Writing the South

Recently, I found myself working on a piece of fiction.   For reasons that aren't really important, a small portion of the prologue took place in Atlanta.   I found myself struggling, because while I have been to that city several times, I don't really "know" it.   Part of me said that I should just keep plugging along, because the setting itself didn't really have any bearing on the plot of the piece.  I could email one of a dozen friends -- a few of whom even contribute to this blog-- and familiarize myself enough with the neighborhood bars/restaurants/boutiques that I would need to populate the pages of the story.  And yet, it didn’t feel authentic.  It wasn’t set in a city like Nashville or Louisville – someplace where I had lived and that I knew well.  It wasn’t set in a city like Lexington—someplace that I had grown up visiting so many times that I didn’t need a map when I finally moved there.  The entire scene just felt flat, and I soon abandoned that portion of the story.

I am a writer.  I am from Kentucky.  Does that make me a “Kentucky writer”?  Does that mean that I need to give all my essays and short stories a Kentucky setting? I’ve struggled with variants of this question for years.  Is it absolutely crucial for me, as a writer, to limit my writing to Kentucky or the South?

Image via Garden & Gun.

Often, I think, a writer, painter, or songwriter’s incorporation of a region into her work is crucial to the work itself.  The August/September issue of Garden and Gun magazine was devoted to Southern Women.  It was a charming retrospective of the role of the postmodern Southern Belle.  As I thumbed through the pages of this issue, I noticed a portrait of a couple of Southern-based artists whose work I happen to know quite well.  There was Joy Williams, the female voice in the Nashville-based duo The Civil Wars, and Emily Giffin, the litigator-turned-chick lit-maven, who lives in Atlanta.  Because I enjoy the work of both Ms. Williams and Ms. Giffin quite a bit, I found myself a little perplexed.  Ms. Williams is a California-born singer.  Ms. Giffin is from Illinois, and lived for many years in New York and London.  Yet, I would classify Ms. Williams’ roots-Americana sound as perfectly in keeping with the funky, post-country ethos of her adopted hometown of East Nashville.  On the other hand, while Ms. Giffin attended some of the finest schools in the South and currently lives in Atlanta, her novels are generally set in New York, Boston or London.  Her only novel with a Southern setting is told from the point of view of a character who generally hates the South.  While I truly enjoy Ms. Giffin’s fun and romantic stories, this hardly seems the work of a “Southern Belle” to me.  At the very least, she's hardly the Southern writer that Kathryn Stockett (also featured in this article) is.

A few weeks ago, University of Kentucky professor Nikky Finney was honored with the National Book Award for poetry.  Her powerful acceptance speech referencing the advances made by African-Americans in the South in recent decades has become something of an online phenomenon, and rightly so.  As an alumna of the University, I was thrilled to see such an incredible award being presented to such a wonderfully deserving talent.  Ms. Finney’s works evoke the memories of her coastal Carolina childhood far more than her Lexington professorship.  Stories of shrimpers and tides are far from the Bluegrass landscape.  And yet, Ms. Finney plays a driving role in Kentucky’s current literary landscape.

As I look at the previous four paragraphs on my computer screen, I wonder if I sound like a hopeless pedant.  (That particular aspersion, believe it or not, has been cast my way a time or two…)  The labels “Southern” or “Kentuckian” really don’t matter as much as establishing a connection with one’s reader.  I’ve never been to Northern Sweden, and yet, Stig Larsson’s work is my guilty literary pleasure.  I’ve never lived in a North London council flat with an array of immigrant families, yet I adore the work of Zadie Smith.  On the other hand, as a writer, I’m far more comfortable with creating characters who work in big law firms (as both my beau and I have) or who live in the Kentucky and Tennessee towns where I have lived.  Maybe the key really is the old cliché of writing what you know.  Or, just maybe, it’s a blend of writing what one knows and writing something engaging enough to transcend setting or experience.

Do y’all think a writer needs a connection to the place she writes about?

Stay a day...

My grandmother always says, "If you don't like the weather in Kentucky, stay a day it will change."

However, I'd like to recommend if you are bemoaning the weather any time between late November through mid March, don't stay a day. Get the hell out.

Kentucky winters are grey, rainy, and bleak.

When we first moved here my husband expressed some serious dismay at the never-ending rain. Currently, we are on our third straight day of cold rain.

"Where have you brought me?!?" he exclaimed.

I always welcome the rain at first. I love rainy days. It's like Mother Nature is giving you an excuse to be lazy. You can stay in, read a book, lay on the couch. Of course, now I have a two-year-old and an infant so rain days are spent slowly. going. crazy.

One rainy day is bad enough. Last winter, I think it rained for a week straight. It felt like two. (And we won't even talk about the Flood.) It just gets old is what I'm saying, particularly when the holidays are over and there is nothing to break up the monotony of the cold, grey days.

Thanks only to climate change we've started getting more snow, which in some ways lifts the veil of grey but in others makes life miserable because most Kentucky towns (at least the ones in Western Kentucky) are ill-equipped to handle true winter weather.

Not to mention, some times the winter weather is just enough to cause some real damage (see Ice Storm 2009). No sledding. No beautiful snowscapes. Just ice and sleet, which is even worse.

Luckily, Kentucky springs are the stuff of dreams and Kentucky falls are the prettiest around. They make up for the winters...but just barely.

State Lines (or, I'm a Regional Stereotyper)

I love getting my fellow Her Kentucky contributor Sarah Holland all riled up, y'all.  I may not always agree with her, but Good Lord, she always makes me think.

Sarah's recent blog entries, in response to my musings on Appalachia and in defense of the oft-ignored WKY, were no exception. As I read Sarah's insight that "I'm not from that part of Kentucky" is an easy mindset for so many Central and Western Kentuckians, I cringed a little.  I've seen that attitude a million times, and I've often assumed that people were thinking it,  but I've never really read it put forth so nakedly.  It stung for a second*, even though that view was put forth in a passionate essay about solidarity and love of the Bluegrass State.  And then, it hit me.  I'm just as guilty of this kind of segmented thought.

Northern Kentucky is basically Cincinnati.  I really only stop there to use the restroom or hit up the Florence Y'all on my way to a ball game or a concert.  I know some good folks from that area, but they're pretty much Cincinnatians anyway.   Now, do we have time to go to Tiffany's between dinner and the show?

People from Southern/South Central Kentucky drink Ski and listen to the Kentucky Headhunters, right?  And I think they have a lot of Catholic yard art...

Live in the East End of Louisville if you want to avoid the U of L fans. 

Western Kentuckians make that weird mutton barbecue.  And they sure do get out the vote for Ed Whitfield.

At some point in my life I have participated in all of those conversations.  They were good-spirited and joking.  They weren't intended to be critical or hurtful.  They were just off-handed observations.  And yet, they kind of were stereotypes.  Not in the methhead, hillbilly vein.  But a broad and overreaching means of describing people nonetheless.  Some of it was shorthand, based on the folks I've known from those areas.  Some of it was based on my very limited personal experience with these areas.  And some of it was meant solely in jest.  But it's also a reminder that I need to keep a little perspective when all Appalachian Kentuckians are lumped together.  Sometimes, it is an act of overt derision.  Sometimes, it's out of limited information.  And sometimes, it's nothing more than an unthinking joke. 

How about y'all? What are your experiences with Kentucky stereotypes?  Anybody want to meet up in NKY and have an afternoon at Tiffany's?

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*Sarah sent me the most gracious string of emails regarding this project, and could not have been more thoughtful and lovely about the entire endeavor. No Interwebz drama here, y'all.

On Appalachia...from the other side of the state

Remember last week when I stuck up for my region of Kentucky? When I bemoaned the mistreatment of the western part of the state and sliced up my allegiance along geographical lines?

Well, I meant it...sort of. But I also want to say this.

We are all Kentuckians.

When some in our state succeed, we should all claim it proudly. The reverse is also true. When some in our state suffer, we should all claim and work to end that suffering.

I lived out of state for six years. I heard my fair share of hillbilly jokes and stereotypical judgments. Never once was I able to defend myself by explaining that I was from the OTHER side of the state.

No one cared.

As long as a a large segment of the state's population lives in abject poverty, we will all be judged by that standard. And to be honest, we deserve to be. We should ache for the suffering of our Appalachian brothers and sisters, not try desperately to disown them or distance ourselves.

Sixteen of the 100 poorest counties in the United States are in Kentucky. The only state with more is Texas.  And this is not new to any of us. It has been that way for decades. We blame it on culture. We blame it on industry. We blame it on the people themselves.

We should be ashamed all right. But not on the media's portrayal of our state.

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

The Battle on Broadway

Two colleges located nearly within walking distance of each other in a notoriously basketball-mad state.  An elite private school and the state's flagship research university.  One projected to be its conference champion.  One projected to win it all.  Meeting early in the season to revive an old rivalry.

It may sound like I'm describing a Duke-UNC game, but it's actually far closer to home for many Kentuckians.  Unlike the kind of powerhouse conference competition those prickly ACC folks would bring us, tonight's match-up is an exhibition game between a driving force in college basketball and a small Division III program.

Now, as y'all know,Transy is my undergraduate alma mater, and I earned a graduate degree at UK.  I was thrilled last spring when word started to leak out that the hundred year gap since the schools' last meeting would finally draw to a close.  There would be a fantastic reminder that the University of Kentucky itself was once part of Transy. There would be shout-outs to the fact that legendary UK Athletic Director C.M. Newton got his start at TU.  There would even be reminders that the two teams, in the very infancy of the sport of basketball, played fourteen times, started a series of games which has remained tied since 1911.  And, there was the potential for some fantastic press and fundraising for the Transy athletic department.

Coach Cal at the UK-Transy Kickoff Dinner.

 I don't expect tonight's game to be much of a nailbiter. Transylvania boasts a solid team this year, but UK's roster claims six McDonald's All-Americans.  Anthony Davis promises to be unstoppable, no matter who he's up against.  But, tonight is bound to be one of those "can't miss" Lexington moments, one  in which the city's collective love of basketball meets the rich history of its colleges.

Lexington is the epicenter of college basketball -- a place where a mere exhibition game is elevated to poetic heights rather than serving as a fancy practice session.  I can't wait to celebrate my schools, my favorite sport, and my very favorite city tonight.

I hope to see y'all at the game!

(Over at The Kentucky Girls today, I address a burning question: What Should I Wear to the Game?)

All photos via Transylvania University.

Kentucky Places: Rupp Arena

Nothing embodies the spirit of Downtown Lexington like Rupp Arena.

Happy Basketball Season, y'all!

Unpopular Opinions

My mother isn't a sports fan.  

Repping the Big Blue, late 70s.

It's kind of crazy, really.  My daddy used to be a basketball coach, as was his daddy before him.  My beau and I live and breathe UK basketball and football. My brother is an obsessive fan of both of those Cincinnati pro teams.  Any time my family gets together, the conversation turns to sports, sports, and more  sports.  There's at least one person sporting a team logo at any given time, while my  poor mother fakes her way through it.

Music City Bowl, 2007

And so, we find ourselves in late October.  I'm, as you can well imagine, obsessed with the upcoming basketball season, one in which we have the potential to win it all.  I'm studying up on Coach Cal's latest Dream Team and counting the days until the season starts.  Yesterday, my mom hit me with an odd query: "The news keeps referencing a potential new stadium. That seems kind of extravagant in the current economic climate, doesn't it?"

I own a lot of Kentucky shirts.

I immediately answered her with all of the pros and cons of Lexington's great arena debate.  I presented the economic benefits that potentially exist for the University and for the city.  I tried to frame it in reference to the campaign platforms of mayoral candidates.  But, ultimately, my answer came down to recruiting.  I want my team -- my grad school alma mater-- to succeed.  That's my number one agenda item.  And if first-class facilities are the key to another title, then facilities are what I want, whether refurbished or rebuilt.  I realized that the conversation between my mother and me wasn't about an information exchange.  It was a bigger-picture debate among Kentuckians: those of us who live for basketball, and the quiet minority who don't. 

Unpopular opinions are something that we here at Her Kentucky have been talking about quite a bit lately.  We've been discussing many of the Kentucky traditions that one or more of us just don't get.  Burgoo, mint juleps, hot browns, Ale-8, even my beloved Kentucky basketball.  Just because we're all Kentuckians, we don't all love "Kentucky things."

Over the next few weeks, Her Kentucky will bring you a series of blog entries about unpopular opinions.  We'll be discussing some of the Kentucky traditions that fall short of our expectations.  We'll give you some ideas that you don't quite see in the travel brochures.  We'll most likely drop  the phrase "there, I said it" a time or two. 

Until then, we'd love to hear any unpopular opinions y'all may have.  

What Kentucky traditions fall short of expectations for you?