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Dear Booklover: P J O'Rourke said, "Creative writing teachers
should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the
words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labour camp ...The
blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how
much combat do you think he saw?" Like ORourke, William Faulkner
had his own take on the Other Commandment for writers, the one that
goes, "Thou shalt not quit thy day job." Faulkner, who won the 1949
Nobel Prize for Literature, had, twenty-five years before, worked
at the post office in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi. Mister
Faulkner was known to say, "One of the saddest things is that the
only thing a man can do for eight hours, is work. You can't eat
eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love
for eight hours." He must have been determined to give something
else (writing, we may assume, perhaps a glass of whisky on the
side) a whirl when he tendered his resignation to the postmaster.
"I reckon I'll be at the beck and call of folks with money all my
life", he said, "but thank God I won't ever again have to be at the
beck and call of every son of a bitch who's got two cents to buy a
stamp." The authors in this book have tried their hands at some of
the same jobs you have held, or still keep. They've worked on the
railroad, busted rocks with a sledgehammer, fought fires, wiped
tables, soldiered and carpentered and spied, delivered pizzas,
lacquered boat paddles, counted heads for the church, sold
underwear, and, yes, delivered the mail. Theyve driven garbage
trucks. And, like William Faulkner, they have quit those day jobs.
And like Faulkner they write. They tell good tales. If you wonder
what work preceded their efforts to produce a great pile of books,
if you would like to know how they made the transition to, as
William Gay said, "clocking in at the culture factory", then this
is the book you have been waiting for. -- Sonny Brewer, Editor,
Fairhope, Alabama. List of Contributors: Barb Johnson; Brad Watson;
Cassandra King; Clay Risen; Connie May Fowler; Daniel Wallace;
George Singleton; Howard Bahr; Janis Owens; John Grisham; Joshilyn
Jackson; Larry Brown; Matthew Teague; Michelle Richmond; Pat
Conroy; Rick Bragg; Silas House; Steve Yarbrough.; Suzanne Hudson;
Tim Gautreaux; Tom Franklin; William Gay; Winston Groom.
Tim Gautreaux. Fannie Flagg. Diane McWhorter. Charles Simic. Daniel
Wallace. Steve Yarbrough. These are just a handful of the acclaimed
writers whose work has appeared in the Blue Moon Cafe series since
its 2002 inception. Now in the fifth instalment of the series,
Sonny Brewer has selected a new crop of stories, essays, and poems
that promise to satisfy even the most discerning of tastes. In
these contributions from up-and-coming writers and seasoned
prize-winners, we witness a man searching for redemption in the
form of a fish, a young woman piecing together her life after
tragedy, an adolescent's struggle with his changing body, and a
portrait of a community in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This
dynamic collection is a must-read, offering the best in
contemporary Southern writing and a glimpse into the future of
Southern literature.
Cormac -- a dark-red Golden Retriever who has always been afraid of
thunderstorms and lightning flashes -- runs away one stormy night
while his master is away. So begins a strange adventure that lands
Cormac in the back of a red pick-up truck driven by a mysterious
woman, takes him to a series of dog pounds and rescue shelters, and
ultimately brings him to the suburbs of Connecticut. Meanwhile, his
owner, devastated and trying to juggle his family and his new
novel, becomes determined to solve the "dog-napping" case, watching
his small-town community come together in search of his lost
companion.
The fourth edition of the acclaimed Blue Moon Cafe series serves up
another hearty helping of Southern fiction, essays, poems, and
musical musings by both seasoned prize-winners and up-and-coming
writers. With stories ranging from a heartbreaking funeral for a
beloved goat and an aspiring musicians move to Nashville to the
memory of two children who disappear in the thick summer heat, this
diverse and captivating collection is sure to satisfy everyones
appetite.
New York Times best-selling writer Pat Conroy (1945-2016) inspired
a worldwide legion of devoted fans numbering in the millions, but
none are more loyal to him and more committed to sustaining his
literary legacy than the many writers he nurtured over the course
of his fifty-year writing life. In sharing their stories of Conroy,
his fellow writers honor his memory and advance our shared
understanding of his lasting impact on twentieth- and
twenty-first-century literary life in and well beyond the American
South. Conroy's was a messy fellowship of people from all walks of
life. His relationships were complicated, and people and places he
thought he'd left behind often circled back to him at crucial
moments. The pantheon of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize
winners Rick Bragg and Kathleen Parker; Grammy winners Barbra
Streisand and Janis Ian; Lillian Smith Award winners Anthony Grooms
and Mary Hood; National Book Award winner Nikky Finney; James Beard
Foundation Award winners Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart; a
corps of New York Times best-selling authors, including Ron Rash,
Sandra Brown, and Mary Alice Monroe; Conroy biographers Katherine
Clark and Catherine Seltzer; longtime Conroy friends Bernie Schein,
Cliff Graubart, John Warley, and Walter Edgar; Pat's students
Sallie Ann Robinson and Valerie Sayers; members of the Conroy
family; and many more. Each author in this collection shares a
slightly different view of Conroy. Through their voices, a vibrant,
multifaceted portrait of him comes to life and sheds new light on
the writer and the man. Loosely following Conroy's own chronology,
the essays in Our Prince of Scribes wind through his river of a
story, stopping at important ports of call. Cities he called home
and longed to visit, along with each book he birthed, become
characters that are as equally important as the people he touched
and loved along the way.
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