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How did it get to be January 9 already? I'll swan, give a girl a chance to hunker in at home, and she starts baking her famous homemade granola that she hasn't made in five years (travel, travel), she roasts hazelnuts and puts them up in saved olive jars, she eats well and sleeps well,



and she hires her friend Jim Williams to enclose the carport and turn it into a gathering room, following her desire to implement pattern 182 of A PATTERN LANGUAGE by Christopher Alexander (who knows this book? I'm using it like a Bible as I work on this house...


...I'm investigating Pools of Light (252), Warm Colours (250), Different Chairs (251), as well as Communal Eating (147) and Family of Entrances (102), Entrance Transition (112), Car Connection (113),
and more, but that will do for now. Ha!)




Oh, and she plans to build a bottle tree. (This is a photo of Felder Rushing's blue bottle tree in Jackson, Mississippi. I love Felder and I want a fire bowl like his, but I digress.)


She also opens the mail that has been piling up since the last ice age. And just look what's in the mail! EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS is still cutting a rug on the book world's dance floor. First news is that LITTLE BIRD has won the Alabama Book Award as the Young People's Book of the Year from the Alabama Library Association! Joy and Happy Day! RUBY won this award in 2004, and I know how special it is, both because I've seen how wonderful this conference is (I've met those wonderful Alabama librarians!) and because I was born in Alabama, so coming back is like going home. But the best thing about this award is that LITTLE BIRD finds its way into the hands of more young readers in Alabama. I'm so glad. Thank you so much, ALLA! (And Tim Berry, I'm trying to email you, but your email keeps bouncing...)

As if Alabama -- and the United States -- weren't enough, here comes news, too, from IBBY -- the International Board on Books for Young People -- that LITTLE BIRD "has been nominated by the U.S. Section of IBBY for the IBBY Honour List 2008 for the quality of its writing."

Be still my heart. IBBY! One of IBBY's objectives is to encourage international understanding through children's literature. Sharon Deeds, chair of USBBY's Hans Christian Andersen committee (the U.S. Section of IBBY) wrote me some months ago, but it wasn't public news until now, and I wasn't sure I believed it, but now I have official confirmation. Sharon had written me: "Each section... nominates three honor books: one for writing, one for illustration and one for translation. The Honour List began in 1956. The books are chosen to represent the best in U.S. publishing in the previous two years."

I'm floored, I'm honored, I'm humbled. And may I throw in delighted... I am. Readers! LITTLE BIRD will have international readers... what a thrill. The entire Honour List from around the world will be part of a traveling exhibition in Japan, the U.S., and Bologna. Then, according to my Official Letter, these books "will be kept as permanent deposits at the International Youth Library in Munich and other research collections in Belgium, Russia, Japan, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the USA."

I knew it. I knew it all along, that everything is connected (as Uncle Edisto says in LITTLE BIRD), that we are more alike than we are different, that we exist in community, through our stories, on this planet. This lovely IBBY award is confirmation and validation of that fact -- just imagine these books, written in many different languages, traveling together next year. Just imagine the kinds of stories they tell individually. Imagine the story they will tell together, of their journey.

Oh, thank you, USBBY committee members, for honoring Comfort Snowberger's story, she who has been to 247 funerals and thinks she knows all about death, only to find out that life is about to take some turns she can't anticipate, and that the most important thing to know about death is that it is part... of life.

There is so much life going on at my house right now, on a warm January day. The carport area rings with hammering and the stapling of screens to the framing. Husband Jim's music wafts up from his basement studio, where he is practicing. The cats want in and out every fifteen minutes. The granola is finished and sits in 12 sweet, squatty little Mason jars, ready for ribbons. The hazelnuts in their jars are standing tall next to the granola. The crepe myrtles that needed to come down (talk about death... sob!) so a new driveway can be built, have been cut and deposited on my back porch so I can gather the most earnest, most enthusiastic branches for my bottle tree.

In the book I'm working on now, a character named Partheny, who is old, wise, and superstitious, makes a bottle tree for her front yard, to ward off evil spirits. I want to make the tree that Partheny would make.
So I've got my branches now. I've been collecting my bottles. I need the just-right bucket and some cement, I think. Let me see what I can do, gathering these elements that you wouldn't naturally find together, and making something brand new out of them. Sort of like the IBBY award. Sort of like stories. Sort of like life.

My notebook is getting a workout with LISTS these days. Lists of projects I want to do, lists of supplies needed, lists of administrative tasks that need to be tackled, grocery lists, lists of stories I'm working on or want to work on this year. In January I list. (Well, I list all the time, but in January, especially, I list for myself: what would you like to accomplish this year? How might you make that happen? I start with a fresh notebook for my lists. I know that I'll fill up several notebooks this year, but this is the first for a new year, with lists, including, this year, lists of what I eat each day, how far I walk (I've walked over 25 miles so far this year), lists of my weekly WW's numbers (11.3 pounds so far -- who's still with me? I'm so serious about this...).

Looking at all these lists, I see patterns, too -- it's the same every year; I bring many disparate elements together to create a life. Kind of like my Southern serial-story-turned-into-full-fledged novel, THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS... so many elements and so many characters fairly seething with their wants and needs and aspirations, conspiring separately but finding out that together they make one movement out of whole cloth. You do it, too, don't you? You are interested in so many things, just as I am, you make your lists, either in your head or on paper, and you pull together a life. In doing so, you see how different you are from every other human being on this earth... how different your family is from every other family, how different is your home, your mind! And yet. We are also so alike, wanting to love and be loved, to belong, to achieve something worthwhile, to understand how the world (and each heart) works, to have purpose.

Each of us individually, AND together, makes up the symphony true.

My childhood Mississippi friend Pam Evans (Howell) and I had grits and omelets for breakfast on Friday morning and then tootled together to the Eudora Welty House on Pinehurst Street in Jackson, Mississippi. Eudora moved into this house with her parents when she was 16. She would write her fiction here, in the upstairs bedroom, where her office looked out of the three windows on the left.

Books were everywhere: stacked on tables, spilling over on sofas, tucked into plum reading nooks -- books. Eudora Welty worked upstairs in her office -- which was also her bedroom -- where she had a commanding view of the street below and Belhaven College directly across the street. She often read in her favorite living room chair, where she could see who might be coming up the walk. Folks would knock on the door and ask Eudora to sign a book for them, which she would graciously do.

She traveled, she gardened with her mother Chestina, she kept up a correspondence that filled boxes, file cabinets, closets, bureaus, and this secretary. (You can see the electric typewriter near the window. Eudora never quite got used to it. According to one of the excellent tour guides, she thought the hum it made was telling her to hurry up and write.) What I loved about the desk were the small notebooks that dotted it -- notebooks Eudora carried with her to record the smallest of details. She collected names in her notebooks, and would often write "REAL" beside them so she wouldn't use someone's actual name in a story.

When her brother Walter died young, Eudora became even closer to his two children, her nieces.

"She even drove car pools," said niece Mary Alice White. Mary Alice now takes good care of visitors when they arrive at the Welty home. She told me that her sister had trouble pronouncing "Eudora" when she was young, and the word came out "Dodo." So Eudora Welty became "Aunt Dodo" to the two girls. "For years we received cards and letters signed 'Aunt Dodo,'" said Mary Alice.

I love this story. I shared with Mary Alice that in THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS, there is a six-year-old girl named Honey, who calls her dog -- a loveable old pug -- "YouDoggie" throughout the book. Honey hears the name that way, even though her brother, House, tells her that the dog's name is.... Eudora. Eudora Welty. YouDoggie, Aunt Dodo, Eudora.

Welty's home has been preserved with the same furniture, books (in all the same haphazard places), photographs, hairbrushes, china! It's intact and looks the way Welty left it, thanks to the family's bequests and the hard work of many, many volunteers.

The gardens are being restored to their Chestina Welty glory-days as well. I found my favorites, zinnias, nodding their old heads in the September morning. Friend Pam told Mary Alice that she'd see about coming to volunteer and cut back the roses. Moonflowers (another favorite) climbed a trellis near the house and a cold frame stood ready for this coming spring.

Welty had a wide and varied life outside the south. She traveled extensively, loved her friends lavishly, and supported emerging writers ardently (including dear friend Reynolds Price, whose work I so admire -- read his book A WHOLE NEW LIFE to start, and then move on to his fiction). She wrote reviews, articles, essays and fiction -- my favorite fiction is DELTA WEDDING followed closely by THE PONDER HEART, which makes me laugh. I also love the short stories "Why I Live at the P.O." and "Powerhouse," which was written after Eudora saw Fats Waller play.

She was a courageous writer as well. On the night Medgar Evers was assassinated in Jackson (see previous post on this), Eudora sat down and wrote in a white heat, "Where is the Voice Coming From?" It was written in the voice of the person who killed Evers, although no one had yet been apprehended for the crime. It is a powerful indictment of racism in the deep south.

You can read more about Eudora Welty in Suzanne Marr's wonderful biography. Here's chapter one. You'll see that Welty was something of a renaissance woman, although I doubt she'd claim that word. She was anything but a provincial southern lady who sat in her home making up provencial southern stories. She had a vision.

If you've read ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS by Welty, you'll know this house on Congress Street, where Eudora was born and grew up... where she started out, a stone's throw from the state capitol building, with a cow in the back yard. Here's a wonderful review of that book. You can hear Eudora read her work here. Eudora was a photographer as well. You can see some of her Depression-era photographs of people all over the state of Mississippi here.

Eudora Welty started out on Congress Street. Debbie Edwards (moi) started out here, with these folks, and I am glad to call them family. Both my parents died in 2003 (part of the genesis of EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS) but my father's sister keeps me in her heart, as does the rest of my Mississippi family. Here is Aunt Beth, the girl who raised chickens in Louin, Mississippi, just as Ruby Lavender raises chickens in LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER. Uncle Jim still plants peppers and tomatoes from seed in his Brandon, Mississippi back yard every summer.
I'd asked for tomato sandwiches for lunch, and that's what I got! "The last tomatoes of the season," said Uncle Jim. Aunt Beth gifted me with her treasured 1915 copy of LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (I will take good care of it, I promise). After lunch, Cousin Carol and I sat with Aunt Beth and looked at a notebook full of old photographs and clippings (many of them obituaries -- Comfort Snowberger would have loved this!)

Aunt Beth read out loud some of the research she'd copied on the Edwards family tree. We got to laughing so hard we couldn't stop. Here's one snippet from "Memoirs of Mississippi" found in the Neshoba County Library in Philadelphia, MS:

"Records show that James Madison Edwards, merchant and farmer, Shuqualak, Mississippi, is related to some of the best old families in Mississippi. He is a man whose enterprise, energy, and business sagacity place him among the state's most progressive citizens, destined to be long felt as a factor in all that constitutes the solid development of her grand possibilities."

Through our laughter, Carol managed to croak out, "Whose opinion is that?" and we laughed until we cried.

Mississippi. Such a land of contrasts. I love it and think of it the way Welty did: "Place conspires with the artist. We are surrounded by our own story, we live and move in it. It is through place that we put out roots."

Thank you to Pam Evans and Cousin Carol (the pretty cousin) for driving me all over the place, and thanks to the wonderful staff at the Welty House for making us feel like family.

Got home very late on Friday (thunderstorms dotted the air) and slept. Took two naps on Saturday. It's Sunday morning now, and I'm feeling rested and ready for tomorrow -- Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina. I hope you've rested some this weekend and are ready for twelve straight days on the road with me! I don't know this new territory -- I will need to learn a new, west-coast geography. I hope you'll help me! Here we go --

I started this post on Friday -- how did it get to be Saturday already?? Let me explain. No, eez too much -- let me sum up.

Chickens! On Thursday (after hot-footin' it out the door) I drove to LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER territory -- Comer, Georgia -- where Michael Hill farms and sells books for Harcourt.

Michael covers the southern region for Harcourt -- Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida (whew) and puts many miles on his car each season as he visits booksellers across the South, showcasing Harcourt's latest catalogs (both adult and children's titles). Michael and his long-time sweetheart Melissa (who also used to be a sales rep for Harcourt, and who owned a children's bookstore in Athens before that) have an organic farm in Comer, and live their lives as considerate partners with the earth, animals, minerals, vegetables... and books.

Here's part of the Harcourt Southern Region Sales Office, next to the chicken coop and near the John Deere (Melissa shows off a stack of this season's books):
Two years ago, when Michael and I did this part of the book tour together with EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, there were four dogs who greeted me joyfully as I arrived at the farm. Now there are three. Spiffy (Bo-Bo's mother) died an old-age death, but Bo-Bo, Alice, and Hale-Bopp swarmed around my car as I arrived on Thursday morning. These gentle dogs were my inspiration for Eudora Welty, the loveable old dog (who does not disappear! Have I redeemed myself?!) in THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS.

Here's Alice wondering why Michael and Melissa are sitting outside in the middle of the day holding chickens. It's a board meeting, Alice (note rooster in background):









Recalcitrant board members:










And here's the house:
We're on our way to The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, South Carolina, a three-hour drive. Owners Andy and Carrie Graves have set 5pm as the time when kids, teachers, and parents will come hear the debut of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. After the signing, Michael and I will grab some supper before we head back home. It will be 10:30pm when we return to Comer. The chickens will be roosting in the hen house. The ducks will be back in the barn. I will pat Alice on the head, hug Michael, and drive home. It will be midnight as I pull into my driveway, back home in Tucker, Georgia. It will have been a day well-spent -- good conversation, good friends... and a good signing, too.

Here is the staff at Happy Bookseller in Columbia:

From left: Compton, Todd, Carrie (holding Henry, who will have a little brother by Thanksgiving), Thomas, and Andy.

At 5pm we shared stories. I told the assembled crowd that my books are fiction, but they come out of my history, my life, my personal (narrative!) stories. I read snippets from all three novels, and recited some of FREEDOM SUMMER... oh, and I sang ONE WIDE SKY. That book has music to go with its 88 words, thanks to my husband (still getting used to that word!) Jim Pearce. Kids had great questions, and great stories about playing baseball, which of course is part of what ALL-STARS is about (baseball, that is). I forgot to take photos of the comfortable crowd of kids, teachers, and parents, but I did think to dig out my camera as I was signing books.

Here's Kitty. Hellooooo, Kitty!

Kitty is an thespian and so is 14-year-old Finesse Schotz in ALL-STARS. "I'd be the perfect Finesse!" said Kitty. I have to agree, she's got the outfits down.








Here are Endea and Errin, sisters, with their mom.

Beautiful.








And beautiful is Makenzie, who plays outfield on her Little League team:

It was so good to hang out and catch up with the folks at Happy Bookseller again. Columbia has a great indie in Happy Bookseller. Andy and Carrie partner with the schools and community to bring stories to readers throughout South Carolina -- good work.

I came home with books, too: I was excited to find THE ECHO MAKER by Richard Powers in paperback. (More on Powers' work at some point.) Michael Hill recommended MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones, about a man who begins reading GREAT EXPECTATIONS to a group of children on a tropical island... their lives transform. A have a character named Pip in ALL-STARS. I named him after the orphan in GREAT EXPECTATIONS, a book I loved in high school and studied again as I readied to write the serial story that would become THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. Michael also gifted me with THE THEORY OF CLOUDS by Stephane Audeguy -- I'm looking forward to reading this one, too.

So this was the first stop on the travelin' book tour. I'm home for the weekend and will catch a flight to Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday, where I'll begin a four-day whirlwind of schools, libraries, and bookstores -- do come with me as I head for Faulkner and Welty territory (we'll visit Rowan Oak and the Welty Home together) and family (and, Lord, you'll meet them, too). My stories take place in Mississippi, that land of those opposites Uncle Edisto talks about in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. I'm heading for the homeland.

I woke at 4 (as usual) and got up (as usual) and went back to bed at 6:30 (uh-oh) "just for a few minutes." Wrong.

Hot-footin' it out the door this morning for the second "Day 1" of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS tour. The first "Day 1" was right here in Atlanta, at Little Shop of Stories on August 25. That was our kick-off (and I have pictures to share)... now we have one day in Columbia, SC, then home for the weekend.

I'm driving to Michael Hill's house. Michael lives just outside Athens, where he takes care of booksellers in Harcourt's southern region. We'll drive to Columbia together this afternoon for a 5pm signing, then drive back. We did this two years ago for LITTLE BIRD's tour as well -- I'm so looking forward to catching up with Michael and introducing him to you -- if he'll allow me to do that. So stay tuned, come with me, and let's see what develops at Happy Bookseller in Columbia.

One thing I've decided I want to do on this tour is purchase books for a 12-year-old boy named Logan, a 7-year-old girl named Olivia, and a new baby girl named Delaney -- my grandkids. Got book suggestions? Send them my way, please! And do tell me -- what should *I* be reading this season?

Gotta go -- come with me!