The Weather

If you're writing about the South, the weather will probably be a character. I bet I could pick up any book on my shelf, especially the ones written by southerners, and open it to a weather reference. I'll try that.

James Lee Burke:
"The wind was blowing hard, and the royal palms out on the boulevard thrashed and twisted against a perfect blue sky."
"The sun looked broken and red on the horizon..."

Barbara O'Connor:
"..Randall could see the steamy heat rising up off the street in waves. The asphalt basketball court behind the school would be even hotter."

See, easy as pie. I could go on forever quoting weather descriptions.

So I've been thinking about the heat. And late afternoon thunderstorms. This morning I saw a maybe-10-year-old running calmly, a happy jog, down my street in Florida. I can barely walk down the street, even at 9 AM. So what is it that makes children so much more tolerant of the heat?

When I was growing up in Mississippi, we were required to nap on most summer days. Until we were almost teenagers. That didn't really mean sleep. Just quiet indoor time in the middle of the day. Most dads I knew came home from work for "dinner"- a huge noon meal- then promptly took a siesta before returning to work. Meanwhile, the kids kept quiet, read books, played cards under the ceiling fan. One thing I don't remember is complaining about the heat. I do that a lot now.

My writer friend Lee Hilton recently moved back to Texas. (You may be able to click that link and read some of her essays if you have access to the New York Times archives.) Today she reports in on the weather:
The average number of 100° days in Austin is 11. As of July 7th, 2009, Austin has had twenty-two 100° or hotter days.

Was it just not that hot in my childhood? Has air-conditioning spoiled us all? I can't imagine playing hopscotch outside now, but I know I spent a lot of time at the Fireman's Park in Cleveland, MS, when the slides were so hot they burned your legs. Then again, there was that shady pavilion at the Park. Maybe we just stayed under there, or rested under fig trees to ward off the heat. I know I didn't sit inside with the AC blasting. Kind of makes me want to go outside and find a shady spot to write in. Wait, it's 95 out there. Never mind.

How Soon is Too Soon?

That's what literary agent Janet Reid explores over at her blog. Click here to read and don't miss the comments. Many comments. Seems to me that this is very good advice Ms. Reid is giving. But very hard to follow?

Thanks to the Longstockings blog for leading me to "How Soon is Too Soon?"- While you're over there, check out today's Longstocking post also. Everybody's talking about Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column recommending Kids' Books. Blech. But at least he mea culpaed on his blog today. Kind of.

Numbers!

I'm holding on to this one. It sounds like an interesting tidbit that a character in a kids' book might just love to know:

Shortly after noon on July 8, check your clocks and calendars:

12:34:56 7/8/9.

PS And Check out this article with even more goodies about this date. Thanks, Susan!

Imagine..

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H. L. Mencken

And who has more imagination than a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old playing with flowers and water?

Recipe for Fairy Soup
Take your sand pail, fresh from the July 4th beach fireworks. Fill with water. Add rosemary, lavender, scented geranium, and a few red rose pedals for color. Stir with a wooden spoon. Leave outside for the fairies to enjoy.

Garnish with a tiny coconut and a few sticks to help the fairies break the shell to drink the milk.

Wait till morning to see if the fairies came.

On Being Southern

For those of you out there in Mississippi Magazine's distribution area- (sorry, it's not online, you'll have to actually go someplace and buy one, visit your library, or subscribe)- Check out my back page essay in the On Being Southern column this month. Remember gliders? That's my topic. And if you think gliders might be a cousin to sliders, or something related to ice skating? Ours was green and sat on the front porch...

What to Read Now?

All you need is the latest issue of Newsweek. Talk about a list! 50 books. I'm not telling how many I've read but I'll keep the list handy because there are quite a few I've wanted to read.

Then there's another list! Best Books Ever, divided into categories. Hmm. A tad random. Chosen by writer/ quasi-celebrities. Sort of. Still, intriguing.

I'd almost let my subscription lapse and now I'd glad I didn't. My cover pictures a book, a real one, and the simple words What To Read Now. Oh, and those are book spines in the background, I do believe. Nice.

Speaking of covers, I loved the feature My Favorite Covers. These are really good. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Yep, I agree. Twilight- another winner of a book jacket. There are five others pictured. Especially good- a book I haven't read and don't even remember seeing, but very cool: The Smartest Kid on Earth. I think you need to buy the magazine to see them though.

Oh and I forgot! The interviews with writers, including Elizabeth Stout, Lawrence Block, Susan Orlean. And I think there's a podcast you can download. Too many riches!

Don't be misled by the picture of Michael Jackson on the cover. Two covers this issue. One for subscribers (the book thing), the other for the newsstand (Jackson). Both go with the July 13th issue.

Independent Bookstore Favorites

It's been 20 years since A Time to Kill was published. How can that be? It's still my favorite of John Grisham's books. And I treasure my hardback copy, autographed and given to me, a gift of my lawyer brother-in-law who knew Grisham in Mississippi.

I've written before about independent bookstores, and about beautiful bookstores and libraries, with pictures. I think I would be as happy in almost any store that sells books as I am wandering through libraries, and I hope we never lose those places where everybody knows what's happening in the world of reading.

Although I don't live near a great store like these, I like knowing what's the latest and who's visiting both Square Books and Lemuria so I signed up for their emails. This morning's email from Square Books in Oxford, MS, included this link to a USA Today article about John Grisham.

John Grisham wrote this first book, hiding in the stacks of the law library. Lots of independent bookstores have nooks and crannies and probably writers scribbling on legal pads or tapping on laptops. Great places to read and to write.

Surf Mules

Powerful new YA novel from local writer, G. Neri. Check out my review coming up in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times.


Neri's a writer who's on a mission to get boys interested in books. Read my former posting to see how he's doing that.

The Help

My reviews for Delta Magazine are rarely online, so this one won't be there long. Click here to read what I wrote about THE HELP. Click before July, when the new issue hits the newstands.

Flying Starts

Great story from Publisher's Weekly, re: debut children's authors. The "Flying Start" award, given to four outstanding books. Check it out!

1. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly. She got the idea for the novel thinking about the house in Austin, TX where she lives, in the days before air-conditioning.

2. Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry. Main character is a boy whose father has been shipped off to war in Iraq.

3. Gentleman by Michael Northrop. a "dark, dread-soaked mystery" (wow!)

4. Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas. A Young Adult novel-in-verse.

Quote for the Day

"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader — not the fact that it's raining, but the feel of being rained upon."

— E.L. Doctorow,
author of Ragtime and other critically acclaimed novels

Oxford American anyone?

Just when I'm thinking I have way too many magazines to read, I open my Best of the South 2009 issue of the Oxford American. Filled with more things than I can take in. It's always been the kind of magazine I dip into and come back to, but it was hard not to read straight through this issue.

Like one of my favorite food writers, John T. Edge, on cheese. And there's even a pimento cheese recipe "inspired by Mary Hartwell Howorth." I go along with his recommendation on Duke's Mayonnaise, but not sure about the chives. Ditto for dried sage. But hey, I've got a pot of chives growing so maybe I'll throw in a few for good measure. Even without the recipe, the piece is full of goodies. Goat cheese from Elkmont, Alabama?

Then there's an ode to pecan pie. (I seem to be fixating on food this morning.) Aha! A crust made with butter, and a tip to keep it flaky. And I loved the essay by Marion Field, "Ode to the Perfect Coat." Wow.

You can read the entire piece by Thomas Swick online, right here. It's all about writing, from a former editor now turned freelancer. Here's a quote:

I've formulated what I call the three rules of freelancing: If you're friends with an editor, you'll get the assignment. If you know an editor, you'll get a response. If you don't know an editor, you're basically playing the lottery.

And this, about the perils of freelancing in the age of email:

No longer do you check the mail once a day; now you can check it once a paragraph.

From an interview with one of the current issue's contributors, George Singleton, in response to the question "What else should our readers know about you?"

His response?

"I may have the largest privately owned dog graveyard in America. There are at least twenty dogs buried behind my house."

Now there's an answer I don't believe I've ever heard from an interviewed writer before.

Guess I'll be renewing the Oxford American.

A Word a Day

I wish I had more time to read my Word-a-Day emails. They often make me smile. Recently the word for the day was sanguine. Not something I often say, but I love the look and the sound of that word. Here's how AWAD defined it for their readers (color addition is mine):

sanguine (SANG-gwin) adjective 1. Cheerfully optimistic or confident. 2. Having a healthy reddish color. 3. Blood-red.[From Old French sanguin, from Latin sanguineus (bloody), from sanguis (blood).]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=sanguine-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

And here is a comment that came along in today's email:

"It now feels apt that a vampire in the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is named Sanguin."

Winning Isn't Everything?

I'm not so sure how I feel about books that win awards. Especially those awarded by committees that change from year to year. One year you might agree with the committee, the next you think what were they thinking? So sometimes it's hard to see that special notation on a book's cover and just know you're going to love the book. All part of Not Judging a Book By the Cover, I guess.

But this list is kind of fun to pick apart. By a formula of points, the books, published since 1995, are listed in order of which ones got awarded or nominated or shortlisted or whatever for the major book awards. Since the Pen Faulkner isn't part of the deal (it would have skewed the list toward books published in the U.S.), some of my favorites didn't make the cut. But Middlesex, Atonement, Bel Canto- all books I adored-- are close enough to the top of the list to make me what to check out some of the others.

ThursdayStyles

Who is this Cintra Wilson person? Well, I know who she is. She's the Critical Shopper who writes for the New York Times Styles section. And she makes me laugh every time she critiques some snooty boutique in Brooklyn. I mean, who calls her book editor her book editrix? Cintra Wilson.

Today she's fondly describing a (probably very very expensive) blouse she owns: "I have repaired the underarms in the sweater so many times it has the love-punishment look of the blanky I slept with until age 9."

Chances are I'll never darken the door of said boutique, and I'm not even tempted by a pair of $1400 shoes that "have the tragic look of something you would find in the net of a police boat, until you look closely." But I sure do love reading about them.

Bloomsday

Yesterday was Bloomsday, the whole James Joyce thing. A few years ago, we found ourselves in Dublin on June 16th and saw all sorts of strange happenings around that date. Had no clue how big the celebrations were. Well not NYC St. Paddy's Day big, but celebratory. Bars and the like. Readings on street corners.

I've tried a few times to read Ulysses. I'm sure it was assigned in my college lit classes. And it's one of those books you think you've probably read, until you pick it up and try again. So when I read this essay about trying (and succeeding- the writer was laid up in a hospital bed, for goodness sake) from yesterday's New York Times, I couldn't resist this quote:

I had brought an old copy of “Ulysses,” James Joyce’s masterpiece that takes place in the back streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904. I wanted to read it cover to cover. I have been dipping into the novel for many years, reading the accessible parts, plundering the icing on the cake, but in truth I had never read it all in one flow.

Plundering the icing on the cake- don't you just love that?

Why Read?

Over at the group blog, made up of some very impressive Southern writers, today was my turn up. Our Blog Head (now that doesn't sound very literary- I'm sure there's a better term: blog administrator?) Karin suggested a theme for the month. June's theme is "What Writers Influenced You?" Meaning, what books do you love to read for writing inspiration. Or at least that's how I took the question.

Truthfully, my list would have been way too long for one blog entry. I could have included food writer Julia Reed for her Southern essays. Or John T. Edge when he writes about donuts or barbeque-- like this article in today's NYTimes. I'd have to say Nancy Drew because that's about all I read when I was a newly independent reader. But I just read an article about how many Supreme Court Justices loved Nancy Drew and I'm not sure she's a legitimate literary influence. Had I followed that path, I could have been a lawyer, or at least a sleuth. Well, I do love detective fiction: P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Lee Child, James Lee Burke. Maybe I should be writing mysteries, instead of just reviewing them.

See, I could go on and on with the books I'd love to emulate. But I didn't because I don't think anybody would have read it, tucked into that A Good Blog is Hard to Find list of fabulous blogger writers. So I limited my influences to the kids' book writers I love to read while thinking about writing fiction. Even so, I left out a bunch.

Leave me a comment- here or there: What books or writers influence your writing today? Or, hey, if you're thinking of the Supreme Court, or any other noble profession that was influenced by your reading, what did you read when you were a child?

Food, Once Again

So maybe food is sneaking its way into my brain more than usual. Could be reading about all those French restaurants, or maybe just being in New Jersey, surrounded by great food choices.

Last night we ate at our favorite Italian place with our favorite NJ dinner companions. Zucchini blossom and goat cheese appetizer, shrimp and white beans, cheese cake! Don't get me wrong, I love grouper sandwiches and real ice tea but there are a few good things, besides not pumping my own gas, that I miss when in Florida (cannoli, broccoli rabe and sausage, BYO wine, to name a few).

Then today I read this terrific review of Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest by Tami Parr. If you click on that link, you'll also be directed to her food blog.

Love this sentence, from the review:

Cheese, once you get beyond the basics of sharp, nutty, creamy, is an unusually tough food to bring to the page. Parr is one of the rare writers who have mastered the skill of translating its flavors into words.

Yes it is hard to write well about food. But what a treat to read. Think I'll check back on that cheese blog often. And can't wait to read the book. A whole book about cheese!

Rainy Day Movies?

OK, it finally stopped raining here in NJ. But during the deluge, my NJ Writers Group which has mostly turned into an online group for now, sent a few emails around about their favorite movies to rent. Or our favorite movies to rent that perhaps the rest of us had missed.

So I'm compiling our list, mostly so I won't forget it.
Additional suggestions are welcome- leave us a comment, please.

In no particular order, and without checking to be sure the titles are exact (hey, it's a blog and the sun's about to come out so I'm not sitting inside another day), here are a few of our recommendations:

The Station Master
The Lives of Others
Bottle Shock
Vicky Christina Barcelona
Dan in Real Life
Foyle's War
Saving Grace
Four Feet Two Sandals
Outsourced
Volver
Letters from Iwo Jima

Times Square, June 2009

We've spent almost 25 years just a short train ride away from Times Square. Naked Cowboy land and all that. You just never know what to expect and sometimes even when I'm standing right in the middle of the action, I still am not sure what's going on. I knew there were now chairs and no cars. But what was this woman doing, parading back and forth, preening for the cameras. That's a large white boom box she's carrying. Turned off.




Well, at least I knew about all the chairs. Odd little beachy chairs, but filled with onlookers who looked pretty comfy:



There's got to be a story.

Change of Plans

Yesterday I was all set to dive into my big pile of library books. Today FedEx arrived with two brand spanking new, not even hot off the press yet, books for me to review. So, I thought I'd just take a peek at one. And I haven't put it down all afternoon. Great alternating POV between the 1040s grandmother who ran off to join the WAC in WW2 and her granddaughters, modern-day teens stuck in the car with her, driving across country to a family reunion in Alabama. Tight writing, very visual. Can't wait to get back to reading.

Just Back from the Library

Is there a better place to be on a rainy afternoon? So, here's what I'm reading now. How about you?

Almost finished Kerry Madden's fantastic biography of Harper Lee. Harper Lee: Up Close is written for kids, middle grade and older, and it's the best thing I've ever read about the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

About to begin two books by Lisa Graff, The Thing About Georgie and The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower. There's a chance I'll get to the SCBWI event this July in western Maryland, and she's scheduled to speak. I need to be prepared. How have I missed Lisa Graff when everybody says she's so funny? I blogged about that conference after attending last year. One of the best of what usually are really good events for children's writers.

Also at the library, I picked up The Elegance of the Hedgehog and a book my friend Julie alerted me to:
Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French. Just in case my trip to Paris pans out, I'll be prepared.

The first photo in this funny book is captioned Nude petanque, a French game that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "playing with your boules."

I'll leave that to your imagination.

Home Safe

Elizabeth Berg's novels always delight me. This one might be her best so far. And I love that book jacket.

Here's my review, from today's St. Petersburg Times. Which, by the way, is the first review I've written for them. Two more due on Tuesday. Yikes. Better get back to work.

Paris in the Summer?

Yes, I know. I sound like a broken record. But I do love Paris, any time of the year. And I'm hoping to go again, soon. Happening upon this blog yesterday was just what I needed to fill in a few travel tips. And today when I stopped by, I discovered Books! Seems like every Wednesday The Paris Traveler is going to feature a new one. Can't wait.

Meanwhile I'm off to the library to find today's recommendation:

Research anyone?

Here's a cool thing. Every wonder when people first used the word pajamas? Or the etymology of the term soda pop? (Something that never entered my vocabulary, but still.) I found this online dictionary via Margo Dill's blog about writing historical fiction.

Quote for the Day

So, here's one from a famous daughter of New Jersey:

“With a good beginning, people will read your story. With a good ending, they’ll remember it!”-- Janet Evanovich.

Kids' Books- a Hopeful Note?

This was on my Publisher's Weekly email just now. Sounds like somebody's recognizing that kids' books may just rule the day. These are CEOs and VPs of Borders speaking-

The company has been "really underdeveloped in kids," and its share of families in "prime kids years" was low. By contrast, Barnes & Noble has established children's departments with story hours and special events. Expanded childrens' book sections will be rolled out to every Borders store within 90 days, Anne Kubek, Borders executive vice president of merchandising and marketing, said after the shareholders meeting. "It's a tremendous growth business for us."
Citing a competitive marketplace, Borders declined to say how many new children's and teen titles or what square footage it will add, but one refitted Ann Arbor store now has a 900-square foot teen department with signs saying "What your friends are reading" near a display of Twilight books, games, jewelry and T-shirts. Its children's section was divided into three sections: Baby and picture books, independent readers, and toys and games. Parenting and teacher books were nearby.
Borders plans to carry education games and toys and teaching devices as well as books, and will relocate young adults and teen books away from the baby and youth books, Kubek said. Teen books often will be positioned close to the manga and science fiction titles, since "teens cross shop those."

Harper Lee: Up Close

I'm really really enjoying the discussion of Kerry Madden's biography of Harper Lee over at the CCBC Discussion Board. True confessions- I have the book on reserve at my local library so haven't read it yet and am not going to jump in with a comment just yet. But Kerry is there, talking about her fascinating writing path and her amazing, original research. Loved today's note:
In very early drafts, I struggled a lot, and the first half of the book read almost a like blob of Harper Lee's childhood. I even stuck the "Methodist Rules for Singing" into an early draft, because I found them funny, but obviously they did not belong.

A favorite rule of John Wesley's Select Hymns from 1761 in regards to correctly singing hymns?

"Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all;
and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can."

Tuesday's CCBC email comment from English teacher Dean Schneider was particularly interesting (and included a quote I remember from a letter Harper Lee wrote to O Magazine in 2006):

"In the letter, she wrote of the comfort of curling up in bed with a book as a child. 'Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.'"

Belly Dancing?

You never know what you'll see on a sunny day at the beach. Same place we heard the singing from the men's room once before. Well, those crazy sandcastles are gone, but we could have practiced our belly dancing the other evening. And to think, all we wanted was to watch the sunset...

Summer Re-Reading: Eudora Welty

This is Miss Eudora's 100th birthday year. And there's all sorts of happenings in her hometown of Jackson, MS., including an exhibit I was lucky enough to see at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Click here to read about it and see some of the terrific photographs.

My summer plan is to re-visit some of my favorite Eudora Welty stories. Richard Ford was recently interviewed in Newsweek and chose his five most essential books. Her stories were in his top five and here's what he said about her writing:

"Proves you can do remarkable things if you just stay home and do them."

I'll say, remarkable! Definitely worth considering, wouldn't you agree?

Thoughts on My TV, Today

Just saw this on the new YA Book Club blog on the PW Site.

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."—
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Easy for me to say. And Roald Dahl. Neither of us has/ had young children in today's TV World, with so many temptations. And not all of them necessarily bad...

Maybe don't throw away the TV, just put up a big bookcase filled with great books next to it?

SCBWI Land

If you're writing for children, or interested in knowing all there is to know about the topic, this is the organization for you. The Society for Children's Writers and Illustrators is how I found a random group of writer friends when we relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, and I was missing my New Jersey connections. How I learned so much about the actual business of writing, and its many challenges, from the evenings I took the train to New York and rubbed shoulders with so many great writers, editors, publishers at that chapter's Professional Series. All good things in the development of a writer.

Last year my friend Mona Kerby alerted me to her Western Maryland July conference, and it was one of the best of its kind. Click here to read my posting from those two fabulous, fantastic days with Mona and her bunch. And my thoughts on the entertaining and informational keynote by Cynthia Lord. Really a terrific two days. I'm working on getting back there again this summer. The application has just gone up on their website.

Alas, the Florida SCBWI's conference deadline for applications passed this week. But we'll be back north by then anyhow. All my new Florida SCBWI buddies are just going to have to report back as it sounds quite good also.

So - potential kids' book people- get yourself over to the SCBWI website, join up, and check out your local group. You might even have time to register for your regional conference-- or interlope on another--and come back a changed person! Or at least an inspired writer.

First in Line

I don't think I was a particularly competitive child, though others might disagree. But I suspect I liked being first in line on occasion. Playing Line Leader. Telling the rest of the class what to do. OK, bossy. But surely that ended when I was 9 or 10? And now I like to be first to know how a book ends, and how it begins. That's one of the things I love about hearing the UPS guy at the front door. Because often he's got a new book, hot off the press, just waiting for me to read- first!

Yesterday's delivery brought THE LAST CHILD by John Hart. I started it last night and so far, so good, really good. All those brand new pages, just waiting to be turned! Never mind that there are a lot of pages, and I have a deadline, and nobody else I know has read it. In fact, have you heard of John Hart? He's a North Carolina writer, and this is not his first book. But new to me. So I get to be first in line to talk about this one.

Plot Will Follow

Well, I don't always get to read what my fellow Southern writers are saying over at our group blog: A Good Blog is Hard to Find. But just now I happened upon this entry by novelist River Jordan, and these words:

Just today I called my mentor, a strange ringing of the phone for her, and asked almost without hello, “How do I continue to tell the truth? I've got a character, I've got a place, but I've got a really bigger than me deadline?" And with all the wisdom she is known for, she quietly replied, “You simply say, Honey, I need you to talk to me. Then you listen.”


How many times have we heard that advice, when a story isn't working, or you can't think of a thing to write about except a funny character, a place you remember. So get on with it. Channel those characters. Talk to them. Let them tell you their stories. Maybe, if you're lucky, plot will follow...

Children's Book Week

In honor of Children's Book Week, I'm thinking about my favorite kids' books of all times. I'm inspired by one of my favorite writers- Barbara O'Connor. Check out her blog entry and read the comments to find out what some really good writers have to say about well-written books that influence their writing.

I think the first books that made me appreciate the excitement of being taken somewhere outside my reality (at the time my reading reality was probably Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, et al.) were the Alice books. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I still remember reading them during our family's required summer Polio Naps. After raising her twin daughters, my grandmother returned to college and taught 4th grade for about a million years so birthday gifts from her were always something other than Nancy and Cherry.

It was a while before I read books like a writer, however. Paying attention to the richness of the language, the characters, and dare I say it, the dreaded plot. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson was a favorite with my students and I remember reading it aloud to 5th graders at Bryn Mawr School. She was one of the first writers I actually met and had a conversation about writing with. As she answered the students' questions about how she wrote the book, I began to realize how this writing thing might become a possibility. I love the way Kate DiCamillo tells a story. More recently, I've appreciated the historical fiction of Laurie Halse Anderson, the close research required to write so truthfully of a time period. And until I discovered and dissected the Southern-themed books by Deborah Wiles, Kerry Madden, Barbara O'Connor, and Cynthia Rylant, I didn't understand "voice" in books written for kids.

So today's the first day of Children's Book Week, a day to begin thinking about what books influenced you as a reader. What did you read on those long summer days or after your lights were supposed to be out?

Happy Mother's Day, and Grandmothers, too

The fun thing about reviewing a book you truly relate to is what you learn from it. Rather than reading for fun, you must concentrate, pay attention and think while reading. Unlike my airplane books and beach reading. So when I was asked to review Eye of My Heart for the Christian Science Monitor, I was delighted. And not disappointed.

So many of my favorite writers contributed: Elizabeth Berg, Judith Viorst, Ellen Gilchrist, Mary Pipher- to name just a few. There were 27 essays about being a grandmother.

So not only did the topic interest me, the writing was a lesson in what makes a perfect essay. I know about these things, even though I'm still struggling to write the perfect essay, from my New Jersey writing group. I've blogged about this fabulous group of writers and critiquers before. Our group met weekly for over five years, till everybody started moving. And now we're trying to meet online and hoping this works. But until I started reading aloud what I thought were essays (mine) and learning that there needed to be a Point, a So What, I was just creating moments in time. A story with a story arc, if I was lucky, but no true takeaway point.

So listen to near the end of Beverly Donofrio's essay "Ten Straight Days" about a walk to the Statue of Liberty with her grandson:

When I return in three or four months, he'll probably say: Are we there yet? He'll be singing the alphabet, putting on his own shoes. I want to freeze-frame this time, this age, this moment. But life isn't like that--nothing stays the same.

Amen to that. A whole lot of truth. And writing excellence. What more can you ask of a book?

Food Glorious Food Writing!

The James Beard Awards were just announced. There's a big long list of them at the website. Among the winners- John Currence , the chef at City Grocery in Oxford, MS (yum). A whole bunch of NYC restaurants (big surprise), and one of my favorite new cookbooks. I just finished reading this one by Martha Foose. Loved it. Especially loved the stories.



The Washington Post's food section was honored. A Gourmet Magazine piece by the late, great Edna Lewis about what Southern food really is. And a winning food blog. So many things I'll have to check out. Since I love reading/ writing about food, and sampling new great places to eat, this shouldn't be too hard.

On Meditation

OK, so my wonderful yoga teacher now has us meditating at the beginning of each class. I'm trying but I don't yet understand meditation. Or I didn't but now I'm beginning to unravel the puzzle. How'd I do it? I opened my copy of Billy Collins' 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day to page 154:

I'm at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching

my mind with my mind,

and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,

and it's not even noon yet.

But, of course, by the end of Susan Browne's poem, BUDDHA'S DOGS, which you can read here and you really need to read the entire thing please, she learned something. And I learned something. Or I should say I realized something about meditation. That's what I love about poetry.
I'll read it again, maybe I'll even buy the book, before yoga tomorrow.

Most Expensive Books, 2008

OK, check out your bookshelves. Maybe there's a 1st Edition HARRY POTTER lurking there somewhere? Click here to see how much that collection, in pristine condition, of Stephenie Meyer's books might bring. Quite a bit, it seems. Too bad I don't know anybody who owns them. Wait a minute! Wonder how much that first edition of A TIME TO KILL that Uncle George gave me is worth...

Fifty Years Ago

From the Times Book Review section today- an Oldie (but Goodie?) list. Not sure about the Goodie part. I remember them from my parents' bookcases. And from old movies made from a few.

Fiction- on the list published on May 3, 1959:

1) “Doctor Zhivago,” by Boris Pasternak.
2) “Exodus,” by Leon Uris.
3) “The Ugly American,” by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick.
4) “Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov.
5) “Dear and Glorious Physician,” by Taylor Caldwell.

Blue and Comfort

I've read BLUE and looking forward to reading COMFORT. Blue spoke to me because I grew up in a place where we were forced to take polio naps in the heat of the day. And we were scared out of our wits of the disease, which had struck a classmate who lived on my street. Swimming pools and picture shows (that would be a movie theater to the uninformed) were closed. This is a terrific story, based on a true place, that middle readers will like.

Check out the book giveaway on author Joyce Hostetter's website. Here's the cover of the new book. Looks interesting, no?

April is Poetry Month, Pt. 2

One of the highlights of my library career was the Poetry Assembly. I got to be the MC and all the teachers led their little girls in wonderful poetry readings. We had poems in French and in Spanish. Poems with costumes and poems with action. It was a great day for all my students and I loved it. So I still think of April as poetry time and I've been trying to read a few poems here and there. I'm discovering Peter Meinke, a founder of the Writers in Paradise conference. I'm rediscovering Billy Collins. I'm enjoying a new poet, new to me- Jane Mayhall and this poem from my Poem-a-Day emails. Here's a part that tickled me from "Notes For Sixtieth Wedding Anniversary"

Lofty, but not above it.

How could anything so rash happen?

The Baptist ice-cream, and a pitiful living room.

The pastor in seersucker, red-faced,

bewildered as icons.

And Billy Collins, writing about Bathtub Families. Remember those little figures? They were originally made of wood, later of plastic. Often went down the bathtub drain, backing up, needing a plumber. What were they called? Well, I love what he says about them:

Bathtub Families

is not just a phrase I made up

though it would have given me pleasure

to have written those words in a notebook

then looked up at the sky wondering what they meant
...
I hesitated to buy it because I knew

I would then want the entire series of Bathtub Families...

Great fun, reading poetry. Especially the kind you can actually understand! Give it a try. It's Poetry Month. Soon it will be Poem in Your Pocket Day. You can't miss that one!

(NB: Aha! Found what I was looking for. Surely Mr. Collins means those little Fisher Price "People" = Bathtub Families)

What We Read Then/ What They're Reading Now

I ran across this post on the Horn Book blog recently. The mere mention of To Kill a Mockingbird caught my attention. Check this wikipedia source- it was published in 1960. Perhaps I read it as a Young Adult. But I know when I reread it recently, it sounded to me a lot like a book written for adults even if it's now mostly read by teenagers, and younger.

When I was in high school, there was a corner of our library--the corner nearest the street windows and the library check-out desk, that was labeled the Mississippi Collection. Mrs. Walker, my wonderful librarian there, frequently sent me in that direction to read Margaret Alexander and Eudora Welty and Wirt Williams. And many more, now forgotten. I gravitated toward historical fiction- maybe because my American history teacher gave us AN ENTIRE EXTRA POINT on our grade for each book completed and reported on. Man, was I ever a brownnoser in that department.

I digress...

But I also read a lot of trash, including my mother's hidden copy of Peyton Place (when I was in about 7th grade) and my senior high school English teacher's recommendation of a banned book: Forever Amber.

So what are high school kids reading now? Lots of "crossover" books. Edgy YA. The winners of the Printz Award? I just hope the words reading and high school kids continue to be used in the same sentence.

Here's what Horn Book editor Roger Sutton says about his own experience reading Mockingbird:
While having much to say about racism, societal strictures, and justice, what Mockingbird is mostly about is the difference between the way children and adults look at the world. At nine, I felt too allied with Scout to have any distance from her, and what flew over her head flew over mine as well. Does that mean I read the book at the “wrong” age? Nah — it only means that great books speak across time, both our own and the world’s.

Amen to that, wouldn't you say?

P.S. Write Soon

Sadly, I no longer write letters. I have proof that I once did. For a momentous birthday, my friend Patty presented me with a box of our correspondence. A decorated, beautiful box, tied with grosgrain ribbon. And inside were all the letters we'd written as new wives and young mothers. A treasure. I have other boxes of letters, saved over the years, mostly because I wanted to remember an event or a place or, most likely, the friend who wrote to me. My father wrote beautiful letters and I've saved some of those. I've tossed a few letters, too. I once burned a fat pack of love letters written on heavy parchment by an out-of-favor boyfriend, burned them away, standing tearfully in the alley behind my house with my best friend as witness.

So I love this post from the Novel Journey blog, about letters, penpals, writing. I like the quotes, including this from a letter published in a book my friend Joan gave me, Letters to Children by C.S. Lewis:

“If you are only interested in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about.”

Joan still writes the occasional note to me. But mostly it's email. I recently read an article about Facebook and Twitter. In the article, the defender of what many contend will be the end of "real" writing compared some of the abbreviated status updates and quick replies we've all come to love/ hate to the brevity of one of our most treasured writers:

This is my letter to the World/ That never Wrote to Me.

OK, none of my Facebook updates even come close to Emily Dickinson.

So you won't find me burning letters in my alley these days. I'll hang on to them as proof that letter writing once existed. But letters aren't the only way to stay connected with things to write about. We can count our modern day penpals- our email connections. Why else would writers save hundreds of their emails, squirreling them away into labeled folders with names like "good words," and "characters" and "quotes."

When was the last time you wrote a real letter, a long one, with a stamp and an envelope, nice stationery, C.S. Lewis-worthy?

Delta Ties

Here's another book on my "must read" shelf. Olive Kitteridge just won a Pulitzer for fiction. And our local newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times, won two! 

And while I'm claiming six degrees of separation-Have I mentioned that "my people" are from that part of Mississippi where everybody knows everybody. Actually, the whole state is mostly like that. But we also love to claim kin to anybody with a tie to The Delta. So here goes, from Delta News Online, which magically appeared on my Facebook page:

2 Pulitzer Prize Winners with Delta Ties!!

 

NEWSWEEK Editor Jon Meacham won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House."

His wife is Keith Smythe,formerly of Tribbett.

Atlanta Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, Douglas A. Blackmon, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: 
"Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from 
the Civil War to World War II" 
Mr. Blackmon is formerly of Leland.
Congratulations to these Pulitzer Prize Winners!

Indie Awards

Check it out! This is a great list. Be sure to scroll down and read some of the Honor Books as well as the winners. I'm probably the only person I know who hasn't read the "Best Indie Buzz Book" of fiction yet:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

But it's next on my list now.

What Now?

I picked up a little book by Ann Patchett yesterday at our tiny, busy library. I'm a huge fan of her novels and this looked like something I could read while the drawbridge was up or I was stuck in traffic, which happens more and more frequently this time of year. (Spring breakers, go home! Just kidding, we need all the visitors we can get.)

But back to Patchett. I love her writing. One of my all-time favorite books, bar none, was Bel Canto. In this book-- WHAT NOW?-- based on a graduation address she delivered at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, she gives writers a piece or two of excellent advice. Toward the end of the essay/ speech, as she's explored how she came to the place she is now, she finally figures out What Now is always "going to be a work in progress. What now was never what you think it's going to be, and that's what every writer has to learn." She goes on to compare writing to duck hunting, an analogy my childhood amongst hunters allowed me to understand:

Fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you stand behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog... But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens."

There's more. But I'll let you read it for yourself. It won't take long. Just long enough for a long line of cars to proceed through a backed up tollbooth, or for the drawbridge to let a few boats in. Just be sure to turn off the car and enjoy the sunshine.

April is Poetry Month

OK, I think I already said that. But I loved my Poem-a-Day poem today- You're Beautiful, filled with funny things, and thoughtful things, and irony. Here's a taste, but go ahead, click on that link up there, and read the whole thing. While you're there, sign up for your own Poems Each Day, just for Poetry Month.

You’re beautiful because you can’t work the remote control.
I’m ugly because of satellite television and twenty-four-hour
rolling news.
...
You’re beautiful because you’ve never seen the inside of a
car-wash.
I’m ugly because I always ask for a receipt.

You’re beautiful for sending a box of shoes to the third
world.
I’m ugly because I remember the telephone numbers of
ex-girlfriends and the year Schubert was born.

One Good Librarian

When I was growing up in a little town in Mississippi, not many of my friends' moms worked. They played a lot of bridge and did a lot of Good Works. They ran the churches--the auxiliaries, the choirs, the Sunday Schools-- and they took care of their children, their mothers and mothers-in-law and various other elderly relatives.

But my friend Ivy's mother, LePoint Smith, had a different plan. She did all the above, and then some. After her three daughters were old enough to pretty much take care of themselves, she went to library school and became the director of the Bolivar County Library. Among many other things. She died over the weekend and the library was closed in her honor. You can read an amazing tribute to her right here.

She, as well as her co-conspirator Anise Powell, the head of the Sunflower County Library, were my library mentors. When I went to Simmons to get my MLS- that would be Simmons in Boston, MA-- some of my classmates scoffed at my summer employment with the Sunflower County Library. Not too many, but some. I had a lot of defending to do back then.

So when I think about people like LePoint Smith and her friend Anise Powell, who pretty much ran the library show in my neck of the woods in the turbulent 60s and kept their libraries open when some had a different idea, I'm so proud to have known them.

I'm not sure we even realized what was going on in our small towns back then. Years later, when I read a book about Duncan Gray, the priest at our tiny Episcopal Church, another staunch defender of Civil Rights, my dad was mentioned as someone who defended him against his detractors. And I had no real idea about any of that.

But somebody must have been whispering in our ears, telling us what was the right thing to do. Telling us everybody needed to know how to read, and the library was the perfect place to learn.

Circus Trains (and others)

Today's New York Times published an interesting article about the circus train, byline Secaucus NJ. Circuses and trains have always fascinated me. OK, no comments needed about cruelty to animals and the like. Circuses and kids just go together.

As a child, the "train they call the City of New Orleans" ran right through the middle of my hometown. But no trains run through Cleveland, MS, these days and the tracks have been planted with roses and turned into a walking trail. Quite beautiful but I'm glad they turned the depot into a Train Museum.

There's a marker on the site now, and the text is a story I never knew:

Four railroad depots have operated here since Cleveland was incorporated in 1886. The first depot - two Yazoo & Mississippi Valley RR cars tied together and parked on a side track - disappeared when a prankster hooked it to an outgoing train. A temporary depot was used until 1896 when a larger, wooden building was constructed. This depot burned in 1914 but was replaced the following year by the Illinois Central Railroad. The present structure, renovated in 2003 incorporates a portion of the 1915 depot.

Our dad, Dr. Jack Russel, was the "train doctor" for our little town. All that meant to us kids was that we could ride the train for free. And all he told us was that if someone on the train got sick, near Cleveland, the train folks would call him. Since everybody in town called him, night and day, this made sense. He never told us he might also get called in for a train wreck and the thought that a train would crash just never occurred to me, as a child.

THE FLOATING CIRCUS is a great kids' book about a circus boat. A circus, a riverboat. Excitement, sickness, the orphan train. Quite a good read. I wonder if there's a book that's as much fun to read, written for kids, about the circus train. Suggestions? Research needed!