Southern Festival of Books 2010, Part One

Nashville welcomed Southern Festival of Books attendees a few weekends ago with three beautiful days of sunshine. It crept into the high 80s each day, but remained cool enough in the shadows to wear appropriately fall-ish clothing. I was fairly picky when choosing sessions to attend, ending up in only five sessions the entire weekend. For the most part, though, I chose extremely well. Each session was interesting and led to much note-taking on my part (yep, I am truly a book nerd!).

Saturday began with breakfast & coffee at the Provence inside the first floor of the Nashville Public Library. The downtown library is such a beautiful building (and Provence is so delicious) that it almost warrants a trip itself. That you get to see it during the Festival is a wonderful bonus. We always park in the library parking garage, as it's no more than $4 per day. Can't really get cheaper than that in the downtown area unless you manage to snag a free-on-weekends parking meter spot!

I must say just a tad bit more about Provence... The BEST (and the original) one is in Hillsboro Village near Vanderbilt on 21st Ave. However, if you are in the downtown area, the Provence inside the library will suffice in a pinch. They still have delicious free-trade coffee, sinful pastries and desserts, and luscious salads and such. Just not as large a selection as the Hillsboro Village location usually has. I had an amazing dark roast coffee and a ginger molasses cookie. For breakfast!

We then traveled to the Festival site and browsed through the vendor booths. Sadly, I missed Susan Gregg Gilmore's session at 10am as a result of a late start combined with that aforementioned Provence pit stop (and really, I wouldn't have been worth much without coffee, anyway).  After looking at booths for quite a while, then also browsing the Book Festival's book sales table, I remembered that I needed to go get my Speed Reader Pass from the headquarters table. Isn't it awesome that I won week one of their Twitter contest?! I think so.

By that time, it was almost time for my cousin and his wife to meet us for lunch... So we went back to Provence. What? Trust me -- try it just once and see if you don't go as many times as is humanly possible. This time I skipped the coffee & sweets but indulged in their roasted vegetable pasta salad. So good.

After lunch, we finally made it into a session: J.T. Ellison on a group panel of women who write mysteries. I love Ellison and her Taylor Jackson series set in Nashville. Her fellow panelists? Not so much. I left my mom there (she loves mysteries probably even more than I do) and ran upstairs to a session on southern literature set during the Depression.

Amy Greene was there with Mary Helen Stefaniak, speaking about her debut novel Bloodroot. This novel had been somewhat on my radar for a while, and then Greene came to Cookeville for a Friends of the Library benefit. I didn't make it, but the posters everywhere reminded me that I had never picked up her book. Listening to her read a heart-wrenching scene from the novel caused me run over to the book sales tent, grab a copy, and rush to her signing line. (Sneak peek -- I finished it several weeks ago, so a Bloodroot review will be forthcoming in the future!)

My favorite quote from Amy Greene, as she explained that she had always seen herself running away to the big city, but then she got married to her high school sweetheart at 20: "The mountains can be either a cradle or a trap. For me, they were a cradle." Mary Helen Stefaniak was also an exceptional speaker and reader. I believe her novel The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia, will make it onto my to-read list -- and possibly into my middle school classroom, eventually, as it's narrated by 11-year-old Gladys Cailiff.

After meeting the oh-so-talented Ms. Greene, I sprinted back to the House Chambers to hear the writing team of Jefferson Bass (Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson) speaking about their fictional series based on Dr. Bass's life as the originator of UT's Body Farm. Both were fascinating, sprinkling true stories from their pasts that link to plots in the books. They also shared how their partnership was born -- Jefferson was working for National Geographic as a documentary maker; he contacted Dr. Bass in order to do two one-hour documentaries on the Body Farm. And as they say, the rest is history.

Dr. Bass also shared that he has known Kathy Reichs professionally for 25 years, although he isn't a fan of the Fox show Bones. He explained that this is because he has "never seen a beautiful blonde with a small trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth as a real-life victim." However, he does credit shows like Bones and CSI, even going all the way back to Quincy, M.E., for bringing necessary attention to the field of forensics. Jefferson Bass will release The Bone Yard, a new Body Farm mystery, in March 2011, which has Dr. Brockton traveling to Florida to explore bodies found at a boys' reform school.

Later in the afternoon, I heard Lee Smith speak. That, however, will save for another day. You'll have to tune in next Monday for a write-up on her session, plus the only Sunday session I attended -- "Don't Quit Your Day Job," about jobs writers held before they became writers.

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.

'14' Tracks Nashville Serial Killer

Southern setting + mystery series + female author + female protagonist = a book I am definitely interested in reading. J.T. Ellison is a Nashville writer and the creator of the Taylor Jackson mystery series. Ellison combines all of my favorite things in this series. Taylor's story began with Ellison's 2007 debut novel All the Pretty Girls. The twenty-something Nashville homicide lieutenant rose through the ranks quickly and has made a name for herself among her peers at a young age. In the first book, she and the Nashville PD were helped by Taylor's love interest, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, as they chased the Southern Strangler killer.

In 14, the second book in this series, Taylor and her team work to beat the clock and solve the Snow White murders. Taylor and Baldwin are scheduled to be married in just a few short days, and she can't bear the thought of leaving this case unsolved. The Snow White killer was a 1980s phenomenon who stopped killing and disappeared into thin air almost twenty years ago. When new victims begin popping up, the Nashville PD is determined to bring this long-term killer to justice. Things become complicated when Taylor's own father is named as a person of interest in crimes connected to the murders.

Ellison has created a strong female lead character with homicide detective Taylor Jackson. While not quite on par with experienced female mystery writers such as Patricia Cornwell and Sue Grafton, Ellison offers an interesting plot with likeable characters. This series is definitely a must-read for local Nashvillians (and those of us who live close enough that we consider it our own), and not only because it is chock-full of Nashville references.

Ellison is currently offering the first novel in this series as a free ebook download. Take advantage of the gratis reading, and jump-start your introduction to the Taylor Jackson series. Ellison has released two other Taylor Jackson books, and the series' fifth novel is set to come out in October 2010. She will be appearing in Nashville several times in the next few months; check out her tour schedule for dates.