Frank Settineri asked Alyssa Richards:

I read Gone With the Wind as a school assignment when I was 16; it is still one of the most memorial books I ever read. Have you read it recently or was it a number of years ago?

Alyssa Richards I first read GWTW when I was a young teenager and then we watched the film as a class in Civics. I haven't read it since then, but now that we're discussing it, maybe I will. I toured Margaret Mitchell's home in Atlanta not too long ago. I enjoyed reading how she infused her lead character Scarlett with what she called "gumption". She and her mother often discussed that quality often when Peg was young. Here is her quote, I hope you enjoy it, too! “If the novel has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong and brave go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don’t. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’ So I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.”

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