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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.

Today I share the blogging with my son, Evan, age nine, who earlier today wrote an update of our time in the deep south (see below). Evan's comments will be in a bigger font. We just arrived in Bryan, Texas a moment ago, so I don't have much to say about Texas yet except that it is big and dark and rainy. [Oh, I just realized that as I type this, it is techincally by 41st birthday! :-) ]

EVAN: Ok, so yesterday we left Atlanta (we got up at 7:00) and did a 2 and a half hour drive to Alabama, and all Of a sudden, we see this sign that said: ENTERING ALABAMA CENTRAL TIME ZONE . What?! We shouted. Then the clock that before said 9:49 (which was when we were supposed to arrive) went down to 8:49. We could have slept an hour later! Well, at least we get to relive the past hour, said my dad. On the road we made up a game. The game was, if you saw a water tower and shouted torre de agua (that’s Spanish) first, then you would get a point. At the end of the trip, whoever had the most points, won. To me, the driving wasn’t very long, but that’s probably because I was waching tv.

MARK: I love the south. It's green and lush, and the people are friendly and the weather has been beautiful. I also love that it has a chain of grocery stores called Piggly Wiggly. Whevenver we see one, we Hugheses are all about the Piggly Wiggly! I took this picture through the windsheild of our car on our way to Birmingham, AL:


Oh yes, Piggly. I will follow...

One thing I do miss about Massachusetts, though, is the availability of Starbucks. In fact, I've been on a daily quest to find one anywhere near where we go. On the way to Birmingham I found one! I was so pleased, I took a picture of my grande Gazebo blend.



Evan: We went to the Alabama welcome center and my dad and me got Hank Williams posters. Hank Williams is like an Elvis to country music. My dad was very happy. I was happy too, except I had never heard of Hank Williams before this. But I'm sure he must be pretty good.

Mark: Because of the unexpected time-change (what? did we miss a memo or something?), we arrived in Birmingham earlier than planned, which allowed us time to look around. Since Birmingham metal-working played a big role in the city's history, they have a huge statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of the fire and forge.



EVAN: Later, we had lunch with Hester Bass the author of So Many Houses, and her family (father Clayton, kids Anderson and Miranda) in Birmingham. We ate at a Cracker Barrell, a southern place I'd never eaten before. It was good. My mom and dad ate southern food. I ate grilled cheese. It was good. Hester gave us copies of her book, which was very nice of her.

Mark: In addition to being the author of the early reader So Many Houses, Hester is also the author of a soon-to-be released picture book biography of American artist, Walter Inglis Anderson, to be illustrated by the acclaimed E. B. Lewis and published by Candlewick Press. Hester and her family were amazingly kind to drive all the way down to Huntsville to meet with us. It's lovely to meet such wonderful people when you're far from home. Many thanks to the 'Bama Basses, our new friends!

   

EVAN: Next, we had dinner with the Campbell family In Jackson, Mississippi. I played with three boys named Graem, Nathan and Douglas. They had a big snail called a wolf snail. I let it crawl up my arm. It was so cool!

Mark: Sarah is the author and photographer of an upcoming picture book about wolf snails, snails that eat other snails -- an amazing creature I'd never heard of before. Her photographs are absolutely beautiful and her book will be published in the Spring. Although we were total strangers, Sarah and Richard and their boys fed us and treated us like family. We had a wonderful Mississippi evening which we will never forget -- complete with fireworks set off by neighbors. Thanks you, Campbells, our other new friends in the south!




This morning (actually, yesterday morning now) we stopped by at Lemuria Books in Jackson, a cool independent bookstore with a relaxing atmosphere. Here we are with a very nice bookseller named Ciel. 



Lots of traffic problems on the way through Louisianna to Bryan, TX, so it took us much longer than it should have. Still, we're here safe, sound, and happy. Soon I'll actually go to bed. 

A big, Texas good night to y'all. 
-- Mark