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Blog postLogline: Revenge is still the best option in the Deep South
I’m working on another novel, The Blue Bottle Tree. The title springs from the once ubiquitous bottle trees that dotted the Southern landscape meant to warded off malicious haints, those folkloric ghosts which bring harm, sometimes cause death, to the living. Historically, the trees used all blue bottles; however, multi-colored bottles can also appear. Bottles are hung from limbs or stuck on the ends of dead limbs.
Th -
Blog postThe publishing industry changes by the day. First, there is the continued merger of small presses into medium-sized publishers. Next comes the big houses consuming those medium-sized presses into their folds—or driving them out of business. And finally (well, probably not final), the big publishing names cannibalizing each other.
This folding of one into another is not the last word in industry change. What is exciting, to me as a writer AND reader, are the dramatic fluctu -
Blog postThe years immediately following the Civil War were tempestuous ones. Anger, loss, and poverty plagued the South and continued to rattle the North. By 1868, General John A. Logan of the Northern Civil War veterans, stepped forward and called for a nationwide day of remembrance. He suggested folks decorate graves of fallen soldiers with flowers and mementos, stating they “lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard” in the country. He further suggested the day be standardized on Ma
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Blog postThis is not an original thought with me, but I like it. Reading is like traveling.
We travel to see and better understand other peoples and other lands. We taste different foods, hear a different language, and experience other textures. In doing so, we met ourselves. We gather in different information. In short, we change.
Reading a book, especially books by international authors, various regional authors, and those in different professions, doing different jobs, throws new li -
Blog postAt every stage of my life there have been books. As a kid growing up, a special gift book each Christmas from my mother. My country school library. During summers, there was the bookmobile.
As an adult, there have been books, bookstores, and libraries throughout the years. In fact, on every vacation I made it a point to visit the local library in towns on my trip. I read books about the area and looked up local writers, added them to my new authors list. Later, I worked as a public li -
Blog postDuring an early February post, I commented on Amor Towles’ novel, The Lincoln Highway, and its structure. Exploring structure from a different angle is Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful, a retelling of Homer’s Trojan Wars epic.
Hauser’s tale deviates from Homer’s telling by examining the wars through the eyes of the women of Troy. Like Towles, Hauser uses multiple voices and POV characters. She offers a chorus of gods and goddesses who toy with mortals, directing their fates, w -
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Blog postYears ago, while traveling in Mexico over Valentine’s Day, I fell into conversation with my Mexican guide about the holiday.
She explained that in Mexico, the day is celebrated as a day to extend friendship, to enjoy special treats with family and amigos. It is not a day of romantic love.
I’ve chewed on that thought over the years and arrived (finally) at two different perspectives. First, if Valentine’s honors romantic love, it seems that a woman as well as a man needs -
Blog postIn writing about slave gardens, I realized how much my family farm lifestyle pulled from slaves and other tillers of the soil. A significant difference being the white family farm was chosen.
I need to pause here and recognize that Black farmers, after the Civil War and during the Great Depression, were swindled out of their property, land, and livelihood. In effect, they lost their “forty acres and a mule.” The Dustbowl era further destroyed subsistence farms—white and non-white—alik -
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Blog post‘Tis frigid outside and the wind cuts through all but the thickest coat. I walk down the hill (it’s a long hill) to collect mail from my rural delivery, muttering a little exercise is better than none, albeit cold.
Today’s walk rewards me with a seed catalogue. Winter, a resting and recovering time from harvest and holidays. With the winter solstice a month behind me, I find myself beginning to plan a garden. My spring and summer garden. Vegetables and flowers. I’m also thinking -
Blog post“It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine—without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born.” ~~ Haruki Marakama
Reading is one way for an author to experiment with language possibilities. After publishing If You Walk Long Enough and my short story collections, I’ve grown restless and want to explore those possibilities which Marak -
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