Book Clubs & Literary Festivals: How Sweet it is!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I LOVE book clubs!

Book clubs have the coolest members, the yummiest food, the neatest meeting spots--be it in someone's cozy home or at the "lake house" at Straus Park in Brevard, NC, where I went yesterday--and their readers ask the most interesting questions. Book club folks love books, and are eager for story. And I love that.

 

At yesterday's meeting with the Straus Park Book Club in my adopted hometown of

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Brevard, NC, we dug into my historical novel, Keowee Valley. Like its feminine, nuanced cover--'cause what woman isn't nuanced?--the book is weightier, more multi-faceted than you'd think. And these readers were interested in all of it: the history, the adventure, the romance, the publishing process, my writing process, and more. Most of all, it was such a joy to be in my town, to meet fellow Brevardians I'll probably get to see again, and to reacquaint myself with others I'd met before.

Talking with book clubs folks--with any reader of my novel, really--is like a kick in the pants to get writing. A boost of inspiration and gratitude always follows. Now, of course, it's up to me to figure out just how to do that in my crazy, busy, small-child-filled life.

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2013 Carolina Mountains Literary Festival ~ "Take Me There" ~ September 12 - 14

At the end of this week I'll head up into the higher mountains to Burnsville, NC, to participate in the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival. This year's theme is "Take Me There," and the festival showcases "authors and works that transport us."

This is a fabulous gathering for writers, READERS, history and mountain lovers, artists and more. And it's in a gorgeous spot: Burnsville sits right at the entrance to Mt. Mitchell, the tallest mountain in the Appalachians and in the eastern U.S.  The festival will feature (along with little ol' me) a host of authors, including Elizabeth Kostova, Katherine Soniat, Susan Woodring, Fred Bahnson, Keith Flynn, Abigail DeWitt, and so many more.

There'll be "sessions" (basically a mix of lecture, Q & A, readings, etc), informal gatherings, readings and more all around town at different locations, in cafes, bookstores, art galleries, antique shops and more. I've never been to Burnsville before, but I can't wait to get there.

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Actually, I'm leaving my babies, husband and dog behind to have some grown up girls' time with one of my best friends. (Did you hear that? It's me, woohoo-ing like a Nascar fan at the Indy 500.)

I'm giving two sessions at a bookstore called Off the Beaten Path. Details:

Friday, Sept. 13

2-2:45 Off The Beaten Path KATHERINE SCOTT CRAWFORD Informal Lecture, Reading and Q & A - The Slanted Truth: When Fiction Meets History  The rich history of a place makes great fodder for fiction. But are there ethics to follow when it comes to writing historical fiction?
 

Saturday, Sept. 14
 

2-2:45 Off The Beaten Path KATHERINE SCOTT CRAWFORD Brief Lecture, Reading and Q & A – Walking the Story  A writer’s adventure through the Southern Appalachian back country, and the historical novel it inspired. How a novel was birthed by a lifetime outdoors.
 

For more information about the festival, including other sessions and events, click here.

My Appearance Schedule at the Carolina Mountains Lit Festival

Hey, all. Hope you’re having a lovely Thursday so far! It’s a bright, sunny day here in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Hard to believe it’s not raining, as we’ve had monsoon-like rain (or least it’s felt like it) these past several weeks.

Just wanted to share my appearance schedule for the 2013 Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in Burnsville, NC, coming up September 12 – 14. I’m thrilled about being part of this festival, as it’s got a wonderful tradition of truly bringing readers, writers, history lovers, and fans of Appalachian history and culture together. Not to mention the lauded authors who’ve participated over the years, including Ron Rash, Tommy Hays, Robert Morgan, Lee Smith, and so many more. This year I’ll be joining Elizabeth Kostova (the Keynote Speaker and author of The Historian and The Swan Thieves), Keith Flynn, Fred Bahnson, Stephanie Powell Watts, Abigail DeWitt, Dale Neal, and many more.

The full schedule will be available at the festival website on August 1st. But for now, here’s the information regarding my appearances:

Friday, Sept. 13
2:00 – 2:45 p.m. “Off the Beaten Path” SESSION 1
5:00 – 5:30 p.m. Town Center Legacy Room – BOOK SIGNING
7:00 p.m. Town Center Legacy Room – ART & THE STORIES BEHIND IT

Saturday, Sept. 14
2:00 – 2:45 p.m. “Off the Beaten Path” SESSION 2
5:00 – 5:30 p.m. Town Center Legacy Room – BOOK SIGNING
7:00 p.m. Banquet with Elizabeth Kostova

Other than these scheduled events, I’ll be attending sessions and readings, and hearing from the authors and historians that I admire.

Can’t wait! I hope you’ll join me: this truly is a fabulous festival.

Feels Like Home

Whenever we pull up in the driveway of our house, I turn to my daughter and say, "Home again, home again?" And she responds, "Jiggety jig!" Then she grins and shows her dimples.

Those are some killer dimples. If I didn't love them so much, I'd want them to disappear before high school so that there's no chance of a blonde hair-dimples-boobs combination happening when she'll be anywhere near 17 year-old boys.

Vermont College's Chapel Hall

But I digress. Home. Ahh. I am home after 11 days in Montpelier, Vermont, at my second residency at the MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was a packed 11 days, full of lectures, readings, workshops, walking around town, and talking--talking with other students and faculty members, about writing and the writing life, the residency itself, and books... books upon books. (Really, one of the best things about residency, I've found, is the reading list I end up compiling from everyone's fabulous suggestions. Now I'm trying to avoid Amazon like we're college students who kissed last night and don't want to talk about it.)

My first residency over the winter, I'll be honest, was a bit disappointing to me, mainly because the workshop experience wasn't all I'd hoped--though I loved the campus, the snow, the dorm rooms. (Kidding about that last one.) But as anyone who's had their writing workshopped before--meaning you've sat in a room, sometimes around a table, with several other writers like you all coming from various places of experience and ego, and listened to people critique your work--you know it can be a toss-up.

Connie May Fowler
(photo credit: lyceumagency.com)

This residency, I won the workshop lottery. Really, the workshop gods (hmm.. wonder what they'd wear? Argyle socks and elbow patches? A beret?) smiled on me. We're talking laid a big ol' Miss America toothy grin on me. 

How? I was assigned to a special novel workshop led by VCFA faculty members and writers Connie May Fowler and Tom Greene, who is also the president of Vermont College. Whereas last residency I spent workshop in a basement room with only casement windows (and I'm claustrophobic), this time my workshop was held in a gorgeous, white-walled, high-ceilinged room in Chapel Hall (the photo you see above), with nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the quad, nearby buildings, the sky. Ah. And I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact that one of the co-leaders of the workshop is the president of the College. God bless him.

Tom Greene
(photo credit: vcfa.edu)

I won't get into the minute details of the workshop (though if anyone's interested in them, please feel free to write and ask), but I will say that it was everything a good workshop should be: well-organized, constructive, enlightening, full of participants who'd submitted high-level work and were fully invested in each piece workshopped. And, most of all, led by faculty who were engaging, honest, invested in us, and so obviously wonderful teachers. I truly couldn't have asked for a better experience.

In addition to the rock star workshop, the line-up of Visiting Writers and industry professionals was outstanding--something I also appreciated about my first residency. In addition to readings given by these people, they also hold "informal talks," where they discuss their writing and professional lives, the industry, and whatever they feel like. We had the outstanding writer Richard Bausch (man could run his own theatre company, he's got so many voices in him), VCFA alum and writer Michael Hemery, writer and translator Maureen Freely (she translated the Nobel Prize-winning novel Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, and her descriptions of growing up in 1960s Istanbul were utterly captivating), and Ron Charles, book critic from The Washington Post (who, with Pres. Tom Greene sat in on a symposium event in which he discussed things vital to anyone pursuing a writing career in this country; it was called "The State of Fiction in America"). Poet Kathleen Graber also attended, though I didn't get to make it to any of her events.

The Visiting Writers series has quickly become one of my favorite things about residency. There's always a stellar line-up, and several chances to interact with and learn from these gifted, successful writers and eminently insightful industry professionals. Even when they're scary... like Charles talking about the chaotic state of the capricious publishing industry. (Still, these are things writers need to know.)

In addition to all this good stuff, I also got to meet and hang out with some fantastic new people. (The lovely, and hot, summer weather made for plenty of socializing outside.) Many of them were graduating from the program, in different stages in their writing careers and lives, and from all over the U.S. and around the world. I'm a "people person," just like my Grandaddy, so it was a pure treat to talk to these folks. What a wonder people are!

Back at home, I'm still processing my time in Vermont, this last residency.

Ha. Who am I kidding?

I'm chasing my 2 year-old, trying to plan her 3rd birthday party, begging my dog to forgive me for leaving her (and for that matter, for having a 2 year-old), trying to make plans and organize with my husband, who's just spent a week with a sick child (she contracted Strepp Throat while I was away), attempting to even get a tiny handle--even a pinky--on our family calendar for the rest of the summer, and debating whether it'd be neighborly to ask my back-door neighbor, an aging electric guitarist with a smoker's cough, to perhaps not rock out after 9 p.m.

Oh, and my first novel debuts September 15.

Heavens to Betsy.

But what I mean to impart is this: I am home. There is, as Dorothy so aptly put it, no place like it. And I return from Montpelier feeling, for the first time, that the Vermont College of Fine Arts is home, too.

Here Comes The Sun

Writers, like everyone else in this world, need refreshing--renewal--a shake up from the ordinary. We are like exercisers constantly moving along the same route: up that hill, round that corner, past that mailbox, home. After a while, our bodies, like our minds, dig in their heels... and there's no pushing past plateau unless we change the routine.

For me, the routine itself has always been a struggle, especially when I became pregnant with my daughter, and even moreso after she was born. I feel like a rock star when on the occasional day I'm able to dress her properly, play with her, feed her, grade a few English papers, check email, pet my dog, maybe get in a walk, wash a load of clothes, and hug my husband. Lately (okay, shamefully, lately has been over a year), writing creatively--my passion, my reason--has slipped from the to-do list. I'd been feeling like the out-of-shape former athlete (which, sadly, I guess I sort of am) who's terrified to tackle the hill. What if I can't get it back, that spark? What if someone sees me, fat and failing and out of breath?

Enter: the good folks at The Sun magazine. Several months ago, I'd seen an advertisement for a writing retreat/workshops weekend the magazine was holding in Little Switzerland, North Carolina--only an hour and a half from where I live. Called "Into the Fire: The Sun Celebrates Personal Writing," its schedule was packed with authors and teachers, writers' panels and workshops with intriguing titles. Since I'd been a long-time fan of the publication and the unique place it's carved for itself in the magazine world, I knew it'd be great. But the cost: ouch. There was no way we (my husband and I) could afford for me to go.

But, there was a scholarship opportunity. So, I applied, thinking that surely there was no way I'd win one, but knowing--from previous experience garnering fellowships and grants--that it's always worth a try. Thankfully, I received an email from The Sun's Krista Bremer, notifiying me that they'd like to offer me a scholarship.

So, while my husband took solo care of the daughter and the dog with no complaints (amazing partner that he is), I headed off to Wildacres Retreat, a mountaintop "resort" in McDowell County, less than a couple hundred yards from the Blue Ridge Parkway. I went blind--knowing no other participants, not even my roommate.

The weekend was lovely, my roommate was lovely, the authors/workshop leaders were free with their time and talent, and other participants free with their friendship and stories. I attended workshops led by Krista Bremer, among others, whose generous teaching combo of helpful writing strategies, examples and insights into her own brilliant work, and inspiration for our own will I'm certain aid me as both writer and teacher in the future. I listened to Sy Syfransky, editor of The Sun, read quietly from his personal notebooks, and remembered that there are everyday philosophers, of this time, whose capacity for insight and beauty can still astound and salve. I chatted with tablemates over marshmellow-topped sweet potato pie and coffee, reminding myself of the sheer pleasure in introductions, in the sweet manners of my youth.

I watched as grey-white fog settled into the coves of the mountains below us, socking in the valleys and not moving until mid-day. I rocked in rockingchairs, pressed my back against the stone of a small amphitheatre and my backside into the wet ground, and watched heavy, round-bottomed rain clouds move in purple from the west over Mt. Mitchell, over ancient, softly rounded peaks. I got to think. I got to let go. I was able to breathe.

This morning, I subscribed to The Sun, despite the fact that my walking shoes have holes in the soles, I get a haircut once a year, and we rarely buy groceries without coupons. Any magazine who can offer me such awakening deserves my readership.

* On a side note, I have "almost" chosen my MFA in Writing Program. No, I'm not willing to talk about it yet. Soon.