor of those who survived the storm and in memory of those who did not, I've decided to share the speech I read that night.

Escaping to the French Quarter

The middle of my ninth grade year my family moved to the New Orleans Westbank. Like most of our moves, I wasn't happy about the change. Even though I knew we'd be moving the entire eight months I lived in my grandparents' small Louisiana town, I'd pretended it wouldn't happen. As far as I was concerned my life didn't exist outside Forest Hill, Louisiana. I'd mapped out my entire future. I'd finish high school, marry my boyfriend and have four adorable children with dark curly hair like him. Each night, I'd make a delicious meal from his mother's recipes such as fried chicken and buttermilk pie. I was a girl with ambition.

My mother tried to prepare us for the move by painting a glamorous picture of our future life. "New Orleans is very traditional," she said. "They eat red beans and rice every Monday."

"Everyone does?" I asked.

"Well, yes. It started years ago when Monday became washday. The women put on a pot of beans because they were busy doing their wash. Oh, and all the high schools are segregated, even the public schools."

"Segregated?"

"That's right. You'll be going to an all girls school."

"There won't be any boys? Why?"

"Tradition," she said, then quickly added, "I think."

A month later, my boyfriend broke up with me. This did nothing to eliminate my desire of staying in Forest Hill. In January my Navy chief dad returned from his assignment in Washington D.C. to join us on the move to the New Orleans Westbank. I sat next to my younger sisters in the backseat of the gold Chevy Caprice and pouted the entire way. This was something I'd perfected over the years, like the time my dad wouldn't let us stay an extra night in Amarillo when we found out Elvis would be performing there.

"We need to stay on schedule," he said, marking Amarillo off his list.

Now when we reached the newly built Superdome, I looked the other way. And I yawned when we crossed the Mississippi River and my dad pointed toward downtown, saying, "The French Quarter is over there. We'll visit it one day."

We drove to our home in Harvey to the Spanish Oaks subdivision. My first observations were that there was nothing remotely Spanish about the street of tract homes, nor was there an oak tree in sight. In all the years we lived there, I never found out if everyone in New Orleans ate red beans every Monday, but we sure did. And although attending an all girl high school took some adjusting, there were definite advantages. John Ehret had several dances during the year and there was no waiting around by the phone for some awkward teenage boy to ask me to the dance. I had to ask the boy myself. I'd always been very shy, but I was also shallow enough to care about such things as evening dresses, hairdos, and nail polish. So as each event approached, I'd temporarily push my shyness to the side and ask some boy to the dance.

By spring, my icy attitude toward my new home started to melt, and by the end of the school year it had finished defrosting. Mainly because my drama club took a field trip to the French Quarter. This time when we crossed the bridge I noticed the steamboats making their way leisurely down the dark Mississippi.

After we arrived in the quarter, we toured the charming La Petite Theatre and I dreamed of maybe performing on its stage one day. At lunch, we ate Popeye's fried chicken in Jackson Square while we watched the artists hawking their pictures. Later we walked down Royal and St. Peter streets, listening to the music floating outside from the clubs. By the time we piled back on the bus, I'd encountered my first romance in New Orleans. And it wasn't with some lanky hairy-legged boy. I was in love with the French Quarter.

My grandparents visited that summer and my family took them to the Quarter. When my dad parked along the street, only a hundred yards from Cafe Du Monde, my mother said, "Ray, that sign says, 'No Parking.'"

"Those other cars are parked there," he said, and that was that.

We spent a couple of hours in the quarter, only to return and discover our Chevy Caprice missing. I don't think my parents ever visited the French Quarter again after our car had been towed, but I sure did. Over my high school years, my friends and I found it was very easy to cross the Westbank and arrive in the French Quarter. We visited many times, adventuring into Pat O'Brien's and eating peanut butter hamburgers at the Fatted Calf.

Our senior prom took place at the Royal Sonesta so we ate under the ivy covered patio of The Court of Two Sisters. After the dance ended, we walked along Bourbon Street. It didn't matter that we never stepped inside the clubs. The barkers standing in front of the doors, trying to lure us inside, made us feel both grownup and naughty. We ended our prom night at two am, eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde. I remember wishing that life could be like that everyday.

At Mardi Gras time, we weren't content with just attending the Westbank's Cleopatra parade. We wanted the real Mardi Gras, the one going on across the river. We waited for Bacchus, the Zulu King and Pete Fountain who liked to kiss the ladies when he wasn't playing his clarinet. Many times I'd read the New Orleans Times Picayune, not for the articles, but for the real estate classified ads. Small French Quarter Apartment, no air conditioning, but lots of personality. I wanted a slice of that personality.

Later when I started to attend the University of New Orleans, I took an hour bus ride to apply at the Zales Jewelry store on Canal Street. I had it all planned. I'd attend classes in the morning, then take the long bus ride to the store. And since Canal Street bordered the French Quarter, I'd naturally take my breaks there, sip a cafe au lait and eat a beignet while watching street performers.

That was the plan anyway until my mother got wind of it and said, "Young lady, you are not going to take the bus and work downtown. If you want a job, you can get one on campus."

Over the years, I returned to the quarter with my husband and daughter, trying to capture that old feeling. The intrigue was still there, but not the deep longing I'd possessed as a young woman. It was sort of like pining over a past love for years, and when you finally met up with him, you wondered what all the fuss was about.

That is until my friend, Coleen Salley invited me to stay in her French Quarter apartment a few years ago. After showing me where she kept the Community coffee, she handed me the keys and said, "Honey, I'm sleeping in, but feel free to take a walk in the morning. Just remember to lock the door."

That night I fell asleep listening to the conversations of people passing by and the horse hooves clomping against the brick street. I awoke at dusk, dressed and put on one of Coleen's sweaters. Then I slipped out of the apartment.

Making my way down Chartre, I passed a coffee shop opening its doors. A few steps away, one lone artist had shown up at Jackson Square and was hanging his art along the fence. I crossed the street to Cafe Du Monde. A couple of locals were seated inside, but I settled outside at a table under the cabana. The clatter of cups from the kitchen, the sweet smell of beignets frying, the moan of a car passing by. The French Quarter was just waking up and the thought hit me that all the years I'd visited I'd never seen it at the break of day. I ordered my cafe au lait and pulled Coleen's sweater tightly around me. On the Mississippi, the Algiers ferry sounded its horn. I knew that meant the ferry was just moments away from docking, ending its journey from the other side. And for that brief time, I, too, had returned--a Westbank girl, crossing the river, escaping to her long lost love.

Kimberly Willis Holt writes from her home in West Texas. Although her father's military career took her family to ports around the world, she considers Forest Hill, Louisiana her emotional home. It became the setting of her first book, My Louisiana Sky.

Magic Realism in Appalachia

Magic Realism in Appalachia

By Sharyn McCrumb

Anne is driving alone down a dark forest road when she swerves to avoid a deer, sending her car into the ditch. Anne is unable to get the car out of the ditch, but she gets out to survey the damage.
If at this point a group of elves comes out of the forest and puts Anne’s car back on the road for her, you know you are reading a fantasy narrative.

However, if Anne uses her cell phone to call AAA, and while she is waiting for the tow truck to arrive, some elves come out of the forest and stand around telling her what a bad driver she is-- but they don’t move the car and they depart before the tow truck arrives, leaving no trace of their having been there-- then the narrative you are reading is magic realism.

Magic realism-- the blurring of the line between the real and the supernatural with the equal acceptance of both-- is a concept that first appeared in art in the early twentieth century, and later became an important element in contemporary fiction.

Although people tend to associate literary magic realism primarily with Latin American writers (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende), the blending of the fantastic with the everyday is easy to find in popular culture: In Northern Exposure when Ed the Inuit film buff spent a week hanging out with a spectral Shaman that no one else can see, or when the prophet Elijah visited Dr. Fleichman for Passover. Hardly an episode of the program went by without some touch of the light fantastic. In Sleepless in Seattle when Tom Hanks’ character sees his dead wife sitting at the other end of the sofa...or Rags the super-annuated dog on Spin City who occasionally croaked out (in Tim Allen’s voice), “Please kill me” -- all magic realism. Magic realism runs through Toni Morrison’s Beloved and through the works of Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass and Derek Walcott.

Magic realism is certainly a component of Appalachian Ballad novels that I write. I use it not because it is a fashionable literary device, but because I found the elements of magic realism within the mountain culture, and I reported what I saw.

I can tell you the exact moment that I decided to incorporate the supernatural into my work.
In March of 1990 the first Ballad novel If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-O was published by Scribners. It seemed to be a strictly realistic novel about the effects of the past on a small Tennessee town-- unless you happened to notice the character of Vernon Woolwine, which few people did. In the novel Vernon was described as a “Welfare-funded exercise in street theater.” Vernon, unemployed and pleasantly daft, spent his days loitering around the courthouse square, dressed in a succession of costumes: Darth Vader, a cowboy, a pirate, and so on. He was quite real and everyone took him for granted. No one in the book-- and very few readers, I might add-- noticed that Vernon’s costumes were the emotional barometer of the town. When he is dressed as a negative character, bad things happen in Hamelin; when he’s a good guy, all goes well. In the Christmas eve scene in The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, Vernon is nowhere to be seen, but he has left a snow-covered plaster garden gnome in his place on the park bench, while he... does what?

When If Ever I Return Pretty Peggy-O was published in 1990, Scribners hosted a publication party for the book at that year’s Appalachian Studies Conference at Unicoi State Park, near Helen, Georgia. The publisher sent my editor Susanne Kirk down from New York to host the festivities. The magic realism probably began for Susanne when she was picked up at the Atlanta airport by Major Sue, an elfin army intelligence officer from Wisconsin, who drove her several hours north into the hills of Georgia to be set down in Helen, a Bavarian theme-park-style alpine village that has made many an unsuspecting traveler believe in magic realism -- or at least in Oz.

The conference book party ended in the early afternoon, and that evening Susanne and I invited some of the conference attendees to a get-together in the cabin we had rented for the weekend at Unicoi State Park. The party consisted of two bottles of wine, a bag full of whatever the convenience store had in the way of snacks, eighteen professors, and Susanne, the major, and me. After an hour or so of pretzels and shop talk, the talk turned to the supernatural, and one by one we began to tell the family ghost story. These weren’t “Give me back my golden arm” stories. Nothing Stephen King would buy you a cup of coffee for. They were little stories of supernatural happenings that occurred in the family. Nobody made much of them. They were just there.

Most of them went something like this: “My grandmother was in the kitchen when she looked out the window over the sink and she saw my Uncle John walking across the yard. Now Uncle John lives in Cincinnati, so she wasn’t expecting to see him, but she thought he might have driven in to surprise her. She hurried out into the yard, but she didn’t see him. No car was in the drive way, and when she called out to Uncle John, there was no answer. Finally she gave up and as she was coming in the back door, the phone was ringing. It was the family in Cincinnati calling to say that Uncle John had died-- just when she saw him in the yard.” It isn’t an earth-shaking story, but when you hear more than a dozen similar stories at an academic party, it gives you pause.

We had Ph.D’s in English and Appalachian Studies and mining engineering, people from Georgia and New York and everywhere in-between, and everyone there had a ghost story-- everyone, that is, except Susanne and the two male professors.

The folklore scholar from Appalachian State wasn’t surprised. “These stories tend to get passed down in the family by the women folk,” she said. “Men don’t hear about them.” Wait until a multi-generational family holiday like Thanksgiving, she advised. After the meal is over, the men go out to watch television or talk among themselves, while the women congregate in the kitchen to do the dishes and put away the leftovers. Now, first the women tell childbirth horror stories. That will get any rookies out of the kitchen. After the uninitiated have fled, then they get down to it.

“I don’t have any family ghost stories, either,” said Susanne. “I grew up in Tucson.”

The folklore professor looked at her for a long moment and then said, “Ghosts don’t have call-waiting.”

But the rest of us had a swarm of tales: about a host of invisible beings who ford the Little Santeetlah River at twilight, speaking Cherokee and smelling of bear grease; about the girl who dropped a knife setting the table for a dumb supper and was stabbed by her husband years later...with the same knife; or the weary Confederate soldier who asks the re-enactors how to get back to his regiment.

“I left that thread out of the book,” I said wistfully, thinking of my novel. “This streak of the supernatural runs deep through mountain families and I left it out. “

”You had to,” said the folklore professor, who is Charlotte Ross, and who later became Nora Bonesteel.
“Peggy-O is told from the male point of view. The element of magic didn’t belong in the narrative.”

“Maybe not,” I said, “But it belongs in stories about Appalachia.”

The next novel, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter is the mirror opposite of the first novel. It is set in the winter, deals with the future, and is told from women’s point of view. It also introduced the character of Nora Bonesteel, the mountain wise woman who knows things that will happen, who makes graveyard quilts and talks to ghosts. In She Walks These Hills, Nora sees the ghost of the pioneer woman who has been trying to get home since 1779, and in The Rosewood Casket she is haunted by her childhood friend, who never lived to grow up. In The Songcatcher Nora tries to find an old ballad that the dead don’t want remembered. In Ghost Riders, I finally used that story told to me by a re-enactor, the one about the Confederate soldier asking his modern re-enactor counterparts how to get back to the 16th Mississippi regiment.

Through Nora Bonesteel I channel the Cherokee folk tales, the mountain legends and the family ghost stories-- changed, perhaps, to fit the narrative, but not invented, because I don’t have to.

In Appalachia the magic is already here.

Sharyn McCrumb won a 2006 Library of Virginia Award and AWA Book of the Year for her NASCAR-themed novel St. Dale, which was featured at the National Festival of the Book. Named as a “Virginia Women of History” for 2008, she is known for her Appalachian Ballad novels, including the New-York Times best-seller She Walks These Hills. A film of The Rosewood Casket is in production.

Treat and Retreat (were sitting in a boat?)

by Joshilyn Jackson

Last weekend I went on RETREAT with my church ladies up to the actual woods, and fittingly, the theme was A TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS. We left on Friday, and a good thing, too; I was feeling all spiritually clogged and barn sour and hatefully weepy and SO SO SO SORRY FOR MYSELF. I think it was sticking out EVERYWHERE.

My best friend is being eaten by her children’s SPRING activity flood (as am I, best beloveds, as are all parents) and so we hadn’t talked in a couple of weeks. She called me and said , “WOW I CAN TELL FROM THE WORDS AROUND THE EDGES OF YOUR BLOG THAT YOU ARE ONE RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC AFTERNOON AWAY FROM HEADING UP TO THE TOP OF A WATER TOWER WITH AN OUZI! WHAT GIVES?”

And I was all, “OH! ‘Scuse me! Is my mental illness showing? Here, let me just tug my skirt down…” And so I tried, but I fast realized I didn’t have NEAR enough cloth. I would have needed a hoop skirt to rival Scarlet O’Hara’s at the BBQ to hide all of the FROTHY layers of lacey mental illness I’d wrapped around myself. “WAHHHHH I am a big fat hateful selfish cannibalistic failure of a human being with BAD HAIR WAHHHHH! Who is a sad! Sad! Panda? WHO? MEMEMEMMEME.” Like that.

So I headed off to a an electronics-free woodland spot with a labyrinth and hiking trails down by the Chattahoochee River, and spent three days pretty much alternately marching around in the weeds and praying, and now I feel----retreated. Which is to say “significantly less crazy, with a firmer grasp on my actual priorities.”

The day before I left I thought, “I will go on my Table in the Wilderness retreat in the spirit of BABY BIRD! I will hunker down in a nest and scream and peep with an ENORMOUS OPEN BEAK and be stuffed with the worms of calmness and the worms of happiness and I will be given all good worms! ALL GOOD WORMS FOR ME!”

SO I went, and that first day, I was very weepy and stompy, and I missed my beautiful Television, and I missed my patient and beautiful husband, and I thought to myself, THIS IS USELESS! Where are my good worms??? I AM HOOTING AND PEEPING! I DEMAND THE GOOD WORMS! I came out here to the wilderness to find a TABLE in it. A BANQUET of sanity and grace spread just for me, and instead I found a table spread with ACTUAL WORMS, and NOT the kind that secretly mean peace, the damp squirmy kind…and here, you see, my baby bird and table in the wilderness metaphors met up and began breeding indiscriminately and had to be abandoned.

So Saturday morning I got up at 6 and put on my tennis shoes and went stomping down the trails with a map, like a moron. Because when it comes to choosing the correct fork while out hiking, a map is USELESS to me. I do not SPEAK map. I might as well take a bag of chicken bones and rattle them together and toss them to the earth and then see how they mystically fall to decide directions. Chicken bones, a map, magic 8 ball… same, same, all same.

But I took a map, and I headed into the woods.

You should know I am not a very WORDSWORTHian type person. I know some people look at a sunset or a mountain or some flowers and they go OH! THE BEAUTY OF THE ERF! OHOHOH! And their eyes get misty and they wander off refreshed. Me? I say, “Dude. It’s a tree with some blooms on it, and come Autumn that tree is going to poop it all off and I will have to RAKE. Bleh.”

But I AM an endorphin person. Hard physical work clears my head and makes me cheerful. SO! Armed with my map and a near psychotic level of optimism regarding my ability to use said map, I marked out a three mile course for myself. Then I put my head down and put my back into it. I am sure there were lots of breathtaking natural vistas along the way, but the trail was hilly and root-infested; I kept my gaze trained directly on the next piece of dirt my feet had to navigate so I could go fast without falling onto my face and breaking it. I moved from a trot to a satisfying canter, tearing along like a little steam engine, puff!puff!puff! very earnest.

A MIRACLE began to happen. Every time I STOPPED and checked the map, I was WHERE THE MAP SAID I SHOULD BE. It was BIZARRE! When the map said I would come to the river, I would come to the river. When the map said I would see the fork leading to the tent campgrounds, LO! There was a fork that led to the tent campgrounds. When the map said the labyrinth would be coming up on my left, THERE IT WAS! MAGICALLY ON THE LEFT! As if the WHOLE labyrinth had grown centipede feet and creeped from where it USUALLY sat to wherever I was inevitably lost and plopped down just as I came around the corner as a gift to me.

THE GOOD WORMS! THE GOOD WORMS ON MY TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS! I crowed to myself, going even FASTER and taking up my mis-mated metaphors again in the fervent heat of my delight.

And the whole thing was so VERY miraculous that I assumed it was Good Worms, and trusted it and put my head down, and stomped on trusting it, so that when I got to my last HALF mile, I came BACK to the same little rotty-looking plank bridge over a creek THREE times before I realized I was absolutely and hopelessly and finally rightly and justifiably Lost. As usual.

I became very bitter. The THEME was a TABLE in the wilderness, not LOST LIKE A MORON IN THE WILDERNESS. Yet there I was, a sad excuse for a metaphorical tribe of Isreal in my Nikes, NO MORE than half a mile from breakfast, but not getting any breakfast, but instead curling round and round the same criss-crossy tracks. I started to HATE that rotty bridge. I decided NO MATTER WHAT I would NOT come back to it. SO I began to choose only the left hand forks, winding myself farther and farther into the moist greenery.

All at once, I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes. The track had wound around to skirt a small clearing, like a mini-meadow, and IN IT, four little deer were eating breakfast. They had all put their heads up at once. And their tails. People think deer have little short tails, liked a dog’s tail that has been docked, but it isn’t so. The have long tails that are furry on two sides and when they lift them and they OPEN like big custodian mops. You can tell when the deer is Thinking Something by watchign the tails. All four stared at me, tails perked.

They were quizzical. They were GROUP thinking, and I could practically hear it: “Do you eat deer? Or are you just one of those TRAIL WALKING THINGS we see? Because if you EAT DEER please to tell us so we can bound away with our MOP TAILS UP? Yes? Yes? No? Okay!” Then three of them put their heads and tails back down and began grazing, with the closest one left to watch me and make POSITIVE SURE I was not secretly a deer eater. The breakfasting three kept glancing at the WATCHING deer to see if it was time to bound, but it never was, as I only stood there, gaping at them.

It is true I do not care for sunsets or mountain views, but I have a weird affinity for animals. I don’t mean I am some sort of DEER WHISPERER with a magic connection. I am never going to be a GUEST LOON on Psychic Pet Detective. My friend SARA is like that---everywhere she goes, animals fall in LOVE with her. She practically has little birds hurl themselves through her window glass so they can help her make the BED, for the love of Pete --- and I envy that. I WISH I had that. But I don’t have it.

What I have is a heart that answers the sight of something wild existing in its place. I thrill to it like some people thrill to the music (yawn) or sunsets (COMA yawn). I once hiked 5 miles up a mountain and then slogged another mile down through a muddy creek, peeping under every rock I could find to see this little native-to-Georgia rare red salamander. And then I saw him! I gently lifted rock number umpty-hundred-and-three and there, THERE at last, there he was. I saw him for at least THREE nanoseconds before he went OH HOLY CRAP! and goozled sideways and then whipped away so fast my eyes could not follow him. I set the rock back down and slogged my way back down the creek to the trail and hiked home, completely happy. And that was for a two inch slightly slimy object with no visible eyelids.

So I was beside myself over the little deer. The trail took me around the mini-meadow in a circle and I walked it, and all the way, the deer watched me. They were BROADWAY deer, very choreographed. As I circled and the watcher deer got farther from me, they would swap out, so it was always the CLOSEST who put her pretty head and her mop tail up in case I sprouted fangs and leapt at them. And the former watcher deer would fold her tail down and drop her head and keep breakfasting. It was utterly charming.

After I completed my circuit, I followed a random path leading away from the meadow and within two minutes I started to smell bacon and within five minutes the trail dumped me out of the woods directly behind the building where they served breakfast. By then I wasn’t baby bird anymore, and I didn’t need to scream or peep or demand or even to be fed. I had been fed already, in some lost way, and it held. It held me all weekend, and it is holding still. That day I went inside and I had eggs and I had peace. The end.

I say 'the end' because I do not have a pithy thing to say to tie it all together. All I have to tell you is that I saw some deer, and for me, it was a gift. Then I went to have breakfast, and I had eggs, and I had peace. Any other ending would only prove that eggs may taste great with cheese, but catharsis? Not so much.

Bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson lives in Powder Springs, Georgia with her husband, two kids, a dog, a scurrilous kitten, and a twenty-two pound Main Coon cat named Franz Schubert. Both her SIBA award winning first novel, gods in Alabama, and her second novel, Between, Georgia, were chosen as the #1 BookSense picks for the month of their release. Her third novel, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, which People Magazine calls “a treat” and Entertainment Weekly gave an A-, released in March of 2008.