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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 --

Coming to Mississippi IS coming home. I spent my childhood summers in Jasper County, Mississippi, with my grandmother (the real Miss Eula of LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER) and a cast of characters who couldn't wait to see me. I'll will see some of them before the day is out.

I was up at 4am Tuesday morning and to the Atlanta airport early, only to sit for an hour with flight delays. Still, got to Jackson, Mississippi in good time. Jim Allen was waiting for me. Jim toted me around Mississippi two years ago on the LITTLE BIRD tour. When he heard I was going to high tea at the Brandon library one afternoon, he commissioned his friend Barry to pick me up at the hotel in his 1959 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce. You can read more about it here (where you'll find the LITTLE BIRD tour journal archived).

I didn't ride in the Rolls today, but I was in good hands. I hopped inside Jim's red Ford Explorer for the trip to nearby Clinton, where I was scheduled to spend some time with third-graders at Northside Elementary School, a grade two-three school.



Librarian Tammy King had contacted Harcourt about having me visit at the same time we were wrestling with a last-minute schedule change in the tour, so here we came -- Tammy got busy preparing her students, and I seized this opportunity to read from my Mississippi stories with a Mississippi audience.



I'm setting up my slides. Here come the third graders. What a great group of kids -- totally attentive and eager to hear stories... "Put your hands in the yoga of writing," I say. They do. "Every one of you has a story to tell. So many stories. What are they?" And I read about my grandmother, about a little girl who has been to 247 funerals, about a big shaggy black dog who loves everyone, and about two boys who want to play baseball... all stories from my life, and yet all made up. Personal narrative turned into fiction. Something like that. We laughed a lot.



Saying goodbye: Parent Coordinator Jimmie Sue Stringer, Tammy King, me, Assistant Principal Joy Tyner, and Principal Stacy Adcock who has a gracious heart and a younger brother named Casey ("I think my mother wanted twin girls."). Thank you all so much!



Here are Tammy and Stacy again on the right. On the far left is student teacher Amanda Eldridge Helmintoller, standing next to her mentor, Janet Medders. Janet teaches at the local middle school. Amanda is doing her student teaching at Northside and is a student at the University of Southern Misssissippi. Heads up, Ellen Ruffin! Amanda confirms that you are a stellar teacher yourself, in addition to being the curator of the de Grummond collection.

Jim Allen and I grab lunch with his mother -- fried green tomato sandwiches. (Welcome to the land of Fried Everything.) We make a quick stop at Pentimento, a lovely independent bookstore in Clinton that Jim thinks I would love to see. He's right.



Each bookstore has its own personality. Look at this one! VERY Southron. Lots of southern writers and southern charm. Squint hard and you'll see a poster of Eudora Welty in the background.

Here, I'll bring it closer. I'm going to the Welty Home on Friday -- stick around for a tour of the house and gardens.



Here's Jim Allen with Marilyn Poindexter of Pentimento. Owner Toni Wall was out when we stopped in.



Back in Jackson, I checked into my hotel and spent two hours lying across the bed in my pajamas. Then I was ready for the legendary Lemuria Books.

When I visited Lemuria in 2005, children's buyer Yvonne Rogers had me at a little table in the front of the store, where she tenaciously introduced me to every person who walked by. This time I occupy the golden, lamp-lighted signing area in the back of the store and we have a lovely crowd of parents, kids, librarians and teachers who come in looking for me. How very nice.



This is the enthusiastic Emily Hardin (Yvonne and teacher Sherry McWhorter are watching), whose guided reading group is reading LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER. She's taking this photo of her stellar students Anne Carrie, Marlee, and Sarah (hmmm... Sarah might be wrong -- correct me!)

Readers brought their copies of RUBY and LITTLE BIRD to be signed. Payton (not pictured) told me she's going to be a writer. I believe her. She already is.



There was a fair amount of mayhem, actually (sorry, Yvonne!), and my family was there in all their gorgeous glory... just look at how collected we seem here, when it's all over! I feel about these folks the way that Eudora Welty describes family in her novel DELTA WEDDING: "These cousins were the sensations of life."


Here's the fabulous staff at Lemuria: Sarah Ryburn Stainton, Jennifer Meador, Mark Regan, moi, and Yvonne Rogers.

I asked for good books. Yvonne sold me INDIAN SUMMER: The Secret History of The End of an Empire by Alex Von Tunzelmann (can't wait to read this) and, for my grandgirls, IF I WERE A TREE (Brown Dog Books) by Dar Hosta, and SWING! (College of DuPage Press) by Pamela Klein, both of which I adore. "You're not going to find these in just any bookstore," said Yvonne. "We take the time to find books that are special, that not everyone will have..."

Yes, they do. Hand selling is such an art. I love being hand sold. :>

Then -- can you stand it? One more picture of one more event.

Supper with the Brandon librarians who made the tea party possible during the LITTLE BIRD tour, and who have tirelessly promoted Deborah Wiles books, and who are beloved by me. Cousin Carol is in the white blouse at the head of the table. Jo McDivitt, editor of "Today's Mississippi Woman," is wearing the straw hat. These are the women who put books into the hands of young Mississippi readers. Namaste! (Just for the record, I did eat the pimento cheese fritters and the eggplant fries.)

It's early Wednesday morning as I write this. Jim Allen picks me up in two hours. We're going to travel highway 49 to Greenwood. I want to ride through the country I'm about to write about in my next novel for Harcourt. By lunchtime we'll be at Turnrow Books, a new bookstore, smack in the middle of the Delta. I'll tell you all about it.

First things first, though. I ordered breakfast delivered to my room this morning -- I'm a genius for thinking of this last night. And, I'll ask Jim to make a stop at the nearest Walgreens for water, Ricola lozenges, and some Throat Coat tea. Gotta fortify myself for the days ahead. I'm already pretty pruned up. I hope you'll come along with a puffy prune on the next day's adventure.

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.