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Peeking Warily Out of the Writer’s Cave: Confessions of a Curmudgeon
I’m a big fan of the Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie version of PG Wodehouses’s Jeeves and Wooster. In Season 3, they travel to the United States, and there’s an episode where Bertie’s poet friend Rocky is in crisis. (Bertie always has a friend in some uniquely upper-crust crisis.) Rocky happily lives in the then-relative-wilds of Long Island, but a moneyed relative is forcing him to move to New York City. Rocky says, “Good Lord, l’d have to dress for dinner every night. l won’t do it, l can’t do it. l don’t get out of my pajamas ’til five in the Read more…
Southern Charm, In Translation: What People Really Mean When They Say Bless Your Heart
A month or so ago, I gave a British friend a copy of my novel Back to Lazarus. The next day, having read a couple of chapters, he remarked that there were expressions he was unfamiliar with. I wondered if they were Americanisms or Southernisms, but he couldn’t recall any examples. When I recently received a very sweet email from my West Virginia hometown that began, “God bless your heart,” it reminded me of my British friend, and also of another cross-cultural conversation several years ago. I was on a month-long summer research cruise in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands at Read more…
The Second Portion of our Odyssey, with an Ode to the Library
[This post is a continuation, sharing Part Two of our recent journey from East Hawaii Island to the continental U.S. to visit family.] Living on the east side of an island with a honking big mountain in the middle, you get to appreciate sunsets. If the Gulf Coast didn’t disappoint us on that count, neither did the Mid-Atlantic. No, that fleur de-lis-esque shot (I think I just made spell check explode) isn’t from New Orleans, it’s from the car window driving through Winchester, Virginia. By the time we made it to West Virginia (the home of my kin-folk), changing time Read more…
You Can Go Back Again… But You’re Bound to Get Lost
If you’re a regular blog reader, you’ll know that my husband and I recently traveled from our home in Hawaii to the mainland to visit family and friends and do a little book research. I’ve resisted using the word “odyssey,” but it did feel like one: from Hawaii to New Orleans to Pensacola to Tallahassee to Virginia and West Virginia over a couple of weeks. For today’s post, the Gulf Coast leg… It was strange, revisiting these places that are touchstones in our lives. In New Orleans, having beignets at Cafe du Monde while watching carriages in front of Jackson’s Square on a Read more…
Fried Corn Nuggets (Welcome Back to the South) and Book Signing
As you’ve probably noticed, I live in Hawaii, but I’ve been traveling on the mainland lately. I was recently lucky enough to revisit some of my (i.e. Sydney’s fictionalized) old Tallahassee haunts. I was surprised by the usual—how much some places changed, and how much others stayed the same—and also by my reactions to those changes and resilient bits. I’ll be writing about it soon, but I want to give my observations and reactions time to ferment into something beyond blathering, like sharing kombucha instead of stale tea. (Okay, I should have warned you, I’m still pretty time zone-addled, and Read more…
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