THE SOUTH IS IN THE DETAILS

By Valerie Fraser Luesse

At a literary conference I attended years ago, one of the presenters suggested that the reason Eudora Welty had such an ear for Deep South dialect was she heard it as an outsider, given that her father was from Ohio and her mother came from West Virginia. I’ve experienced the same thing writing for Southern Living magazine. Most of our staff members are from the South, but we have one editor who’s a New Yorker, and you wouldn’t believe how many great story ideas she has, simply because the things we do, the way we talk, the foods we eat—they’re all exotic to her. She finds Southern culture intriguing, while those of us who grew up here often take it for granted: Of course we consider macaroni and cheese a vegetable. Doesn’t everybody?

So much of telling Southern stories is just paying attention . . .

to that handwritten sign in a little country store: “No baggy britches. We don’t want to look at your underwear. The Management.”

to that Louisiana church sign that reads, “God answers knee mail.”

to Southernisms like “reckon” (think/imagine), “pocket book” (purse), “ear bobs” (earrings), and “some more” (impressive, as in, “That was some more party”)

to live oak trees and kudzu, barbecue joints and roadside tomatoes, preachers and football coaches and “beauticians” and Mama

The setting for my new novel, Almost Home, is based on a real place that once belonged to my family in Alabama, and as I wrote I kept reminding myself: Get the Southern details right. Sometimes I see better with my eyes closed, so that’s what I do when I get stuck. I close my eyes and picture myself inside the story. It helps me smell the red dirt and hear the whap of a screen door or the creaking sound of a hanging basket, swinging from a hook on the front porch. I can feel a cool breeze under the shade of a pecan tree or the hot prickle on my skin when I step out into the sun. I can swat at a mosquito, brush aggravating ants off my bare foot, and take a cool drink of water from the garden hose.

Authenticity is always in the details. And in the South, compelling details are everywhere.

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Valerie Fraser Luesse is the bestselling author of Missing Isaac and an award-winning magazine writer best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she is currently the senior travel editor. Specializing in stories about unique pockets of Southern culture, Luesse has published major pieces on the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Delta, Louisiana’s Acadian Prairie, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on Hurricane Katrina recovery in Mississippi and Louisiana won the 2009 Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks

Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas?

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine

It is interesting to note, people want to know where writers get the ideas for the stories they write. I’ve also heard them ask that question in a slightly lower voice, as if your information is a guarded secret. Truth is many of the people asking these questions have many stories in their lives they could put to paper. Most of them however, don’t know that, and even if they did, they will tell you, “I could never write a book, I’m don’t have that talent.”

What do you say to them? Yes, you could. You might have to take some writing classes, read some books on techniques. The majority would smile sweetly and say, “Thank you, but no, I couldn’t do that.” They wouldn’t believe you. You might even tell them they just have to start writing and keep writing.

I’m not sure what it is inside that opens that portal in to believing we can do one thing and not another.

Eudora Welty said on writing, “I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well; for all serious daring starts from within.” One only has to read her book, The Robber Bridegroom to see her imagination in bloom and know that she looked within herself as she penned this book. She took the legend of Mike Fink, (c.1770/1780 - c.1823) who was a semi-legendary brawler and river boatman. He ran keelboats up and down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and incorporated him into her book.

Arthur Freed said, “Don’t try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.” He wrote lyrics for numerous films.

Stephen King said, “There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.” Maybe there are lots of guys, yet he is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. He mesmerizes his readers and moviegoers with his words.

Louis L’Amour said, “A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first” 

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.' Every writer can give advice; tell where they get their ideas. Some look within, others are people watchers, some draw from the turmoil of their personal lives while others had a caring and nurturing life. Some read many books and yet others study writing techniques. But in the end, you still have to sit down and put the words in your head on paper. 

Thinking of Elvis While Writing About The Delta

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Last week was Elvis celebration week in Memphis. It was a ten day event, attended by generations of Elvis fans from around the world. The last event is a candlelight vigil held at Graceland, Elvis's home. It always reminds me that a man who came from poverty roots in The Delta continues to impact the world 38 years after his death. 

An amazing photographer, Chris Barwick, inspired today's blog post. Thanks, Chris. This picture of an old sharecropper's shack in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, just south of Tunica made me crave the need for a road trip south to soak in some settings for my current work in progress. Elvis was born in Tupelo to sharecropper parents. 

The land of The Delta can be a hard land where blood, sweat and tears of generations, past and present, have been in constant odds with the elements of nature. It's ironic that the very floods from the Mississippi River over this land gives it renewal by leaving behind silt that enriches its soil and its people. 

I hopped in the car and drive south out of Memphis on Highway 61 one hot summer day in August. Blue suede flip flops on my feet and Marc Cohn's song, "Walking in Memphis," playing, set the tone of the trip. Once I hit the TN/MS state line, The Delta begins to emerge an icon for the South, good, bad and ugly. The Delta has produced amazing talent, perhaps from the hardship and rebirth of the land. The Delta Blues are world famous as is Elvis who came to be known as The King of Rock and Roll. 

Of course, since I'm a writer who lives in the South I feel an affinity to those Southern writers' past and present that have written about the region known as The Delta. Their words speak to my soul. Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, William Faulkner and those other Delta writers drive my desire to further capture the struggles of the modern day Delta. 

I continue my drive, soaking in settings to use in my book. When I stop to take in the abandon sharecropper shacks, commercialization of some of the areas down Highway 61, I record what I see with my camera and record my research on my iPhone app. I detour off Highway 61 and turn down a farm road so I can soak in the view of “King Cotton” growing in the field, and as I turn my car around, a farmer in an ancient pickup truck stops to ask if I need help, and we chat about his crop. He is very happy with his crop and says this year he might actually make up for the years before. I shared I was a writer, working on a book and needed to see a cotton field up close and personal. He asked if I wanted to inspect his crop. He showed me the cotton, and we talked about how cotton is graded. He broke off a stalk and ask me if I wanted it. I said I'd love to have it as my talisman. This interchange provided in-depth research for my book and reiterated the Southern hospitality found in The Delta. 

My day spent driving in the Mississippi Delta was invaluable research you can't get from searching on the Internet. Sometimes you just need to put on your blue suede flip flops, head to your "Delta" and soak up the setting of your book. Be sure to bring back a talisman to put by your writing area.