Mystery Meets Charm In Richmond!

Excerpt from: The Clouds Roll Away by Sibella Giorello, published by Thomas Nelson
Attraction: James River Plantations Location: Richmond, Virginia
Photos: Unless otherwise credited in caption, all photos by Dean Hoffmeyer of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, except these first two shots provided by Shirley Plantation (built 1723), seen right and below.

In real life, when an agent accidently drives over a cliff into the ocean, there is no Q who happened to conveniently provide the agent beforehand with a car that converts into a submarine. Real agents don’t always have snappy comebacks and an absolute confidence that would border on arrogance if the results didn’t always back up their egos.

Real agents have to improvise. FBI agent Raleigh Harmon is no exception. She is the main character in the third installment of the popular mystery series by Sibella Giorello.

The novel is set in the modern Richmond area, a city Sibella knows well from her days there as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch (where her reporting earned two Pulitzer nominations, among other awards). Much of the novel takes place in the nearby James River plantations.

Many of these charming estates still operate as beautiful bed-and-breakfast getaways and museums that allow literary tourists to step back in time to an era when art permeated almost every aspect of life, from architecture to furnishings to gardens. Shirley Plantation (seen above) served as a specific inspiration for Sibella when creating her fictional James River estates for the novel. Other shots come from estates close by. An excellent guide to the James River plantation area and all the attractions of Richmond can be found at the end of this article in the Tourism Guide.

In the following excerpt from The Clouds Roll Away, Raleigh has to piece together the scattered clues of a case that might has well have exploded like a bomb. A mega-star rap producer has moved into the normally genteel and civilized culture of modern Richmond, Virginia, and the neighbors have hardly thrown out the welcome mat. A burning cross is only the opening shot in a deadly contest that continues to escalate with violence and retribution. But things are not always what they seem . . .

FROM THE CLOUDS ROLL AWAY:


Westover: Photo by Charles City County (built 1750)

Winter rode into Richmond on the chattering breath of the Atlantic. Each year the season blew itself into existence. The ancient elms crystallized and frost crocheted the birches into lace dollies. On this particular December morning, with a bright sun overhead, I drove out New Market Road past fields that glistened like crushed diamonds.

For this moment, my hometown looked cryogenically frozen, preserved for future generations to discover Richmond’s wide river, verdant soils, and the plantation lifestyle forged through generations—gone tragically, humanly awry.

But the reverie was shattered by two elephants. Carved from white granite, they stood on either side of a black asphalt driveway with a steel sign naming the property: Rapland.

The scene of the crime.

I turned down the asphalt driveway. It was a long drive, rolling over fenced fields where satiny horses were grazing, their breath quick clouds that evaporated in the sun. At the other end, an old plantation house faced the James River. The historic clapboards were painted polo white, the copper cupola green from exposure . . .
Photo by Sherwood Forest Plantation (built 1790, former home of President John Tyler)

I headed west from Rapland and just before Battlefield Park, turned down an oyster-shell drive. The fractured calciferous layers glowed like broken pearls and led to a plantation dating back to a 1662 land grant from King Charles II. The plantation prospered until its slaves were freed, until carpetbaggers and federal soldiers carried away everything that wasn’t nailed down. When the Depression hit, snakes slithered through the rotting pine floors and the French wallpaper hung like discarded bandages from the walls.
Photo by Berkeley Plantation (built 1726)

It took a Yankee to save the place. James Flynn drove south from New Jersey in 1948, bearing a self-made fortune in the commodities of necessity—sugar, corn, bootleg—and the curse of so many Irishmen, falling for underdogs. Flynn spent years restoring the grand house and eventually Bell Grove returned to the small coterie of historic plantations along the James River.

His granddaughter ran the place these days, and when I walked around to the back of the main house, Flynn Wellington was in the glass conservatory, scooping soil into gilded pots. The air was moist and tasted of trapped chlorophyll. To either side, wooden pallets displayed poinsettias with burgundy leaves lush as crushed velvet.

“Why, Raleigh, how nice to see you.” Flynn lifted both hands, her cotton gloves smothered with black soil. “I’d give you a hug but you’d be picking dirt off your clothes the rest of the day.”

Flynn and I had been classmates at St. Catherine’s School and were acquainted through her mother’s penultimate husband. There were five husbands in all. Number four was an attorney my father liked—there weren’t many—and on sweltering August afternoons, we would drive out to Bell Grove so the adults could sit on the wraparound porch drinking iced beverages while Flynn and I swam in the river.
Photo by North Bend Plantation (built 1801)

“I heard y’all moved to Oregon,” she said.

“Washington. It was only temporary.”

“I can’t imagine leaving Virginia.” She picked up the spade, folding the soil again. Her blonde hair bounced with the motion. “How is your mother?”

She pronounced it the Old Dominion way, muh-thah.

“Fine, thanks. Yours?”

“She moved to Florida with what’s-his-name. What can I do for you, Raleigh?”

“Last night somebody burned a cross at Rapland.”

“Please. ‘Rapland’ sounds like a theme park. You know very well the name of the plantation is Laurel.”

Yes, I knew. I knew all kinds of things. By junior high I could recite long passages of internecine gossip about families who traced their heritage to the House of Burgesses, but I only had one foot in that world. David Harmon married my mother when I was five years old. To this day, I couldn’t trace my paternal heritage back one generation to my birth father. Not that I needed to: David Harmon was every girl’s dream dad.

“The gentleman who owns Rapland thinks you’re trying to run him off his property. Is that true?”

“Are you implying something?”

“I’m not implying, Flynn. I’m asking flat out.”

“He’s ruining the place,” she said. “I don’t want him there. I’ve never said otherwise. I’ve been saying it since he moved in four years ago.”

The fine bones in her neck looked as brittle as glass rods. The pretty girl I once knew was lost to hard work. Several years ago, to keep up with expenses, Flynn and her husband had turned Belle Grove into a bed-and-breakfast.


“Flynn, there were people in the house. Children. The flames were burning ten feet from the door.”

She dropped the gardening tool, wiping the back of her wrists across her forehead. “It’s been awhile since you’ve been out this way, Raleigh, so let me explain it to you. My guests pay good money to stay here. They want a romantic retreat. They expect a visit with the historic past. We were doing fine until that rapper took over Laurel. Ever since, it’s been rap music blaring down-river, party boats up and down the water. How do you think that’s affected my business? Is this something I can call the FBI about?”

“That place could have burned down.”


“Good.”

“Excuse me?”

“Good,” she repeated. “Then maybe he’ll leave and somebody could rebuild Laurel. Somebody who will treat that beautiful property with the dignity it deserves.”

I leveled my gaze. “Flynn, I want you to answer truthfully. Did you have anything to do with burning that cross?”

--Excerpted from THE CLOUDS ROLL AWAY, Copyright © 2010 by Sibella Giorello. All rights reserved.


TOURISM GUIDE
Great mysteries always allow the reader to participate in solving the case. In The Clouds Roll Away, I kept discovering pieces of evidence that just didn’t add up—to me or Raleigh. Mystery writers often fall prey to easy clichés of the genre, but this case continued to be an intriguing challenge.

Another strategy of mystery writers is to simply hide the relevant facts until the very end, making the case impossible to solve by the reader. Sibella (what a pretty name—and with such a beautiful face to match!) was talented enough to write a case where the evidence offered leads that took the reader through a process of solving the mystery.

One thing I always look for in a novel is strong minor characters, the kind that only show up briefly but threaten to steal the show with their entertaining appearances in the story. This novel was filled with great minor characters like Raleigh’s demanding supervisor, Agent Phaup, and Annette, a feisty FBI lab technician. How’s this for a memorable introduction:

At the far end of the lab a young woman waited for me. She wore a white lab coat with faded jeans and wool socks with Birkenstock sandals.

“You must be Annette.” I extended my hand.

“No, I’m Nettie,” she said. “Don’t ever call me Annette.”

These types of characters keep the storyline fresh and entertaining. Aside from the great humor and strong mystery elements, be prepared for some gripping suspense and graphic crime scenes. Faint of heart beware.

The novel unfolds in the beautiful city and surrounding countryside of Richmond, a city steeped in the charm and elegance that has since faded from many older cities but continues to live vibrantly in this Southern abode. Many of the fictional plantations are based on real ones that continue to offer year-round tours today, such as Shirley Plantation and others nearby (there are many more to visit besides the ones photographed in this feature; just visit the links below to read about all of them and for more pictures). Richmond landmarks, such as Monument Avenue and St. John’s Church (where Patrick Henry delivered his famous “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech) also offer real settings for the fictional action in the city.

However, The Clouds Roll Away offers only a taste of what Richmond and Virginia have to offer tourists. To learn more, please visit the links in the Tourism Guide below. Whether you’re looking for a romantic bed-and-breakfast getaway or a family-fun trip with the kids, you will not be disappointed by Virginia. My first literary tourism trip was on a family vacation when I was twelve. I read a historic novel about Williamsburg while visiting the actual town, and it was an experience I will always treasure.

One thing is for certain, however: you don’t have to be a history buff like me to enjoy a trip to Virginia. When the state motto is “Virginia Is For Lovers,” how can you go wrong? If you don’t believe me, just check out their state tourism website and the wide range of attractions. The web links below provide all the necessary travel information, so buy the book and then book your trip! And if you go, let us know here how you enjoyed the novel and the trip.


Special Note: The Clouds Roll Away is the third installment in the Raleigh Harmon series. Although it’s not necessary to read the series in order, I highly recommend that you start with the first breakout novel, The Stones Cry Out, also set in Richmond. If you’re like me, you’ll get very curious about all the references to the first two books in The Clouds Roll Away. I was just anxious to check out Richmond in literature as fast as possible, but now I wish I had started at the beginning.

Ironically, when my review copy of The Clouds Roll Away first arrived, a passing storm had just knocked out my power. Normally, this would have been a frustrating situation, but as I started to read the book by candlelight, I immediately fell in love with the historic estates, which had all been built in an era long before power lines lit these elegant homes. That connection enriched the experience of reading this novel, which Sibella described as her "Love letter to Richmond."

A Special Thanks
I was very excited when Sibella arranged for her friend Dean Hoffmeyer from the Richmond Times-Dispatch to send over some of his beautiful photographs of the Richmond area for this feature. They are quite dazzling, aren't they? I knew he might say no to me, but he couldn't say no to Sibella! Dean, like Sibella, has also been nominated for a Pulitzer. This was a special treat for me, and I am very greatful, Dean. And thank you to Charles City County for sending over the wonderful shots of the historic James River Plantations!


Upcoming/Current press for this feature:
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Richmond Times-Dispatch announced this feature in their book notes section in August.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/entertainment/2010/aug/15/bvirg15-ar-422309/

Virginia Public Radio
Public radio fans are the perfect group for literary tourism. Radio IQ in Virgina interviewed me about this feature recently. I will post the interview below when it airs.

Montgomery Advertiser
The Montgomery Advertiser is the metro newspaper for the Montgomery region. Teri Greene did a great feature on literary tourism and the SELTI project with several articles.

My interview with Sibella: http://sibellagiorello.blogspot.com/2010/08/oh-readers-places-you-will-go.html

Tourism Links

Sibello Giorello (learn about the author, order the books)
http://www.sibellagiorello.com/

Shirley Plantation (from the novel)
http://www.shirleyplantation.com/

Charles City County Attractions (the James River Estates, includes main visitor center)
http://www.charlescity.org/attractions.shtml

National Park Service: James River Plantation Itinerary
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/jamesriver/

Agecroft Hall (built 500 years ago in Tudor England and physically moved to Richmond)
http://www.agecrofthall.com/index.htm

Richmond Visitors Bureau
http://www.richmondva.org/Plan/Visitor-Center

Official Virginia tourism website (includes downloadable travel guide)
http://www.virginia.org/

Thomas Nelson (publisher since 1798; how appropriate!)
http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/

Join the Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative on Facebook for email updates
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=289783765813
Please also take a moment to register as a Follower of this blog to get easy updates in the future. Click the Follow button in the top left.

** In case you’re wondering what “penultimate” means: second to last (in this case, a reference to husbands). If you’re like me, you had to learn that one in context.

For a fun mystery-related blog, visit Kaye Barley's Meanderings and Muses, where she interviews popular novelists, including Pat Conroy!
http://meanderingsandmuses.blogspot.com/

Today's Tom Sawyer: Camping Under an Alabama Moon

Excerpt From: Alabama Moon by Watt Key, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Tourism Attraction: Talladega National Forest
Location: West Alabama
Photos: Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service

(Special Note on Photos: All of the photos in this feature, except the one from Nantahala, are from the National Forests of Alabama. The photos show the wide diversity of real attractions and activities for outdoor tourists in Alabama's National Forests. Click on any photo to enlarge.)


One of my fondest memories of reading as a boy is of a rainy day at my grandmother's house when I opened up The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for the first time. There wasn’t much to do that day, but she did have a small shelf of some literary classics.

Not all of them made a strong impression. Let’s face it: Little Women, and even Little Men, didn’t necessarily inspire my imagination as an eight year-old boy. But finding my way through a cave while being chased by a dangerous bad guy? Or riding down the mighty Mississippi River on a raft with no parents to cut off my fun by announcing bedtime? Now that was inspiring!

Imagine my surprise in discovering that many new classic children’s characters in literature are still being born into books of the twenty-first century. The fictional Moon Blake is just such a character in Watt Key’s debut novel Alabama Moon. Moon is just ten years old, but he has already learned to easily survive alone in the wilderness of Alabama's Talladega National Forest.

However, when his radical isolationist father dies, Moon has a great deal more trouble finding his way through civilization when he walks out of the wilderness for the first time. It doesn’t take long before Moon is captured and sent to a state boys’ home. (Movie producers also didn't take long to snap the story up and adapt it to film; watch the movie trailer by following the link in the Tourism Guide below).

Moon makes a daring escape, and his new friends are eager to escape their prison with him, although one friend is not so convinced of Moon’s self-described survival skills . . .

FROM ALABAMA MOON:
Towards late afternoon we had traveled a few miles across hills and down several valleys and through their creeks. I came to the top of a ridge and knelt to examine a track. I’d only seen one such track ever before, but there was no mistaking it. Kit and Hal caught up to me and stood over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Kit asked.

“It’s a puma track,” I said. “Pap told me that a puma needs thirty square miles of territory with no sign of people.”

“That means we’re far away from civilization?” Kit asked.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Great,” Hal said. “In the middle of nowhere with a mountain lion.”

“It won’t hurt us. Pap said I was too big.”

“That boy in Old Yeller was about your size,” Hal said.

“That’s just a made-up story. Pap knew about animals.”

“All right, you fight it then,” Hal said. “With that knife of yours.”

Kit and I smiled at each other and started down the other side of the ridge. Just before the sun fell below the forest canopy, we stopped and sat on a log to rest. I looked around and studied the trees.

“This is a good place,” I said. “We’ll camp here.”

“Finally!” Hal said. “What’s for supper?”

“Snake and dressin’.”

Hal looked at me. “Snake!”

“Snakes are good,” I said. “There may be some out since it was so warm today. I’ll make some pine-needle tea to go with it.”

Hal spit at the ground. “I ain’t eatin’ any damn snake. It was bad enough eatin’ fish out of your old sock.”

“I’ll eat some,” Kit said.

“Come on,” I said to Kit. “You can help me. Hal, there’s a white oak tree over there. You collect some acorns from under it while we’re gone.”

“More acorns . . . What about real meat?” Hal asked.

“We’re gonna get some soon,” I said. “We’ll have all the good food we need once I rig some weapons.”

Hal rolled his eyes and sighed. He got up and dragged his feet in the direction of the oak tree with the dogs following. Kit and I set out through an open stand of old pine trees. After a while, I found what I was looking for. I showed Kit a longleaf pine filled with holes starting about fifty feet from the ground. From each one of the holes sap ran down the tree, making it look like a giant candlestick.

“Those holes were made by a red-cockaded woodpecker,” I said, pointing at the top of the tree. “Sometimes, there’ll be a snake climbin’ up to get the woodpeckers. He’ll get to those sap runs, and they’ll make him dizzy. He’ll fall to the ground. If you catch him after he falls, he’ll usually be stunned. You can just pick him up by the tail and knock him against a tree.”

“I don’t see any snakes,” Kit said.

“Poke around in the grass and we might find one. Be a corn snake or a rat snake prob’ly.”

After some kicking around, I found a black rat snake. I grabbed it by the tail and knocked it against a tree. Kit wanted to carry it, so I gave it to him, and he dragged it back with us.

Hal was sleeping against a log when we returned. He opened his eyes and winced at the snake. Kit swung it towards him, and Hal rolled over and shouted, “Hey!”

Kit and I began to laugh. “It’s just a black rat snake,” Kit said confidently.

Hal held up his fist and shook it at us with wide eyes. “I’ll trade a black eye for a black snake! You keep that thing away from me.”

I showed Kit how to make a slit down the belly and around the neck and peel the skin back like a sock. Afterwards, we removed the head and intestine and stuffed the stomach cavity with a paste made from white oak acorns, cattail roots, and thistle.

I found a piece of dead wood nearby and dropped it in front of Kit. “You remember how I started that fire?”

Kit nodded and took the bow drill from me.

“I need a bath,” Hal complained.

“Sweat cleans as good as swimmin’,” I said.

He looked at me and didn’t say anything.

The sun set and the birds became quiet as the forest grew dark. I left Kit and Hal and the dogs and walked downhill to look for a creek. I hadn’t gone far when I found one of the giant loblolly pines leaning over so I could walk up its trunk and stand high above the ground, which sloped away beneath me. I could hear water down below and the tops of the trees swishing to the breeze. I imagined that I would be able to see a long way with daylight.

When I returned, Kit was still drilling on the wood and faint curls of smoke drifted up from the bowl. I had brought some juniper bark back with me, and I shredded it and laid it in the bowl. I blew on it gently, and a tiny flame appeared.

“I found a creek down there,” I said. “We’ll call it Kit Creek. Got to have names for things.”

Kit smiled and I could tell that he liked having a creek named after him. We cooked the snake and dressing on a spit and ate it like sausage. Kit claimed that his was better than anything he’d ever had at Pinson. Hal didn’t eat his share. He put his back to us and chewed on some of the leftover cattails.

After supper, I suggested we go drink from Kit Creek. Hal said he would go later, so Kit and I set out alone. I showed him the tree I found and we walked up into it.

“This is where we’ll live for a while,” I told him.

“Up here?”

I nodded. “And underneath. We’ll make a lookout up here and build our sleepin’ room down below. We’ll start tomorrow. We’ve got water below and plenty of forest to the east. Hardwood down below and pine forests up top. That’ll give us all kinds of plants to eat.”

Kit looked around like he was imagining us there. “I’ll bet you can see a long ways from here with daylight,” he said.

I nodded. “That’s what I was thinkin’. We’ll be able to tell better tomorrow mornin’.”

“And you can whip up on anybody who climbs this tree trunk.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Somebody comin’ up here’s gonna get a butt-whippin’.”

Kit became excited and laughed.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get some water.”

--Excerpted from ALABAMA MOON, Copyright © 2006 by Albert Watkins Key, Jr. All Rights Reserved

TOURISM GUIDE:
After reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as a boy, I was just dying to go explore caves and raft down rivers to experience the adventures for real. I can easily imagine a boy today reading Alabama Moon and wanting to go camping in the Talladega National Forest. In fact, the Talladega National Forest offers camping venues from primitive to lodge-style comfort. Alabama's National Forests offer a huge range of outdoor activities and sports. Please visit the web links below to learn more about how your son or daughter can go have a real adventure in the beautiful National Forests of Alabama.

I wouldn’t suggest that you let them and their friends try it alone. A great place to start is Payne Lake, where the fictional characters started their trek into the forest.

For those who love to read, there is no better place to connect with literature than in the peace and quiet of a National Forest, where civilization is literally miles away. Also, as cool as it is that new technological innovations like the Wii actually get kids to move their arms and legs as well as their thumbs, no game system can compare to the rich, healthy experience of camping in the great outdoors. If your kids would rather sit in front of a Nintendo or Playstation than go outside, try this novel out on them. Chances are, they might beg you to take them camping afterwards.

I first started exploring literary tourism for young adults with a profile and excerpt of Kerry Madden’s Maggie Valley series based in North Carolina. Just as Kerry’s fictional character of Livy Two could easily have been friends with Scout Finch, Moon Blake would have gotten along great with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. However, I want to emphasize that these new characters are not merely remakes of classic literary characters; they both have unique personalities, new challenges to face, and timely stories to tell. Check out Kerry’s feature, “Vampires vs. Pancakes,” below:
http://southeasternliterarytourisminitiative.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

Classic literature for young adults should never be dry. Alabama Moon offers mud riding, deer hunting, fishing, living in the wilderness—and escaping from a prison. Watt's amazing storytelling skills wrap all these up within classic themes, which is quite a literary feat.

Another thing that impressed me in Alabama Moon was the way that Watt did not idealize the wilderness way of life. Neither did he cast civilization into an evil thing. Despite the constant humor in the story, all of the real-life dangers and discomforts of the wild were presented in a balanced way against the pros and cons of civilized life. Moon experiences powerful, life-changing struggles when he steps out into the real world for the first time.

You might expect that a novel like this would teach readers not to take modern conveniences in our life for granted. However, you might be surprised that the real focus of this novel is to teach us not to take the people in our lives for granted.

Watt Key’s next novel, Dirt Road Home, will be released this July. I am eager to follow Hal’s life when he is recaptured and sent to a juvenile boys’ home. I can only imagine where Hal is going next—after escaping, perhaps?

FROM THE AUTHOR, WATT KEY:
“In order to write a book like Alabama Moon, I had to locate a large area of contiguous wilderness. These days it’s hard to find this type of place outside of a National Forest. I chose the Talladega National Forest mostly because it was closest to my home. The first time I drove into it, I was not expecting to do more than a little research. However, I should have known that the moment I drove onto park lands I would feel that refreshing lung full of air that I’ve breathed in at Yellowstone, Yosemite, Custer, Badlands, Wind Rivers, and all the other National Parks that I’ve vacationed to.”

Watt is not the only novelist inspired by the majestic beauty of our National Forests. The first feature I published on a national forest was Sallie Bissell’s suspense series set in the Nantahala National Forest of North Carolina. The beautiful shots of the mountains there are incredible. Check out the Nantahala feature here: http://southeasternliterarytourisminitiative.blogspot.com/2010/03/hiking-nantahala-mountain-trail.html


Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina: Photo by Kevin Childress


Go to the U.S. Forest Service link below to learn more, such as the brochure “100 Places to Visit in the National Forests of Alabama.” Alabama’s National Forests provide a wide range of activities all across the state, including everything from fishing, hiking, horseback riding, swimming, boating, camping, mountain biking, and hunting, to name just a few. The U.S. Forest Service also has maps of each of Alabama’s National Forests available for order to better plan your trip. Each National Forest has a District Ranger Office for more local information, available at the U.S. Forest Service website below.

TOURISM LINKS:
Watt Key’s website (order the books) and read his great inspiration for Alabama Moon
http://www.wattkey.com/

Talladega National Forest (Oakmulgee Division) U.S. Forest Service
http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/alabama/recreation/rec_opportunities.shtml#Oakmulgee
Note: the division based in the book is in the western part of Alabama

U.S. Forest Service: Alabama
http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/alabama/

U.S. National Forest Campground Guide
This couple has researched all the National Forest camping sites in the country and offer ebooks for order on their website. Just go the Bookstore when you log on. The Talladega National Forest is included in the Southern book.
http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/southern/tall.htm

Learn about everything Alabama has to offer tourists at the state’s official tourism site
http://www.800alabama.com/

Let's Move Outside: learn more about how to find nearby forests and parks in your area
http://www.letsmove.gov/letsmoveoutside.php

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (learn about other great books by the publisher of Alabama Moon)
http://us.macmillan.com/FSG.aspx

Join SELTI on Facebook and invite others to join:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=289783765813

Check out more of Kevin Childress' photography at his website:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/kevinchildress

I’ve often been reading a novel and thought to myself: this would make a great movie! Fortunately, this time I was vindicated; check out Alabama Moon the movie:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Alabama-Moon/189785646899

And watch the trailer with John Goodman here: http://www.alabamamoonthemovie.net/en/home.php

From Tiaras to Tourists: "Book" Your Adventure!

Photos: The Pulpwood Queens Book Club
Attraction: Beauty and the Book Hair Salon
Location: Jefferson, Texas

Connections can lead to very interesting places. Recently, one of the writers I profiled on SELTI, Patricia Neely-Dorsey, sent me a message about a local chapter of a large book club that was coming to see her in Tupelo, Mississippi. The club is called the Pulpwood Queens, and one of the local chapters from Alabama is called Heart of Dixie. The “Queen” of the Heart of Dixie chapter, Olivia Wright, loved Patricia’s book Reflections of a Mississippi Magnolia ( http://patricianeelydorsey.webs.com/ ). In fact, Olivia loved the book so much that she wanted to come meet Patricia in person—in Tupelo—to set up a tour of Tupelo with Patricia for the whole chapter.

Patricia sent me the links to the larger book club also, run by Kathy L. Patrick (http://www.pulpwoodqueen.com// ). Kathy started the club about ten years ago as the only book club/hair salon, and it caught on fast. Really fast. The national media covered the grand opening, and Kathy has since been on Oprah, to name just one of the many media venues covering the amazing growth of the Pulpwood Queens. Each chapter wears tiaras at official meetings, and Kathy puts out a list of good books to read every month and discuss. There are now 306 chapters (ironic for a book club) nationwide. There are also members and chapters in ten foreign countries.

The actual hair salon, which often has famous writers as clients, is aptly named Beauty and the Book. Check it out here: http://www.beautyandthebook.com/dthebook.com/. Kathy also launched her salon with a book that covers not only how she selects books for her monthly list but also how reading has impacted her entire life in such a positive way. Learn more about her book The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life at: http://www.beautyandthebook.com/kathybook.html.


The first thing I read when visiting the Pulpwood Queens blog were several wonderful articles by Kathy about her family trip to Monroeville, Alabama, to visit the place that inspired Harper Lee’s fictional town of Maycomb in the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird. These articles were especially interesting to me because I recently profiled a biography titled Up Close: Harper Lee by Kerry Madden. http://southeasternliterarytourisminitiative.blogspot.com/2010/03/hollywood-visits-monroeville-alabama.html The article centered on the tourism aspect of Monroeville through the excerpt, links, and photos. Kathy’s articles did the same in a wonderfully fun way. By the way, that's the actress who played Scout in the classic film signing a book above! And she's sitting in the courthouse that Hollywood movie producers replicated for the film. She's just one of the many interesting people Kathy met on her tour of Monroeville.

Kathy’s Pulpwood Queens hold many author events throughout the year. Now, the phrase “author events” is an understatement. A Pulpwood Queens event is more like a large party, complete with bands, entertainment, and great food. Her annual Girlfriend Weekend gathering in Jefferson, Texas, has drawn 1,000 visitors and 35 renowned authors, including Fannie Flagg, Pat Conroy, and Rick Bragg. Kathy also does a Christian and Inspirational book festival called Books Alive the second weekend in November. This year’s keynote speaker there will be Sam Bracken. http://www.myorangeduffelbag.com/

One thousand is a magic number. Why? Because that’s the size of a large convention—the kind that cities and states around the country are eager to attract these days. Most cities and states spend millions of dollars a year together in advertising targeted at tourism. Those television commercials, although beautiful, only last for thirty seconds and usually interrupt someone’s favorite show. Some people even tape over such commercials on their DVRs. However, tourism books are the show, and people devote their entire attention to them for hours at a time. How much is that worth in advertising, I wonder?

If I were a tourism official, I would hire literary agents to encourage their clients to write tourism novels. Novelists already write entertaining stories that are often based on real places. Suppose a novel included the real tourism information at the end, so that curious readers could learn more? And suppose that the novel were on a monthly book club list read by thousands of people at the same time? Then suppose that same book club held a large event where the thousands of fans could tour the real settings together and meet the author. Not only could books be signed, but hotel rooms could be booked at group rates, local restaurants could be filled with patrons, and local retail stores could be packed with new customers.

And it wouldn’t have to all be based on a classic novel; the book could be a contemporary novel set in any state in any tourism attraction. The South is filled with incredible settings that could inspire many authors. I’ve profiled a few such books on this site, although they did not include the tourism information in the actual books. Maybe someday soon, “booking a tour” will have a whole new meaning.

Don’t miss the upcoming feature from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated team of novelist Sibella Giorello and photojournalist Dean Hoffmeyer. The feature will offer an excerpt from Sibella’s novel the clouds roll away, set in modern Richmond, Virginia. Dean will provide photographs of some of the charming tourism attractions in the novel. Until then, why not pull out an old classic like To Kill A Mockingbird? Then, go see the real settings for yourself with other literary tourists. Please visit the archives in Kathy's blog to learn more about what Monroeville has to offer. Step into the story!