What does it mean to be Southern?

Southern writer Melinda McGuire blogs about what it means to be a writer in the South, and on June 12 she featured a great guest post from Andi Kay, a fellow blogger and book reviewer. Andi's blog is called Anakalian Whims.

Andi talks about her favorite Southern authors as she was growing up and gives one of the best descriptions of why we love Southern literature that I've read in a long time:

"[...] we’re really into our fried foods too. And family, and tradition, and comfort, and joy. And pie, can’t forget the pie. But we’re a protective and territorial bunch, proud of our roots, but happy to share.

"That’s why reading about it is so wonderful. We like feeling at home, and we like feeling invited, and a good deal of us are nosy as hell and just want to pick the brain of someone else. So what better addresses all of that than reading the work of a southern writer?"

More new Southern summer reads!

Back by popular demand (okay I just made that up!), here's another roundup of the latest Southern fiction to hit the book shelves...

Heading Out to Wonderful is Virgina native Robert Goolrick's second novel and is set in 1948. When a mysterious stranger comes back from the War and settles down in the village of Brownsburg, VA, all seems well until he sets his sights on teenage bride Sylvan Glass.

Some call South Carolina native Dorothea Benton Frank the "Queen of Southern Fiction," and whether you agree or not, she sure is prolific! Porch Lights is her 13th novel (according to her website) and tells the story of Jackie and her 10-year-old son as they return to Jackie's childhood home on Sullivan Island to recover from a family tragedy.

Husband and wife Rick and Sandra Dee Richardson teamed up to write Southern Secrets: Sins of the Past, a novel based on the real history of the last slaves brought to America. Rick hails from Alabama, and his great-great grandmother was actually on the final slave ship Clotilda, which docked in Mobile Bay.

Tayari Jones in Chapel Hill!

Atlanta native Tayari Jones talked about the complicated dynamics of extended families at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill last night. Her latest and third novel, Silver Sparrow, is told from the perspectives of two daughters with the same father – the catch is that Chaurisse is legitimate, and Dana is the product of the father’s secret marriage. Although Jones doesn’t have the same background as the girls – she has half-sisters by legal means – she found ways to identify with both of them though a kind of “emotional autobiography,” using feelings and memories from her own life and family relationships.

 Everyone knows what it feels like not to belong, like Dana, who must keep her family life a secret. “I try to find out where I have a version of that myself,” Jones said.

 She started her novel with the feeling that she wanted to write a book about sisters, and the idea of bigamy sprouted from that. As we’ve seen in cases like John Edwards’, secret families are more common that we think, Jones said, but are taboo because children are involved. Readers will sometimes come up to Jones after a reading and say, “I’m a silver sparrow,” meaning that they’re a child from a secret marriage.

Jones has already started her fourth novel, which will likely be about a man wrongfully accused of a crime. When he is suddenly freed from prison, he has to pick up the pieces of his relationship with his wife – another complex topic! “What is our obligation to people who get out of prison?” Jones asked.

She’s written more than 100 pages so far, so she’s pretty confident the novel will “take”! Jones doesn’t outline her plot beforehand: “I like to feel breathless and stressed out when I write,” she said, because that’s the way she believes people like to read, too, with a feeling of anticipation and what’s going to happen next?

 As well as giving readings throughout the country, Jones is an Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University and is spending the 2011-12 academic year at Harvard University as a Radcliffe Institute Fellow, researching her fourth novel. Check out this dynamic writer!

New indie bookstore near Manteo, NC

I was so excited to read this morning that a new bookstore is opening in Duck, North Carolina, a tiny town in the Outer Banks! The store is called Duck's Cottage Downtown Books and features a hand-picked selection of books, as well as tea and coffee and toys for the kids. Read all about it in the Outer Banks Sentinal.

The science behind fiction

If you're a crime or mystery writer, you may want to check out Marianne Wheelaghan's blog, where she gives a great overview of a talk by forensic anthropologist Sue Black. Attending talks by people in the police/forensics field is an excellent way to do background research for a novel. I went to a similar kind of talk a few months ago --  a Crime Scene Investigator from the Durham Police Department discussed taking photographs at crime scenes. I learned a lot about how the police secure a crime scene, document all angles of the area, and manage to take photographes in the pitch black to capture as much information as possible. After the talk, I realized I hadn't thought through the murder scene of my novel thoroughly -- it was a real wake-up call!

I don't know how up to date it is, but WritersWrite offers some good links for authors needing to research the police and other justice/crime info. And if any local groups in your area feature guest speakers from the police department, it's definitely worth checking out.

Southern mysterioso...

Hello, Everyone! I have another batch of new Southern fiction for your perusal, all dealing with  mystery in some way. Nothing is off limits -- we even have a psychic waitress who sees vampires!

A Grown-up Kind of Pretty is Georgia resident Joshilyn Jackson's fifth novel, a mystery about a family of young mothers. Here's what it says on her website about this novel: "When a long-hidden grave is unearthed in the backyard, headstrong young Mosey Slocumb is determined to investigate. What she learns could cost her family everything…"

Mississippi Cotton is Paul Yarbrough's first novel. He was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and his novel describes rural Mississippi in the 1950’s, as told by 10-year-old Jake Conner. Although the novel begins with a murder, the tale is more about the history of the Southern people and their controversial relationship with the Civil War.

Deadlocked is the 12th in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series and follows psychic, small-town Southern waitress Sookie Stackhouse as she works to solve a murder case. Harris is a native of the Mississippi River Delta area and has been publishing novels since 1981. 

"Southern Sin" essay contest

The magazine Creative Nonfiction, in association with the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conference & Workshop, is seeking new essays for a special "Southern Sin" issue and contest.

THE SOUTHERN SIN ESSAY CONTEST
Deadline: July 31, 2012

Creative Nonfiction (CNF) and the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop are looking for essays that capture the South in all its steamy sinfulness--whether you're skipping church to watch football, coveting your neighbor's Real Housewife of Atlanta, or just drinking an unholy amount of sweet tea. Confess your own wrongdoings, gossip about your neighbor's depravity, or tell us about your personal connection to a famous Southerner headed down the broad road to Hell. Whether the sin you discuss is deadly or just something that would make your mama blush we want to hear about it in an essay that is at least partially narrative--employing scenes, descriptions, etc.

Your essay can channel William Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker or Rick Bragg; it can be serious, humorous, or somewhere in between, but all essays must tell true stories, and must incorporate both sin and the South in some way.

Usually the wages of sin is death, but this time we're making an exception. The selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #47, and CNF and Oxford will be awarding $5000 for Best Essay.

Creative Nonfiction #48 will be launched at the 2013 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop (March 2013).

To submit, visit: www.creativenonfiction.org

Remembering Doris Betts

I was shocked to read this morning that North Carolina author Doris Betts passed away on Saturday. She was 79 and had lung cancer. The last book I read of hers was Souls Raised from the Dead, her 7th novel and winner of the Southern Book Award in 1995. I really enjoyed that and Beasts of the Southern Wild, her 1998 collection of short stories that contains her award-winning story, "The Ugliest Pilgrim."

Here's an article that talks a little about her life, but I'm sure much more will be published about her in the days and weeks to come.

New biography on John Kennedy Toole

Even if you've never read A Confederacy of Dunces, you may have heard the unusual back story behind its publication... The author, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide in 1969 at the age of 31. His mother, Thelma Toole, convinced of her son's genius, struggled for years to get his manuscript published. It was, finally, in 1980 with the help of fellow Southern author Walker Percy, and a year later won the Pulitzer Prize.

Now, Cory Mac-Lauchlin has written a biography describing the life of New Orleans author Toole entitled Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces. Kevin Allman has written a great review of the biography. Check it out, and if you haven't yet read A Confederacy of Dunces, you should -- it's bizarre, Southern Gothic, grotesque, and inspiring (more so because of the back story) in a weird way.

Interviewing people for fun and profit!

Well, sort of... I'm teaching a webinar about how to interview sources for all kinds of writing -- magazine, newsletter, technical, research... Learn the basics about what sorts of questions to ask and what to do if someone is rambling on about his/her pet parakeet, etc... Here are the details:

Title: "Interviewing Sources: A Beginner's Guide for All Writers"
Date: April 4, 2012, 9 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
Site: http://www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=EC57DF83834D
Cost: $25 (via Paypal)