Countdown to Southern Festival of Books: 6 Weeks -- Spotlight on Tennessee Author Susan Gregg Gilmore

I have mentioned Tennessee author Susan Gregg Gilmore before (she was on my first list of authors to make sure you see at SFB this year). Born in 1961, Gilmore was raised in Nashville. According to famous Nashville girl's school Harpeth Hall's Wikipedia page, Gilmore is listed among their notable alumnae -- along with actress Reese Witherspoon and entertainers Minnie Pearl and Amy Grant. She attended college at the University of Virginia after graduating high school. Gilmore has worked for years as a journalist, after completing a Master's degree in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She has written articles for the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Chattanooga Times-Free Press. For several years, she wrote a column in the Chattanooga newspaper about raising children in the south. She and her husband still live in Chattanooga.

Gilmore is the author of two books, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen and The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove. Salvation was released a few years ago, and was set in my old stomping grounds (sort of) of Ringgold, Georgia. I went to college in Chattanooga, Tennessee, right over the state line from Fort Oglethorpe and Ringgold, Georgia. In my last year of school, I moved to Ft. O and lived just minutes from Ringgold.

Susan Gregg Gilmore

Gilmore's newest book, Bezellia Grove, was released earlier this month and is already gaining interest in the book world. Mega book blogger Rebecca Joines Schinsky from The Book Lady's Blog has written about Gilmore fairly often in the past few weeks, and last Monday interviewed her in Richmond, Virginia, at the Fountain Bookstore. I heard a story about the novel on NPR while I was driving home last week; then, while catching up on the blogs I follow today, I read a glowing review of the novel from Jenn at Jenn's Bookshelves. Gilmore will be appearing at the Southern Festival of Books in October as part of her promotion tour for Bezellia Grove. She is an entertaining speaker who I can't wait to hear again. And hopefully, I'll have a chance to read Bezellia Grove before the Festival (don't hold your breath, though, with all my time being taken up with lesson plans for 7th and 8th graders)!

The Southern Festival of Books will take place October 8-10 in downtown Nashville at Legislative Plaza. In addition to book events such as author readings and signings, there will also be tents set up with book vendors and publishing houses from all over the south. Also, look for children's entertainment, musical guests, cooking demonstrations, and food vendors from unique Nashville area restaurants.

Also, each week leading up to the Festival, there will be a Twitter contest. Winners get a ticket to be first in line for the author of their choice during the author's signing time. I won the first week by being the first person to guess that week's author using SFB's Twitter clues! 

The Postmistress Examines WWII and Human Empathy (With an Interesting Plot, As Well!)

Since it was published in February, I've read dozens of reviews for Sarah Blake's second novel The Postmistress. Sometimes, I avoid those over-zealously marketed books, figuring that if they held any merit they would be able to stand on their own, without all the hype. I managed to dodge The Postmistress until a month or so ago, when it showed up in my local library's New Books section. Sitting there on the shelf, fresh off the hold list (or accidentally misplaced back into circulation from where it should have been on the hold shelf), it called out to me. What was it about this book? I'd heard bloggers and reviewers laud the book's cover. It didn't really appeal to me with its antiqued letter and purple rose. It was a historical novel that looked like a historical novel (well, okay -- minus the corseted heroine with windblown hair on the cover). And I don't really like historical novels. At all.

I must say on all counts, I was absolutely wrong about The Postmistress. I enjoyed it immensely. It was one of the first novels in a long time that I couldn't wait to read each evening. I thought about the characters when I wasn't reading; I wondered what would happen to them next. In my opinion, a book is outstanding if it hooks a reader so thoroughly.

In The Postmistress, Blake tells a story of World War II that has not been told before (or, if it has, not to me -- but again, keep in mind that historical fiction is not my forte). She examines the war prior to America's entrance into it, from varying viewpoints of those on both sides of the Atlantic and their unique perspectives on what the Nazis were doing in Europe. For many Americans, the only news they heard of this European war came through radio broadcasts and newspaper accounts.

Blake introduces a whole host of small town characters living in the enclosed New England community of Cape Cod, most wrapped up in their own insular dramas and ignorant of the plight of Londoners during the nightly bombing raids and of Jewish people living all across Europe as the Nazi army marched through and gained control. Postmistress Iris James struggles to maintain the status quo, doing what her inner self of right and wrong directs her to do. Emma Fitch, the local doctor's wife, wrestles with her own demons. Blake also tells the story of female radio reporter Frankie Bard, who was living and reporting from London during the raids.

Intertwined with factual, historical recall of the war, Blake also introduces larger questions about humanity and our reactions to the hardships of others. As human beings are we primarily concerned with ourselves, or with the state of our world? Blake uses the characters of Iris, Emma, and Frankie to address the intricacies of living in a world filled with wars both large and small.

The Postmistress is a novel I would recommend to almost anyone, as it relates to the stories of so many. Blake's second book is not just a piece of women's fiction or a historical novel, but rather a novel with far-reaching implications for our own era.

Language Arts & Education Links

At the end of July, I took a job teaching Language Arts to 7th and 8th graders at an elementary school in my hometown. I had been away from the education field for three full years, and while I enjoyed my time in social work & community mental health, teaching is really where my heart has been. Our school year began last Monday, but my last day at my previous job was only the Wednesday before. Needless to say, my mind has been fully wrapped up in education and lesson planning topics for the past two weeks.

My Word of the Day Tree ~ Words We Can't LEAVE Behind

Although after college, I was in the classroom for two and a half years, I taught high school rather than middle grades, and most of my classroom activities were literature-based. The class I'm teaching now is much more language-, grammar-, and writing-focused, as students take a separate course in reading. I haven't had much time for my own recreational reading as I plan for my next-day's class each evening (then drive almost an hour to and from work each day), but I have come across a plethora of websites for teachers that would be interesting to anyone who is a reader or a writer, not just an educator. Here are some of my favorites so far (and by the way -- my students would be very proud of my using the word "plethora" -- it was one of our Words of the Day last week & they love it when these words pop back up while I'm talking or writing on the board!):

• Edutopia: I kept hearing commercials for this when I listened to NPR each morning driving to work. I decided I had to at least check it out; after all, Edutopia felt NPR was necessary enough to become a corporate sponsor, and any supporter of NPR is a friend of mine! When I visited the site, I was not disappointed. Edutopia is a site dedicated to innovation and reform in education. In addition to providing research-based teaching and learning strategies pulled from schools that work, Edutopia also provides educators with specific, focused message boards moderated by other educators. There are communities for levels and types (i.e., Special Ed, Art/Music/Drama, Middle School, Elementary, Administrators), but there are also specific communities dedicated to Online Learning, New Teachers, and Classroom Management.
• The Learning Network: The New York Times education blog focuses on how teachers can use NYTimes.com in their classrooms, making learning more accessible and relevant to students. They feature a Word of the Day, mini-quizzes, and a forum for students 13 and older to offer opinions on current news. Additionally, they provide lesson plans divided by subject, but also links to how the same subject can be taught across the curriculum.
• Web English Teacher: An oldie, but goodie, this is a site I frequented during my first teaching stint, almost six years ago. They have continued to add to this site, which features a whole host of links to lesson plans and teacher activities, divided into categories such as Drama, Journalism, Mythology, Shakespeare, Vocabulary, Speech, and Writing. Simple, but majorly useful.
• Education World: This for-teachers site offers not only lesson plans, but also tips for classroom organization and management, discussions on teacher-related topics such as retirement benefits, and even suggestions for back-to-school supply lists.

I have managed to read a couple of books that will be posted for review in the next week or so -- Sarah Blake's amazing World War II novel The Postmistress and a review copy of Canadian writer Robyn Harding's latest U.S. release, Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis. I'm enjoying Harding's novel immensely, and just to mix it up I started a mystery last night, as well -- Linda Fairstein's The Deadhouse, an Alexandra "Alex" Cooper series novel. Also returning next week will be my Countdown to the Southern Festival of Books Monday feature. Until then, happy reading!

A Slender Thread Examines the Intricacies of Family Bonds and the Ties That Hold Us Together

I stayed up all night to finish Katharine Davis's newest novel A Slender Thread. Literally, it was almost five o'clock in the morning, and I was blown away by her ability to put pen to page and illustrate relationships in such a beautiful way.

The novel tells the story of two sisters, closely bonded as a result of their often difficult childhood, whose lives are balanced on the cusp of change. When Margot leaves her glamorous New York City life and visits her sister Lacey in New Hampshire one Thanksgiving, Lacey surprises her by sharing that she's just been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a disease which affects language and speech. The degeneration of Lacey's communication skills may take several years or only months to show; because of the relatively small amount of research on the topic and its close connection to dementia, even experts are unable to predict the disease's progression from one patient to another.

Although Lacey is the one faced with the loss of her ability to communicate, Davis focuses her attention on other family members and their responses to this pending crisis. Margot withdraws from her life in New York with artist Oliver and tries to keep her sister's family together by flying in at the smallest request from her brother-in-law Alex or one of her sister's twin daughters. Alex distances himself from his wife and turns to Margot and a week they once shared together as teenagers. The twins react differently to this news of their mother's illness; Wink, the more introverted twin, tries to abandon her life to stay close to her mother, while Toni rebels -- sneaking out with her older boyfriend and fighting constantly with Lacey. While the news of Lacey's illness affects her family members in different ways, the devastation that comes with the sudden possibility of losing her is evident in each.

Davis turns what could have been a highly sentimental, overly sappy storyline into a novel full of grace as she examines the human spirit. She employs art as a second form of communication, rather than simply relying on written words to do the storytelling. Each character tells not only his or her story in words, but also through the art forms each chooses. Lacey has always been a weaver, and continues to weave her feelings out of cloth and yarn; Margot returns to the long-abandoned paintings she once loved; Oliver, affected only from outside the family, through his loss of Margot, finds new life his art, as well; and Alex, not truly an artist, finds relief in the physical outlet of cycling.

Davis also includes pertinent flashbacks within the novel's pages. Inserted smoothly, at random times throughout the novel, these glimpses of the past offer deeper meaning to the characters' current reactions. Davis shows that family ties are not surface ones, but deep threads that weave us tightly together.

I loved the inclusion of weaving terms and definitions in A Slender Thread. Each chapter begins with one of these, so that the theme of family being woven together over time resonates in the reading. A few of my favorites:

• Shed (Chapter 10): Open space between upper and lower warp threads.
• Tenterhooks (Chapter 6): The hooks on a tenter, the framework for stretching wool to prevent shrinkage after it has been washed. When one is under tension, one is "on tenterhooks."
• Texere (Chapter 16): Latin for "to weave," from which the English word "text" is derived.

Sense of place is also an important element in the novel. Davis connects location to emotion, a very real connection in  my mind. There is the vacation spot, Bow Lake, where Alex, Margot, and Lacey all spent summers as children; New York City, where all bustles and creativity abounds; San Francisco and Sonoma, where Oliver finds peace; and New Hampshire, where Lacey's family and Margot feel a strong sense of home. In an interview at the novel's end, Davis states that:

we all have a 'Bow Lake' in our lives -- whether it's a far-off vacation place or your grandmother's back porch where you went to escape now and then as a child. Bow Lake is one of those nostalgic places from our childhood when everything seemed simple and perfect. . . . [It] represents the longing one might have for an idealized time or place. . . . [W]hen the future seems threatening, one has the tendency to look back and seek solace in what seemed like easier times. 

I believe we all have those places in our lives; Davis hits the nail on the head when she also says that "[o]ften when we do return to a place we loved long ago, we find that it is no longer the same at all." Not to say it is worse; only that it is different, and that places that affected us deeply long ago may not affect us later -- or may simply have a different effect on us at a different time.

Davis is also the author of Capturing Paris (2006) and East Hope (2009), winner of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2010 Award for Fiction. She is currently at work on her next novel, set in Italy in 1969. Learn what she is currently reading and join the bookish conversation on her blog, Thursday Thoughts.

Countdown to Southern Festival of Books: 10 Weeks -- New Authors Announced

Next week, I am looking forward to being back in the classroom teaching language arts after a three-year hiatus. During my break from the education world, I've been working in the community mental health field as a child case manager. I still spent my time helping kids, but in a different way from teaching. Because for the past couple of weeks I've been working both in my current job and attending school in-service days & getting my classroom ready, my reading time has been cut a little short. However, I've still had time to browse the Southern Festival of Books website and see that they've added a few authors to their list for the Festival. Here are the newest additions to get excited about:

• J.T. Ellison is a Tennessee crime writer who brings female homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson to life in her police thriller series of novels set in Nashville. Ellison will publish the fifth novel in the Taylor Jackson series this fall. I've read and enjoyed the first two books, All the Pretty Girls and 14. Judas Kiss in 2009 was followed by The Cold Room this past February. The Immortals will be released September 28, 2010.

• Michael Knight is a professor at the University of Tennessee, where he teaches creative writing. I've never read anything by Knight, but his second novel The Typist is generating a fair amount of buzz in the book world. Rebecca Joines Schinsky of The Book Lady's Blog has been hyping the book prior to its release tomorrow. The Typist is a World War II era novel, which I don't usually get into. However, I'm absolutely loving the historical novel The Postmistress (also set during WWII) right now, so The Typist may be on my next-in-line list -- especially for weekend trip I have planned. A girl must always have plenty of travel reading options!

• Audrey Niffenegger is the author of the widely acclaimed The Time Traveler's Wife, which was made into a major motion picture starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I read the book long before it was popular, soon after it was published. I loved it, but thought it horribly sad. Then my brother, sister-in-law, and I watched the movie last spring just before my nephew was born. I won't give away any plot for those of you who haven't read the novel or seen the film, but I will warn the heavily-pregnant-and-ready-for-labor away from both. My sister-in-law cried until we thought she might go into labor as a result of watching the movie. The book, as in most cases, is better than the film -- although I enjoyed the movie. Niffenegger followed that immensely popular debut with Her Fearful Symmetry, a ghostly novel which follows twin American girls to London, where they attempt to find themselves and learn about their recently-deceased and largely-unknown-to-them aunt.

The Southern Festival of Books will take place October 8-10, 2010, in Nashville, Tennessee. Continue to check their author list and, closer to the Festival dates, the event schedule. SFB is also sponsoring a Twitter contest, so log on to follow them @SoFestofBooks and enter for chances to win every week until the Festival.