Southern Living and Southern Talking

I don't usually pay much attention to the magazine, true confessions, but this month's "Southern Journal" essay in Southern Living really struck a chord with me. I so totally think Hollywood needs to pay attention. Much as I love The Closer, Kyra Sedgewick and her Thank you so mu-uch and those endless Lew-ten-unts is beginning to wear thin.

And don't people realize there's a difference between the way people in New Orleans and people in Nashville talk? If you've lived in Mississippi, you even know there's a speech variation between Deltans and Coast residents. I know Hollywood (and literature!) can't always re-create such nuances, but please- surely they can figure out something better than stupid Yankees mimicking dumb Southerners.

And while I'm ranting, there's nothing worse than bad Southern speech in books-- dare I say especially kids' books-- Nah, it's any book that crosses that line.

Maybe it's not possible to distinguish between regions in kids' books. (Although, when it counts, a few good writers do manage to get the flavor of certain sections of the country just fine, better than fine- perfect: Thank you very much, Kerry, Barbara, Kimberley, Phyllis- to name a few.)

So I know you do not have to be completely idiotic about it. I mean do all Southerners really sound like they're saying SHOULDA and COULDA all the time? Not to mention writing every other sentence with a dropped final G.

Enough already!

OK, now I got that off my chest. I can get back to work.

If you're interested in a much more articulate rant than mine, pick up the September issue of Southern Living and read Amy Bickers' backpage essay. Or you can click here and read it.
And if you'd like to read something I wrote for the Southern Writers' Blog, way back when I first started over there, on a related topic, click here for South Speak. You can leave me a comment about your favorite Southern expressions and words. And those we'd just never, ever use. Or at least we'd never mispronounce.

I hope Kyra's listening.

Food Writing

I've been thinking about food- Southern food, to be exact. And I don't mean writing about food specifically, essays about picking blueberries or missing figs. (For those, see my links to essays, on this blog, please.)

I also don't mean the kind of food my fabulous friend and fellow writer Lee Stokes Hilton celebrates on her new blog. Though after reading her recipe, I have been pondering making scones, as soon as it cools off.

But right now I'm mulling over changes, additions, edits of my book for middle grade readers that's been percolating for some time. The first draft had many references to fried chicken, black skillets, pimento cheese. Then I got cold feet and took out some of the Food Talk. A friend who'd published her kids' books with a very astute editor told me he said she had her (Southern) characters eating all the time. OK, but we do like our food, sir! Still, I held back.

Then I read Faith, Hope and Ivy June. And there was food every time I turned around. And I loved it. Mashing up Grandmommie's beans with the back of her spoon. Offering up something from the kitchen to the country doctor who comes to call. Homemade preserves. All the good stuff that came from that mountain kitchen added layers of description for me. I could just picture Mammaw in there cooking for Ivy June and Catherine, the exchange student friend from the city. Those cookies she baked drew me into the brothers' afterschool day.

So I'm adding layers, details to my novel and think at least some will be food. In the South, where my manuscript is set, that's a good piece of what families are all about. Sitting down, enjoying the stories around the dinner table.

Bring on the fried chicken. Gravy made in a black skillet. Corn bread, too. I just can't forget the family eating Sunday dinner, their stories around that table.


Related posts: SCBWI Pt. 2: Phyllis Naylor
Eating Our Way Home

SCBWI Pt. 2

This year's keynote address was given by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Of Shiloh fame. And the Alice books. And her newest, which Coe Booth told her breakout session yesterday was one of the best examples of "voice" she's read in a while. So I must put Faith, Hope and Ivy June on my reading list. Phyllis talked to us about how her life has played out in her novels. How despite being an ordinary mid-westerner with an ordinary family of teachers, preachers and salesmen, with nobody in jail and no family photos in Life Magazine, she still manages to draw on her life for her stories. How Shiloh finally came together for her when she adopted her Mississippi relatives' dialect to tell the story. As Willa Cather says: Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.
But a problem with writing what we know so well? We assume the readers know it also. Readers need to see the history hidden in a writer's brain.

On Saturday we'd met the Longstockings. After listening to these young women, everyone at my table wanted to be in their group. Writing dates, group retreats, meeting for coffee at all hours, critiquing and supporting each other's work. Who wouldn't want to be in that group.
They talked about how to make a critique group work- techniques learned and adapted from their classes at The New School. The most important part of their technique? The writer says what she is looking for whether it's just a "keep going" for a first draft or some serious slicing to get a manuscript ready for an editor. My favorite line from the panel? When you are "in the box" (ie it's your turn to have your work critiqued by the group), you can't talk. You can't elaborate. You can't defend. After all, said one member, "You're not going to be able to go to a reader's house and explain what you mean." Their rule of feedback is give it a couple of days and think about it before changing or reacting to a critique. Great advice.

On Sunday, we heard a different panel: the Class of 2k9 talked about Group Marketing. In case you haven't heard, this Class of whatever has become a great marketing tool. Maybe it just started in 2007- But for the past few years, groups of debut YA and Mid-grade writers have banded together to speak, sell, do school visits, hire publicists. These writers live all over the country and meet via a Yahoo group, but as they talked about their books and the group, there was no doubt that this is a great tool. I was writing as fast as I could to get some of the new titles on my list. Again, everyone at my table wanted to join.