Meredith Sue Willis's Blog, page 11
September 22, 2018
My Day in Clarksburg....
... was a huge treat. The Clarksburg Harrison Library had done a thorough publicity job with notices in the papers, cards stuck in borrowed books, announcements online and more, and I was delighted with almost 30 people for my open workshop, and then a smaller but highly receptive group of old friends and new who came for the reading and refreshments (Thank you friends of the library!)And by the way, this was all on a WVU game day-- and Mountaineer football games are always a statewide event (WVU won 35 to 6, for the record.)
I was introduced by Library Manager Julia Todd who pulled it all together, and before I started the workshop, the mayor of Clarksburg, Catherine Goings, who I had just met, came up and gave me a certificate from the city of Clarksburg! And then I got one from the governor of West Virginia. Pretty neat.
The workshop was lots of fun with a wonderful variety of people--professors and high school age students and seniors, published writers and beginners, everyone eager to write, most willing to share, their thoughts if not their writing.
Dear Anna Smucker came to the reading, and Steve and Beth Goff. He's the former WV Writers president. And for the whole day, instigator and informal publicist, money collector for my sales (she brought cash for change) and doyenne of West Virginia literature, the inimitable Phyllis Moore was there. Her license is "BKWORM," and she knows everything about writers and books in West Virginia.
When the library event was over, and the library closed, she drove me on her new Literary Tour of Clarksburg. Phyllis with her husband Jim for technical support gives frequent power point lectures to schools and senior centers etc. on various aspects of West Virginia literature: immigrant writers, African-American writers, Civil War writers, and much more. She's a published poet and essayist and really such a good friend to me and other writers. After the tour, we visited her home, aka private library, where I met the famous cat Pearl S. Buck, and then, to top off a wonderful day, she took me to Minards Spaghetti Inn for dinner.
This is the first Italian restaurant I ever went to--it was a big deal for my family to go out at all and to go to Minard's for spaghetti and meatballs (and salad and Italian bread!) was the height of culinary delight. It's still a fine restaurant, recommended to all of you when you go to Clarksburg, West Virginia, where I was born, and where today I felt like I was truly coming home.
Writing Workshops and Sauerkraut
The workshop last evening at the Barnes and Noble in Morgantown was small but intense and lively.
Then, at the very end, in came my new friend photographer-journalist and author Nancy Abrams!
I was thrilled to meet her-- I had blurbed her book The Climb from Salt Lick for WVU Press, and it
is really worth reading. The B and N, there at Towne Center, was another lovely public place, spacious, cool, quiet, with
a big coffee shop, and, like the libraries I've been visiting, it seems to be a destination for a lot of
people who love books and serenity. They set us up right in front, near the cafeteria, with room
for maybe 8 people, and I had 4, all serious writers from Morgantown and Bruceton Mills.
In the afternoon, I had seen our great family friend, Charlie Cowger who had been storing
a lot of boxes of my mother’s memorabilia. Charlie just finished making his yearly
sauerkraut that he loves and gives away for Christmas presents.
All this, after visiting students in the morning at Lincoln High School, who were receptive
and very interesting. Thanks to Mrs. Payton and Mrs. Ferris (an old friend of my mother’s
from East Shinnston!) as well as Mrs. DeMarco the librarian (who was a Romeo, her dad 's
cousins to my dad's Romeos) and Ms. Osborne Off to Clarksburg today--this book touring is really, really fun and really really exhausting!
Then, at the very end, in came my new friend photographer-journalist and author Nancy Abrams!I was thrilled to meet her-- I had blurbed her book The Climb from Salt Lick for WVU Press, and it
is really worth reading. The B and N, there at Towne Center, was another lovely public place, spacious, cool, quiet, with
a big coffee shop, and, like the libraries I've been visiting, it seems to be a destination for a lot of
people who love books and serenity. They set us up right in front, near the cafeteria, with room
for maybe 8 people, and I had 4, all serious writers from Morgantown and Bruceton Mills.
In the afternoon, I had seen our great family friend, Charlie Cowger who had been storing
a lot of boxes of my mother’s memorabilia. Charlie just finished making his yearly
sauerkraut that he loves and gives away for Christmas presents.
All this, after visiting students in the morning at Lincoln High School, who were receptive
and very interesting. Thanks to Mrs. Payton and Mrs. Ferris (an old friend of my mother’s
from East Shinnston!) as well as Mrs. DeMarco the librarian (who was a Romeo, her dad 's
cousins to my dad's Romeos) and Ms. Osborne Off to Clarksburg today--this book touring is really, really fun and really really exhausting!
September 20, 2018
Thursday of my tour was all about New Friends and my Oldest
I had a leisurely morning with time to take a good walk and also finally to see one of the coal trains go by below the deck of the little house I'm staying in:
I spent the afternoon at Lowe Library in Shinnston, another library that provides a wide variety of services to all kinds of people. People dropped by to meet the author (me) and shared information about their writing and I tried to give some tips. One man introduced me to another Fan Fiction world that I hadn't heard of: Furry Fandom.
Then I had dinner with my oldest friend: David Hardesty, law professor at WVU and former president of the University, as well as former state treasurer. But for me, he's above all the oldest friend I have: as babies we took baths together, and his mother, a nurse, was at my birth. I got to meet his daughter and two grandchildren (his wife Susan was babysitting and didn't come to dinner with us). We went to the lovely Morgantown Wine Bar at Vintner Valley and talked and talked. He has a terrific nuanced understanding of West Virginia and West Virginia politics which I wish all my friends in the Northeast could hear him talk about.
I spent the afternoon at Lowe Library in Shinnston, another library that provides a wide variety of services to all kinds of people. People dropped by to meet the author (me) and shared information about their writing and I tried to give some tips. One man introduced me to another Fan Fiction world that I hadn't heard of: Furry Fandom.
Then I had dinner with my oldest friend: David Hardesty, law professor at WVU and former president of the University, as well as former state treasurer. But for me, he's above all the oldest friend I have: as babies we took baths together, and his mother, a nurse, was at my birth. I got to meet his daughter and two grandchildren (his wife Susan was babysitting and didn't come to dinner with us). We went to the lovely Morgantown Wine Bar at Vintner Valley and talked and talked. He has a terrific nuanced understanding of West Virginia and West Virginia politics which I wish all my friends in the Northeast could hear him talk about.Parkersburg and Shinnston!
Yesterday I visited my family house in Shinnston and then over to see my mother’s adopted grandchildren, Jenn and Buddy Taylor....
....and then drove over to Parkersburg for a visit to the remodelled Parkersburg Wood County library.-- what a beautiful community center with several spaces for puppet shows and creative play for children and lots of computers--and plenty of books!
This was one of those reading/author visit events that was small but very warm--thanks to Jeanne Michie at the library, and to Madeline Murphy, the reporter from the News and Sentinel who was also among those in attendance.
September 18, 2018
Three West Virginia Cities and a College President Who Leads by Serving......
I was in Charleston, WV yesterday, Monday 9-17-18, getting interviewed by Cat Pleska for local public television. She's a friend, and we met first at the delightful Capitol Market with an outdoor farmers' market and indoor upscale coffee shops, fish restaurant, butcher, bakeries, WV crafts, etc. Very nice place, and our personal catch up and visit got me very loose for the formal interview, which went very well.
In the evening I read with Ginny Savage Ayers Writers Can Read at Empire Books in Huntington, and had dinner first with Reading series curators Eliot Parker and Carter Seaton along with people including Llewellyn and John McKernan, Cat Pleska, and Eddy Pendarvis (hidden by moi in the photo). She invited me to stay in her home overnight, and I got up at the crack of dawn and drove back up the road.
And today it was two classes at Fairmont State University: thank you professors George and Myers for inviting me in! Both groups of students were curious and insightful about what they had read of my work, and liked hearing the author's voice present the work. They also willingly wrote exercises for me, and except for being wiped out after the long drive, I was just happy as a clam.
In the evening I read at the Folklife Center with Rick Campbell and there were a ton of friends there, including Professor Jack Wills and Jack Hussey as well as Donna Long, editor of Kestrel magazine, and Dr. Angela Scher, head of the English department. A former online student of mine, Sarah Blizzard Robinson was there too, as well as a number of students, some I met earlier in the day.
It was a solid event, with the readings and then question and answer.
Several people over these two days have complimented me as a teacher, which was gratifying.
There was also the issue of the President of FSU.
As I arrived, I was struggling in the parking lot with my bags and a box of books to sell. A pleasant lady with long gray hair ad a nice purple blazer waved as if she knew me, and came toward me and said firmly, "I'll take that," and insisted on carrying the box, even though her shoes were higher that mine--elegant little black pointed heels, and I was wearing sandals, albeit patent leather sandals. Anyhow, she said she worked there, and by the time we got in the elevator, she confessed she's he new president of FSU, Dr. Mirta Martin. I call that a service leader.
These things strike me as very West Virginian: the president showing up and sitting through the reading as well as carrying my book box; the open mic after the readers in Huntington, and how he ages of readers ranged from late seventies to high school students. The neighborhood where my airbnb is: beautiful brand new colonials with wrap around porches, next to a trailer park with trailers in a variety of stages of freshness and deterioration. West Virginians tend to live together.
Oh, and the graveyard up the street really does have my cousin's wife's family in it! Oh, this reminds me of all the good things about my home state!
In the evening I read with Ginny Savage Ayers Writers Can Read at Empire Books in Huntington, and had dinner first with Reading series curators Eliot Parker and Carter Seaton along with people including Llewellyn and John McKernan, Cat Pleska, and Eddy Pendarvis (hidden by moi in the photo). She invited me to stay in her home overnight, and I got up at the crack of dawn and drove back up the road.And today it was two classes at Fairmont State University: thank you professors George and Myers for inviting me in! Both groups of students were curious and insightful about what they had read of my work, and liked hearing the author's voice present the work. They also willingly wrote exercises for me, and except for being wiped out after the long drive, I was just happy as a clam.
In the evening I read at the Folklife Center with Rick Campbell and there were a ton of friends there, including Professor Jack Wills and Jack Hussey as well as Donna Long, editor of Kestrel magazine, and Dr. Angela Scher, head of the English department. A former online student of mine, Sarah Blizzard Robinson was there too, as well as a number of students, some I met earlier in the day.It was a solid event, with the readings and then question and answer.
Several people over these two days have complimented me as a teacher, which was gratifying.
There was also the issue of the President of FSU.
As I arrived, I was struggling in the parking lot with my bags and a box of books to sell. A pleasant lady with long gray hair ad a nice purple blazer waved as if she knew me, and came toward me and said firmly, "I'll take that," and insisted on carrying the box, even though her shoes were higher that mine--elegant little black pointed heels, and I was wearing sandals, albeit patent leather sandals. Anyhow, she said she worked there, and by the time we got in the elevator, she confessed she's he new president of FSU, Dr. Mirta Martin. I call that a service leader.
These things strike me as very West Virginian: the president showing up and sitting through the reading as well as carrying my book box; the open mic after the readers in Huntington, and how he ages of readers ranged from late seventies to high school students. The neighborhood where my airbnb is: beautiful brand new colonials with wrap around porches, next to a trailer park with trailers in a variety of stages of freshness and deterioration. West Virginians tend to live together.
Oh, and the graveyard up the street really does have my cousin's wife's family in it! Oh, this reminds me of all the good things about my home state!
September 16, 2018
In my neat river view airbnb in Fairmont!
Great to be back in West Virginia! I can't believe it's been two years....Cute airbnb in Fairmont, on the river-- it's a hot Sunday afternoon, so I've seen jet skis and a small party boat go by, and I've only been here half an hour!
September 14, 2018
Getting ready for my trip!
We have a block party tomorrow, so I'm making potato salad, WV style, but without eggs. Between potatoes, I'm trying to figure out what to wear with tropical storm rains from Florence on Monday and hot weather during the week. I've picked the pieces from Their Houses to read--that was easy compared to picking clothes to wear!
September 12, 2018
MSW on the Gary Bowden Show, 103.3 WAJR-FM!
I was just interviewed on the Gary Bowden radio show out of Clarksburg, West Virginia (weekday mornings at 9, 103.3 WAJR-FM).
Gary had done his homework and knew who I was and where I was from, and we talked about how I try to explain things about West Virginia to folks in the Northeast, and occasionally vice versa. He was interested in the Appalachian Literary Renaissance and my visits to Shinnston and Clarksburg.
His programs have a lot of information and people with interesting local news and issues. This was a great kick-off to my first week of book promotion!
P.S. When I said Gary had "done his homework," I was thinking of a time years back when I was on a t.v. show with my first novel, and the host said, as the break was ending and I was sitting down at the broadcast desk, "So what are you here for? Oh, the blue book. I remember. It's on the desk here somewhere..."
Gary had done his homework and knew who I was and where I was from, and we talked about how I try to explain things about West Virginia to folks in the Northeast, and occasionally vice versa. He was interested in the Appalachian Literary Renaissance and my visits to Shinnston and Clarksburg.
His programs have a lot of information and people with interesting local news and issues. This was a great kick-off to my first week of book promotion!
P.S. When I said Gary had "done his homework," I was thinking of a time years back when I was on a t.v. show with my first novel, and the host said, as the break was ending and I was sitting down at the broadcast desk, "So what are you here for? Oh, the blue book. I remember. It's on the desk here somewhere..."
September 9, 2018
Rainy Sunday--Molly Gilman Interview at Ethical Culture Society of Essex County, NJ
Our block party for today was rained out, postponed to next Saturday, just before my book tour of West Virginia begins, for Their Houses.
This morning at the Ethical Culture Society for our first program, with the new Families for Ethical Education starting too, I interviewed Molly Gilman about her time in the Ethical Sunday School as well her career as an actor, and the way those things have interacted in her life. She sang too, some show songs and that wonderful John Denver song about the children (which she sang a lot better than Denver, IMHO!)
One extremely interesting moment came at the end when Molly talked about having a conversation with a cab driver with whom she disagreed strongly, but used her ethical education inclination to learn more about the other person's views, and her acting skills to draw him out-- "I was acting," she said, "but acting is a way to find the truth."
I love that--so is writing fiction: making up stuff to discover what is bedrock real.
This morning at the Ethical Culture Society for our first program, with the new Families for Ethical Education starting too, I interviewed Molly Gilman about her time in the Ethical Sunday School as well her career as an actor, and the way those things have interacted in her life. She sang too, some show songs and that wonderful John Denver song about the children (which she sang a lot better than Denver, IMHO!)
One extremely interesting moment came at the end when Molly talked about having a conversation with a cab driver with whom she disagreed strongly, but used her ethical education inclination to learn more about the other person's views, and her acting skills to draw him out-- "I was acting," she said, "but acting is a way to find the truth."
I love that--so is writing fiction: making up stuff to discover what is bedrock real.
April 29, 2018
A Novelist in the Digital Age: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly
A Novelist in the Digital Age:Meredith Sue Willis will speak on Sunday, May 6, 2018 at the morning program of the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County on "A Novelist in the Digital Age: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly.The talk will cover her personal journey from hand-stapled comics to commercial book publication to web journals and digital publishing.There will also be discussion of how computers and the Internet have changed the writer's process--and the world of publishing. The program begins at 11:00 AM and takes place at the Ethical Culture Building, 516 Prospect Street, Maplewood, at the intersection of Parker Avenue.The program is free and open to the public.
The Good, Bad, and the Ugly
