A Researcher at Heart

So we did great work together at USM -- what a wonderful day. In the morning, 350 students from surrounding areas: Gulfport, Macomb, Miselle, Hattiesburg, and more. How gratifying to see the response to this first invitation from the de Grummond Collection folks and the University to the public schools to come meet an author.

Students ranged from third through seventh grade. Each group had read an age-appropriate Deborah Wiles book. They knew their characters! They knew the stories. And I was so pleased to make their acquaintance. Thank you, teachers, for preparing your students, and thank you, students, for your glowing presence!

We had a good hour together, after which (and after a fun lunchtime full of good food), I spent two hours in the McCain Library and Archive, reading through letters, diaries, notes, memos, of Freedom Summer workers in 1964 Hattiesburg and Holly Springs. I read through ledger books and letters, recipes and photographs... I was totally blown over to hold these original items in my hands. I have never done official research in a primary source archive, so I depended on archivists Diane Ross and Danielle Bishop to see me through. And they did -- what knowledgeable, friendly, helpful folks.

My cart was just inside the door when I arrived at the Cleanth Brooks Reading Room just outside the archives. I surrendered my coat and bags and took my laptop and notebook and a pen to the table I'd selected by the windows. Here's the sign that was on my cart. It's official: I'm an official researcher.

Here's Diane with my research, all together on a cart, in boxes, pulled from the archive, and waiting for me to sit down, one box at a time, and go through these treasures.

Primary sources! If I had had access to this sort of archive as a kid in school trying to learn about primary and secondary sources, I would have "gotten it" immediately. What a great field trip this would be for kids who are learning about history and how we gather it, catalog it, care for it. It's amazing to sit down with one of these boxes, open it, pull out Folder 1, and see, right in front of you, the actual handout that was given to students on campuses across the country about the Freedom Summer Initiative, the flyer that brought students to meetings on campus, that lead them to sign up for training, and to be sent to Mississippi to work for the summer. In my book FREEDOM SUMMER, I write about 1964 Mississippi, about the year the pool was closed so it wouldn't be integrated after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. I write about my memories. Now I have more stories of 1964 to share as I write the first book in a trilogy of novels about the 1960s for young readers.

Here's Danielle, patiently watching me put one box at a time back so I can take another to my table.

I barely got started on this research -- I will be back. My Sixties Trilogy will be so much richer for my having spent time with real stories of real people doing real work in 1960s Mississippi.

I skipped dinner in favor of research (I was always this way) and had to rush to be at the auditorium in time to give my speech to the honors forum.

Here are David Davies, Dean of the Honors College at USM and Ellen Ruffin, Curator of the de Grummond Collection, and moi in the middle. We are celebrating after my speech -- a successful first collaboration between the Honors College and the de Grummond Collection, and the first time a children's book author has spoken at the honors forum. I was honored to be asked and delighted to be there. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made this day possible.

As readers know, I tend to leave things in my wake on my travels. I've been mostly on the road since September 6. But now -- I'm home. Still, I left my phone charger in the hotel room in Hattiesburg. It's the last thing I'll leave somewhere this year, as my travels are over. Over! The tour time is officially over, and I can't believe I managed to chronicle it. I can't believe I actually did all the things I did, met all the wonderful people I met, gained all the weight I gained, and learned all the things I learned -- I'll need to process for a while. Folks on the road took great good care of me -- I can scroll down the pages of this blog and remember them all, all those stories...

I woke up yesterday in Hattiesburg, however, with a scratchy, growly voice, and aches all over. Big aches. I'm still coughing. I'm wondering if my body held on for Dec. 5, when it knew I would be Done. I got up and drove to New Orleans yesterday. Hugged Coleen goodbye. She was dealing with the delivery of a ten-foot Christmas tree AND she was heating me soup! I took a taxi to the airport. Flew home to Atlanta. And there was Jim. There was my husband. Smiling. Hugging me home. It was perfect.

I'm submerging for a few days. Sleeeeeeeeep, Deb. It's okay. Your work out there is done. It was good work. And now is the time for dreaming.

Compassion, Kindness, Willingness

This is my daughter Hannah, working in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans in March 2006. I could show you photos from each trip she's made, photos she has taken on the same spot to show perspective, but instead I'll just mention that Louisiana and Mississippi still need help. Driving north from New Orleans to Hattiesburg, Mississippi yesterday, I saw the FEMA trailers and the blue tarps that I saw in July, that I saw a year-and-a-half ago, and the view from the highway hasn't changed all that much. There are still abandoned homes and apartment complexes whose window-eyes gaze back at me, open and empty. Parking lots are empty. The roller-coaster at Six Flags lists toward the highway and looks like a Tinkertoy left out in the rain. If you've been following this blog, you'll remember Billy Sothern's reading of DOWN IN NEW ORLEANS, on Thacker Mountain Radio from Oxford, Mississippi. I highly recommend his book for a look at what happened in New Orleans in 2005.

New Orleans is a city of such visual -- and visceral -- opposites. Coleen and I had dinner at Galatoires on Sunday afternoon, at her insistence. It was as magnificent as she crowed it would be. "Real New Orleans people eat here," she said, and true enough, I saw lots of Old New Orleans as the restaurant filled up with folks with means, coming to dinner.

Then I drove out of town the next morning, passing these scenes off Esplanade, just outside the French Quarter.

When I arrived in New Orleans on Saturday evening, the sun was setting and we drove past the Superdome.... such memories it brought back, such stories are held now, in that place, stories that have nothing to do with football games. If you haven't seen the Spike Lee documentary about Katrina and New Orleans, do rent it and watch it. There are still so many stories to be told.
Coleen and I were at the main post office on Monday morning, where there is a huge display of photographs and write-ups, as Comfort would call them, of those lost in Katrina. These tributes were hand-written or typed -- I could have stood there all day and read them. Wish I'd had my camera with me -- it was a work of art, this wall of tributes.

I did stop at the St. Louis Cemetery (#3) yesterday, on my way out of town, to pay a tribute of my own.

I'm working in Mississippi today, all day long, with kids, teachers, parents, friends. Folks in Mississippi never miss an opportunity to tell me that they were hit just as hard by Katrina, even though they don't always get the same press. It's true, they were. Driving up highway 59 into Mississippi -- well away from the coast -- it still amazes me to see the forest on either side of the highway stripped of its leaves. Sticks -- that's what's left of the trees. They are snapped in half and stand there, at attention, like a ragged popsicle-stick forest, on either side of the interstate.

I know we're making progress in Katrina-ravaged places. It still seems like it's not enough. Conversely (those opposites), I am so touched by the countless stories I've heard about people's generosity... their kindness, compassion, and willingness to help.

So I'm back in Mississippi, back in the deep south, the land of beautiful and terrible contradictions. The good folks at the University of Southern Mississippi have invited me here to tell my stories. Ellen Ruffin (who became my Cousin Ellen as we worked together at the Mississippi Library Convention last year, as we worked together.... well, lots of times)... Cousin Ellen is the curator of the Lena Y. de Grummond Children's Literature Collection here at USM. I'm excited to say that my papers will soon be housed here -- all those drafts of RUBY LAVENDER, EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS, FREEDOM SUMMER, ONE WIDE SKY and more... correspondence with editors, rough drafts of maps and other materials I used to create the books -- it's an honor to know that I'll be in such good company --

Think Ezra Jack Keats, H.A and Margret Rey (Curious George!), and Kate Greenaway, just for starters. I have known about and loved this collection for many years -- my love affair started long before I had a book published. I knew there were treasures here.

I've also known for years about the civil-rights-movement treasures carefully collected and stored at the McCain Library at USM. I've got two hours of research time scheduled here this afternoon -- be still my heart! Oral histories, photographs, artifacts... this is a perfect way to end my touring days this year and jump-start the writing of the Sixties trilogy, which has been waiting for me patiently, for months.

Or maybe the perfect ending to those touring days is the speech I give tonight to the Honors Forum and anyone else who cares to attend. I'm going to talk about being from the deep south and what that means to me in all its conflicting glory.

I'm going to talk about my young adulthood and what a shocker of a swamp I found myself in at 18, right here in these Mississippi stomping grounds, when I discovered I was about to become a young mother in the deep south -- it was 1971 and becoming a young mother without being a married woman was a disgrace. Boy did I feel it.

But -- just like those opposites that Uncle Edisto talks about in LITTLE BIRD -- there was beauty in that time as well. I'm going to talk about my journey from Jones County Junior College in nearby Ellisville, Mississippi, how I had to by-pass college at Southern when I would have dearly loved to have been able to get an education there -- or anywhere -- and how I ultimately found ways to care for myself... and my family.

People helped me. Compassion, Kindness, Willingness -- they are powerful forces for change. Powerful forces for good.

Sunday Morning in New Orleans

I'm sitting at Community Coffee in a comfortable, overstuffed chair with a non-fat latte, on the corner of St. Philip and Royal, in the French Quarter. I'm staying with Coleen Salley, Friend Exemplary and Storyteller Extraordinaire. We were supposed to start an oral history of Coleen's life. We'll do some of that.



But first we've got to make some headway on these umpteen boxes of Christmas decorations.

Coleen's home is on the French Quarter House Tour this Christmas. She's going to have seven trees up for folks to peruse. Seven!

The courtyard below is where folks have gathered whenever ALA or IRA is in New Orleans. Coleen hosts a party. Several parties. This is her "back yard" or patio... courtyard.



Last night we went to Irene's for supper. "Honey, this is Queen Coleen," announced Coleen when she called to see if we could have a table for two. "Come now? That's great! We'll be right over." We had a two-and-a-half-hour dinner at Irene's, where the entire staff made over Coleen... and who wouldn't? She's a New Orleans Goddess in every way.

We're having fun. It's gorgeous here. Lots to tell you about New Orleans, about the week at Canterbury Woods -- I'll post photos soon -- and about the trip to Hattiesburg, Mississippi tomorrow, where I'll be speaking at the University of Southern Mississippi Honors Forum on Tuesday evening.

But first -- I've got some Christmas trees to decorate.

Edited to add some photos and the breaking news below.

We climbed into Coleen's Honda and got lost trying to find Ralph's, a nursery near the river and the railroad tracks. Coleen flagged down this bicyclist. "Honey, can you tell us where to find Ralph's Nursery?" The bicyclist frowned and said, "You mean Harold's?" "YES, Honey, that's it!" The man waved -- "Follow me!"... and we did.


The friendly folks at Ralph's aka Harold's gave us the greens we needed to decorate the creches. This is the stuff of oral history, whether we're gathering it seriously or not. We're certainly living it. Back to work!

Heading for NYC

This is not my work in progress. It's a page from Walt Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS. I've been talking about LEAVES OF GRASS in schools this fall, as it's a big part of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. I've been extolling the virtures of revision. Now it's time to mush around in getting that first draft down -- how do we figure out what makes writing good? I'm off to NCTE to share some thoughts, and to be educated.

I'm enjoying my coffee, the quiet, and the cats early this morning. I'm almost packed. New York in November -- the tree won't be ready in Rockefeller Plaza, but I'm going to start celebrating the holidays -- Thanksgiving, anyway. It's time to be among my peeps at The National Council of Teachers of English annual convention.

I'm looking forward to some quality time with writer, editor, and teacher friends, looking forward to the conversations, the ideas, the inspirations. I love NCTE. It's where you'll find some of the most dedicated, passionate teachers from across the country who come together to share what they're discovering, and to learn what they want to know. They return to their classrooms recharged, and they send me back to the page ready to write. What a great kickoff for lucky me, as I plunge headlong into the new novel, but not before I spend one more week in schools, teaching personal narrative writing, in the D.C. area right after Thanksgiving. NCTE is just what I need right now.

I'll be caught in a whirlwind of various dinners and lunches and breakfasts and coffees -- ha! another forty pounds! (not!) -- but it's all good, all good work, and here's where we can see one another for sure:

Friday, Nov. 16 (today):

4pm: I'll be signing stock at Books of Wonder, 18 W. 18th St. New York, NY. This isn't an official signing, it's really an opportunity to meet the fine folks at Books of Wonder, and I'm really looking forward to this. If you wander past the store, stop in and say hey!

Saturday, Nov. 17:

9:15 - 10:15am -- I'm signing at the Harcourt Booth (#336) at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, 655 West 34th Street (at 11th Avenue) Hall C, Level 1.

11:00am - 12:15 -- Speaking on program: "Learning to Read Like a Writer" at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, Olmstead Room, 2nd Floor. We're going to be talking about the teaching of writing in the elementary through high school classroom. I'm speaking with the wonderful Sarah Ellis, the fabulous Claudia Sharpe, and working again with Nancy Roser and Miriam Martinez from the University of Texas -- these women are phenomenal educators and great good friends -- do come bask in their presence, as will I. My segment of the program is entitled "Creating the Writing Toolbox."

Sunday, Nov. 18:

7:30 - 9:45am -- The Children's Literature Assembly Breakfast. Speaker is Allen Say, whose work I have admired for years -- can't wait to hear him speak. Can't wait to greet good friends. Can't wait for good coffee at that hour on a Sunday morning!

Jim and I are hoping for good jazz (we've got tickets to see Mulgrew Miller late tonight) and good weather and maybe a trip to Brooklyn. We've never been to Brooklyn and friends are saying we're missing out. So we shall see! I'll bring my camera. Stay tuned.

Happy Trails -- see you in NYC.

Catching Up

First of all, thanks so much for your mail. My email inbox overfloweth... thanks for the votes of confidence about this blog, about continuing it, and thanks for all the kind words about all kinds of things. I wish I were better at responding to every note. I have taken to saying that I correspond with my heart. I do. Hope you can feel it.

I want to catch you up on many things, but before I do, I want to give a shout-out to my friends in Southern California, who are battling fires everywhere. I was just in Southern California on tour and saw how beautiful was that land -- scroll down to see some photos. Now I'm concerned about my Harcourt friends, my Writers House friends, and my bookseller, teacher, student, reader, and librarian friends... heck, I'm concerned about everyone in Southern California. I'm sending hope, strength, and love.

This week I'm teaching (and learning) personal narrative writing -- to 4th-graders and their teachers -- in the Highland Park area of Dallas, in public schools. Here's an article by Jonathan Kozol that echoes so much about what I believe and teach... Kozol gives the Opening Gala speech on Thursday, November 15 at NCTE in NYC. Oh, how I'd love to hear him speak. I am working at NCTE, but I don't arrive until Friday. Maybe I'll see some of you on Saturday... (Kathleen?).

Peg Bracken died today. She wrote the I HATE TO COOK BOOK in 1960, when I was 7 years old. My mother was nothing like Peg Bracken, who was three years ahead of the curve started by Betty Friedan when she wrote THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE. My mother was not impressed by Betty Friedan or those who came along with her, but I remember reading Peg Bracken's book as a young mother in 1975 and laughing at her way of debunking the '50s ideal of womanhood:

Start cooking those noodles, first dropping a bouillon cube into the noodle water. Brown the garlic, onion and crumbled beef in the oil. Add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink.

I also loved at that time Phyllis Theroux, Patricia Leimbach, Erma Bombeck and Jean Kerr, all of whom idealized living at home with children and loving the pitfalls of motherhood. I aspired to that life -- longed for it. I especially loved Kerr's PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES. She made me laugh. I had never heard of Joan Didion or Ellen Goodman, but I would know them soon enough, and I would be heavily influenced by them as well.

But at the time, it was 1975, I was only 22-years-old and I already had two kids, was working full time as a single parent, and believed -- still! -- in the romantic notion of being able to stay home and be a full-time mom (was also influenced by Betty MacDonald's THE EGG AND I -- she of the MRS. PIGGLE-WIGGLE FAME!) and be totally fulfilled by this herculean calling, was convinced it was the only life I wanted, at 22... and didn't yet know that I would be granted this life only at a great cost... but more on this later -- because I also want to say that, that life, once I got it, was also so very satisfying to me.

I admire those women who, in a time in which many women believed they needed to follow the status quo of being "only good housewives" and no more, told us that there was depth and breadth to that choice, and that there was also depth and breadth and meaning in incorporating and moving beyond that choice.

Judy Blume was one of those pioneers. How exciting that she declares herself re-energized at age 70 and is publishing new work! I hope to be publishing good work at age 70. I came late to the idea that I could be a good mother and good writer, both.

I don't think I told you that I got sick at Southern Festival of Books. (Here's part of the group that came to hear me read on Saturday, Oct. 13 -- I was thrilled to see baseball players!) It was a great festival, as always, and I got to present this year in the Old Senate Chambers at the War Memorial Plaza, which was a great venue full of character.

Here are some folks from Vanderbilt University in my session... I was so pleased to see them! I have a special place in my heart for Vanderbilt. They know how to admit it when they've been short-sighted. They expelled one of their students, James Lawson, in 1960 -- he was teaching peaceful, non-violent resistance techniques to Diane Nash, James Bevel and more, he was advocating the integration of lunch counters and more -- and came back to right that wrong. Lawson became a minister, a lightening rod, and a peacemaker for civil rights, and he was instrumentally important in keeping the peace during the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968. Lawson is one of my heroes, and a hero of Vanderbilt's as well... they recently hosted James Lawson as a visiting professor -- more of one of my heroes later. He is one of the peaceful revolutionaries who raised his voice -- and continues to raise his voice -- in a time of great change.

My host at Southern Festival was Gail Vinett, who works for Ingram Book Distributors. Gail and I met at Southern Festival 2 years ago and feel instantly in like during the LITTLE BIRD tour at Southern Festival. When Gail heard I was going to introduce ALL-STARS at Southern Festival, she brought this photograph of her grandfather (he's on the right with the bat) and his All-Star team of only 9 players, to show all of us that it's perfectly possible (or was) to have an All-Stars team made up of 8 players as happens in THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS.

Gail was great, the crowd was great, and if I hadn't been sick the day before, I would have been much more animated.





I did well on Friday at Central Middle School in Murfreesboro with Helen Hemphill (new book: RUNAROUND) and D. Ann Love (new book: PICTURE PERFECT), but knew I was getting sick on the way back to Nashville. Exhaustion. Too much touring and traveling was catching up with me.

It was the seeing-stars, tossing-lunch exhaustion. I excused myself from the evening activities and slept, and I was okay, although more subdued than usual, for my Saturday session in the Old Senate Chambers, which went well.

Here's David Gibson, "an old Winona boy" (Mississippi), who gifted me with speeches (on CD) by Willie Morris. Thanks, David. And thanks so much, Gail, thank you to Emily Masters who organizes the children's programming for Southern Festival, and a big thank-you to Humanties Tennessee, who manages to find the funding each year (thank you, funders!) to pull together this fabulous festival.

I came home from Southern Festival with just a couple of days before going to the Georgia COMO conference on beautiful Jekyll Island, where the trees all look like this:

I spent a day here, right on the beach -- here's librarian Trish Vlastnik (left) and Lea Ann Kelly (right), chairperson of this year's conference for Georgia school, public, and institutional librarians. What a great conference -- over 900 librarians! (Do you like my new red glasses? I do -- I can see!)










I returned home to pumpkins and candlesticks ($2.00!) I bought at Value Village...


...and to three days of eating miso soup and spinach salad and sleeping well in my own bed with my own husband.

And now, here I am in Dallas, having left my new husband behind yet one more time, having a blast in Dallas schools, and yet longing for the routines of fall and family. I'll be home on Friday night. Out again the following Thursday, to Austin. This is fall travel. Somehow, on this trip, I'm actually putting words to paper as well, writing the next story. More on this later, too.

I'm going to be keeping a close eye on the Southern California fires while waiting for friends to continue to check in, and I'll share with you my week in Dallas schools as well. I've been hired to teach writing workshops -- how does that work and what does that mean? Go back and read the Jonathan Kozol article. I want to be part of the revolution in education. At least I will raise my voice. I am in good company.