Debut Novel Becomes A Movie!

Delia Owen's Novel hits the big screen July 2022

                                                   

Delia Owens is an American author and zoologist. Her debut novel Where the Crawdads Sing topped The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers  32 non-consecutive weeks and was on the list for 135 weeks in total.

Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

Delia Owens lived in some of the most remote areas of Africa for twenty-three years while she conducted scientific research on lions, elephants and others. Based on these expeditions and adventures, she co-authored three internationally bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist.

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. in Animal Behavior from the University of California in Davis. She has won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing and has been published in Nature, Journal of Mammalogy, The African Journal of Ecology, and International Wildlife, among many others. She currently lives in Idaho.

Where the Crawdads Sing is her first novel and has been made into a movie. Delia was born in southern Georgia, and grew up riding horses in the woods around Thomasville. Her mother, also an outside-girl, encouraged Delia to explore far into the oak forests, saying “Go way out yonder where the crawdads sing.” Her mother taught her how to hike without stepping on rattle snakes, and most important not to be afraid of critters of any kind. Delia went on to spend most of her life in or near true wilderness, and since childhood has thought of Nature as a true companion. One of her best friends.

Since her family spent some of every summer in the mountains of North Carolina, Delia has a special attachment to the wild and beautiful places of that state. Where the Crawdads Sing is based in the lush Carolina coastal marsh.

For more  information https://www.deliaowens.com/ 

See the movie trailer below.

WRITING WITH VOICE—Part Two

By Vicki H. Moss   @vickiMoss
Contributing Editor for Southern Writers Magazine

Continued from my January 9, 2020 post—I’ll start you out on the first paragraph again to refresh your memory:

If only I’d read Delia Owens’ book before publishing my book, Writing with Voice. But unfortunately Where the Crawdads Sing wasn’t published until 2018 so I didn’t have Delia’s wonderful examples of “writing with voice” to give you, so I’ll take this opportunity to show, not tell, on the Suite T blog.

“…Sunday Justice…(I love that name for a feline character), sleeping on the windowsill, flowed to the floor and walked to Kya.”—Dogs don’t flow. But by golly, cat’s do. Love this one! And Delia spent enough time in Africa, observing big cats, to describe them to flowing perfection.  

WRITING WITH VOICE—Part One

By Vicki H. Moss, Contributing Editor for Southern Writers Magazine

If only I’d read Delia Owens’ book before publishing my book, Writing with Voice. But unfortunately Where the Crawdads Sing wasn’t published until 2018 so I didn’t have Delia’s wonderful examples of “writing with voice” to give you, so I’ll take this opportunity to show, not tell, on the Suite T blog.

For one, after reading Where the Crawdads Sing, it’s obvious why the book has—so far—sold four million copies in the U.S., and stayed on the NYT bestseller list for a year. It’s also a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick. But besides story, what made this book so special for a first novel and now a movie to be produced by Witherspoon? 

Below I’ll list some of a few lines that stand out for me.

“…necklace of green lagoons.” Rather than the overused and tired “string of green lagoons,” the word “necklace” is a gold nugget plucked straight from a mountain vein and inserted right here.   

“Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws.” She nailed that one. And if you’ve ever had a bootlegger in your ancestry, you don’t have to hunt up that word.       

“…Ma’s words needed somewhere to go.” I’m feeling Ma on that one. 

“…lips a thin line under searching eyes.” I’ve seen those lips before, haven’t you? The thin line goes right with the searching. Do plump lips ever match searching eyes? Not as hard as thin lip lines do I’ll wager.

“She anchored him hard with her eyes.” Eyes like that will not even let a barge drift. She doesn’t have to tell us what color those eyes are because that dude’s going nowhere until the anchor’s dislodged.    

“Quiet tongues of foam, waiting for the next surge.”—I can see those tongues of foam moving over sand can’t you?    

“…hunger was a pushing thing.”—Yes, hunger definitely makes you rouse yourself to get up and move to do something about those pangs. Brilliant use of words.   

“She could feel that full gravy taste, like it was round.”—Okay. Laughing and loving on this example because a true gravy-eating-Southerner would truly understand this down to the last cathead biscuit crumb. Now, all ya’ll who aren’t into gravy go learn how to fix some—it takes practice—so you’ll know what Kya’s character is talking about. I’m so craving gravy and biscuits right now! 

Delia’s making her readers go to the kitchen for a cast iron skillet and some bacon grease—no wait, gotta keep turning those pages to see what will happen next! Gravy’s gonna have to wait ‘til this book is finished.

And so sorry, but you’ll have to wait until my February post to read the ending of this story because there were too many jewels to leave out! To be continued in February 6, 2020