Proud to report that Garden and Gun Magazine has named my forthcoming book, Daughters of Muscadine, on its list entitled Best New Books for Southerners in 2023. Thanks Garden and Gun, University Press of Kentucky, and Silas House! Here’s the link to the article:
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
I re-listened to this one today. It’s told in simple language and has lovely descriptions (eg. A man’s deep voice compared to a well, the descriptions of Vermeer’s paintings). the story follows Griet, a Dutch girl who works as a maid for Vermeer, the painter. Griet must contend with Vermeer’s jealous wife and some other headstrong family members to work as their maid. She comes from a family led by a blind father who cannot financially support his family, and thus she becomes a maid at age 16. The story is set in the 1600s in Delft, a period I know nothing about. Most historicals I read are set in the 20th century. Give this one a listen if you have a chance. The audio is narrated by a young woman with a quiet and pleasant voice.
What I’m Reading Now: The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
This one is very good and I can’t wait to finish it. It’s about a young girl growing up in a staunchly religious, Christian family. Her grandpa starts his own church and publicly shames those in the faith that he disagrees with. He gets up and gives sermons in which he calls out even his own family members. It’s cringey and abusive. Women in the church are gaslit and told that they must be at fault if they miscarry a baby, and don’t even think about committing formication in this church. The book was first published in 1995, but I think it’s a very important book to read right now in light f everything going on with abortion rights and all the scandals surrounding abuse in churches.
What I’m Reading Now: Memphis by Tara Stringfellow
I just started this one today. I’m about three hours into it, and I like it so far. It’s about a Black southern family, and it focuses on the females living in Memphis. They endure spousal abuse, sexual violence, and single motherhood. I’ve always been a sucker for a generational novel, and I love reading about women’s lives.
The thing I like most about this one is the love and appreciation for Black beauty. Most novels I’ve read are by white authors who wax poetic about blue eyes and/or pale skin. This one doesn’t do that so far. There’s a paragraph in chapter one where the character admires a tall, dark-skinned woman. 🤗
The book skips around in time. The earliest events take place in the 1930s and the more recent events take place in the early 2000s. There’s a family tree at the beginning of the story to help you keep track of who is who since there are so many principal characters.
If you like women’s fiction and family sagas, give this one a try.
What I’m Reading Now: When Winter Comes by V.A. Shannon
I got this book free with my Audible.com subscription. I’m about a third of the way through and really enjoying it thus far. Based on the title and cover I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought it would be a historical because of the old fashioned dress of the woman on the cover, and I was right about that, but I never would’ve guessed based on the title and cover that the book would be about the Donner Party.
In case you haven’t heard, the Donner Party was a group of several families traveling in a wagon train to California in 1846-1847. The trip was supposed to take several weeks, but the party got lost in the mountains during an attempt to take a shortcut. There was a snowstorm and some of the people died. Some of the surviving travelers resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.
The book is written in first-person, (my favorite POV!) from the perspective of a young woman who robs a man in Cincy and takes off with the Donner party to California in hopes of both fleeing prosecution and also establishing a better life for herself.
So far the biggest conflicts are between her and the other travelers. She’s acting as a nanny for the Keseberg family. Mr. Keseberg is based on a real historical figure. Our narrator respects him but clashes with his wife.
Can’t wait to see what happens next…
Girl Talk #43: Katie’s Beverly Hills Friend
This is the one where Katie’s friend Erica comes back to Acorn Falls. Erica and Katie were previously inseparable in elementary school, but Erica moved to California the summer before seventh grade. This current visit from Erica is awkward because Erica was friends with Stacey and her crowd, and Katie used to hang with them, but now Katie despises Stacey.
Erica is now a spoiled princess. She lives in Beverly Hills and won’t let anyone forget it. Her behavior is a huge contrast to that of Katie, who is also rich, though not nearly as spoiled.
This book repeatedly reminds us how rich Katie is. Money oozes off the pages. Katie goes to the airport to pick up Erica in a chauffeured limo. Katie’s parents can’t drive her to the airport themselves because they have to attend a country club luncheon. The mansion where Katie lives with her family has a circular driveway and a cook named “Cook.” 🙄
Erica is snooty and refers to Acorn Falls as a “dinky little town.” She also disses the mall and would heaps rather spend time with Stacey the Great than with Katie’s friends. During a game of truth or dare, she asks Katie to tell the group who she’s crushing on. This embarrasses Katie because Stacey and her clones are there and Katie doesn’t want everyone to know she likes Scottie. Erica also flirts with Scottie right in front of Katie.
Lesson learned: Sabrina, Randy, and Allison are Katie’s true friends. They’ll be bffs 4-evah!
What I’m Reading Now: The Tobacco Wives
Adele Myers’ historical novel is set in 1946 North Carolina where 15–year-old Maddie has been dropped off to stay with her aunt Etta for the summer in Bright Leaf, a town known for growing tobacco and manufacturing cigarettes. Maddie’s aunt makes gowns and dresses for all the local “tobacco wives,” the upper class women married to the big bosses in the tobacco industry.
When her aunt becomes sick soon after Maddie arrives in town, it’s up to Maddie and her assistant, Anthony, to make the season’s dresses. It’s a lot of pressure on the shoulders of the 15-year-old, but she’s been sewing for years and it looks like she’s capable of pulling it off. One thing I like about Maddie is that she’s so independent. She knows she doesn’t want to end up depending on a man the way that her mother depended on her father. The backstory is that Maddie’s father passed away in WWII right before the novel opens. So our heroine is not only missing her absent mother that summer, but she’s also still mourning her father.
When people around Maddie start to become sick, Maddie struggles with exposing the truth about the toxicity of tobacco, especially in an environment where nearly everyone around her depends on the plant to survive.
The prose style is simple and easy to follow. Myers sprinkles in a few old-fashioned expressions and details about the culture of the time. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator did a good job of varying her voice to match the various characters. The story is in first-person in Maddie’s voice. The narrator is expressive enough to keep my attention, and the southern accent is subtle.
What I’m Reading Now: Picking Cotton
I’d highly recommend Picking Cotton. The story is told in alternate narration between a woman, Jennifer Thompson, and her accused rapist, Ronald Cotton. Jennifer is a twenty-something-year-old college kid in the first chapter. She goes home to her apartment and falls asleep. Later that night, she’s awakened to the sight of a strange man in her bedroom. He holds a knife to her neck and rapes her. Later, she tricks him into letting her go into her kitchen, and she gets a good look at him in bright kitchen light, memorizing his face. Jennifer is lucky enough to run for the back door and take sanctuary at a neighbor’s house. Horrifically, the rapist rapes another woman nearby on that same night.
I won’t spoil the book for you, but I will say there’s a case of mistaken identity in it. I like the alternating narrative style in which the book is written. We also get to follow the story of Jennifer’s convicted rapist and learn what his life was like both before prison and after his conviction. If you’d like to learn more about Jennifer’s and Ronald’s stories, there’s an old 60 minutes interview with both of them. There are spoilers in the interviews, so don’t watch the interview until after reading the book.
Appalachian Writers’ Workshop
I was honored to serve as a nonfiction teacher at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop (AWW). AWW is held for one week each summer when writers from all over the Appalachian region gather at Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky to study fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. I had a blast. I’ve attended one other writers’ workshop as a student, but that workshop felt very large and impersonal in comparison. AWW feels very intimate, though there were probably almost one hundred of us on campus and more than one hundred attending virtually. There were no egos there, and though I had never met any of these writers before, I felt a sense of camaraderie that I have never felt as a student or as a teacher before. Magical place.
I was also given the opportunity to read from one of my essays in front of a live audience. I read with Robert Gipe, who is not only a good writer but also very friendly and personable. Here’s the recording of our reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqFFEwhlLC4
We were treated with readings every night during the week by writers like Annette Clapsaddle, Frank X. Walker, Leah Hampton, and George Ella Lyon, just to name a few. Our keynote speaker was Adriana Trigiani, a writer whose work I’ve been reading for years. I love her Big Stone Gap series.
“Townie” by Neel Patel
“Townie” is a short story by Neel Patel, and I found it on Audible.com. It’s a short listen, less than an hour. The story focuses on two young women who party and socialize together. Our narrator betrays her friend in the end in a memorable and heart-breaking way. I won’t spoil the ending here, but I will say it’s worth a listen.
Patel is also the author of a story collection called, If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi. I have the hardback, and I look forward to reading it at some point.
