thumbnail of A Word on Words; 2208; Southern Woman Voice, Part 1
Transcript
Hide -
This transcript was received from a third party and/or generated by a computer. Its accuracy has not been verified. If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+.
a word and were programmed delving into the world of books and they're also this week from three whole galaxy or skeeter davis and sylvia wilkinson talk about a southern women heroes forward upward mr johnson and johnson the once again welcome to word on words the same thing we have a record number of guests on this program and they're here cause we're selling some legal oddity called literary symposium authors women southern writers come from all of the country from the east and west north and south dissipate in a symposium out about good writing first fallen in reduce the real host of that symposium the author of books and me a storyteller himself can't recall thank you john and i wanted to regulate your new digs and help me out as much fun and the troma you the literary adventures and great conversation you've had
we've had on the patch library dressed up are certain genetic new and now we've done it just really is the least three guests you have the first kiss so we worked as sylvia wilkinson who has written almost as many books as my son has ears and the most recent is on the seventh day god created a chevrolet that's the book right there it's a it's a fiction he's an it has to do with the world of racing it's basically a in most people's mind man's world sylvia wilkinson but you've penetrated unlike the early sixties mm hmm we've already had her fourth unsung world were skeptical of here
and she's written about a reputation it's another of fiction piece it's a it's the work of it's a work of art are nonetheless johnny weir we talk about apple local bishop and his new shoe fetish think if we talk about that my mother wondered where i write got that idea that that's exactly right your mother and your mother not myriam the mother and how in the bubble reputation but it's great to be back again to finally have that finally realized that it is what a great pleasure that use cuticle talk about western kentucky which is a non fiction book it's really an old barclay it's very candid and very revealing and temple actress all and very and that is the nuts and that skater and that's what annoys you county an hour talking about this whole business as
a business of writing and it's a sad occasion a hobby for some people before you know but it's also very hard i guess the first question a lot do we give them is do it how much of its fat and how much i've come from real life experience an overview who write fiction and fact is that by dividing line in and finally a skater to you much much stranger is real life that a correction so i hadn't so we would react after twenty five books both fiction and nonfiction bowl that often do now how much of this
book is based a lot of research but i was really on the wall of this when i was a parent i was in character i was in character i think that's probably why this book was so hard right as i head totally and that everyone had to go back and create their childhoods and then chop all that or some not outright twenty pages that you know these people how much of that you're both winners in the very end of his work yes yes he has and no well i have to admit that the fiery crash in the first chapter that was his accident
had a terrible crash and now i did know the hospital within it or racially and non homicide that was hands on experience but he was never stop our job is only sports i support you after previously on this cap and so the probe that inner resources of your inventive and creative mind but it's it's a question that there's never really fully answer they really thought about it well first of all i'm delighted to learn that summons written twenty five books can still react that's that's good news for just doubting my six euro and now you know i i didn't like what the canadian novelist alice munro said about the process she said she likes to take a bit of starter clayton the real world and then use your imagination and that's pretty much i think what i do and
i think the imagination is a much more fertile and fun ground and are trying to two am you know for those of us were writing fiction and i think it's interesting that a lot of people if you do a slightly use a character that you know they really see themselves in and the character of my mother when she was done reading the matching cash trilogy which sicily is a new joy mother my mother said all i can say when she shuttled was poor poor sicily and there's a really crazy but it i do like to use you know i'm like of what that needs a lot of research in our research lyme disease or something like that that ordinarily i'd like to just let the characters tell me what they're what they're going to do when i'm usually amazed what they're doing i said that this was a women's literary women writers
you know we go on it as emily you ari and i welcome your you work from both the southern venue you continue have continued to write about life in new england i think maybe that's a good part of the process too is that you're not looking around as much as it looking back and i think at that distance gives me the kind of objectivity that i probably need again to sell seventeen years and it's never occurred to me to say the work of fiction in the south and shirley smith is never thought sitting on a northern mayo look i am i might bring some characters down from that i guess and have them try to make it at the us soviet had written a story and say that your mother and father met on railroad track she running get you would say well if it couldn't happen to realize that a lot of somalis and that of my finger
you know so far the few people are caught testing on the booking on the site while own intellect and his jockeys are railing of yourself a what'd you start your book did you start with the davis sisters' cause that's when i started my career and know that the truth isn't in the book is the trick that so when i decided to do this i tell my mother father and said them and to start with with the army you know not just on the day i was born you know so one reason why because all my life i've heard about my grandfather been murdered announcing my mother's depression and so much sadness always around christmas and you know i didn't know until the start of the book and have a mother father lying there with me you know and what uptick in turkey on to the research meeting the man that murdered my grandfather built it i never know till then why she was always this way during christmas is because he'd seen her father last on christmas he was martyred on the fourteenth of january so i was so much and what was really
nice was i watched my mother father just fall in love all over again as we start the first of the bookends and then share stories with me and stuff like that it just was so neat i just felt really blessed among others insist that i like about poetry is that it not only is very revealing and candid he's a truthful i'm sure about about your personal i mean i'm going to admit that you godspeed of the follicle goes after war vote would you also it's very candid and very open about your professional eye as a country music star internationally known companies wanted in life on the grand ole opry was interrupted five years women censorship and you know i'm sure was taught to tell the truth about her family and about the
professional ranks because when one i doing it you know you have to go back there anything happen to some of the memories that really weren't such good once you know that i really felt like this was some funny the time and for my brothers and sisters especially him and for my friends as lawyer says that won't be there some at this giving his fans of my you know and now it's a reality you know i see it if i can still kind of unbelievable to me and to be with these great writers and kathy and it shimmers like a new friend just the last few years but i recorded some of them jim songs and had some records with him now but to see them in the hearings force a storyteller himself will not only chance he's a lawyer my fiftieth birthday party for me as virgil thomson so nice and i'm willing to talk about this but i was so used to saying at some other races the stock car races and i was at the race were far more robert said his terrible terrible crash this book industry right away that's a violation of a
fellow hispanic of music all of those uses a great great success is nice to be a like enough money in country music to write books this week we should tell us peter davis going about the selling well i don't think we know this point that the audience doesn't it's only a record it get the phone records of law and so they probably her daughter she'd thought up for that sort of the first printing your book you said he'd just come back from out of it from abroad then the skaters had this wonderful harmony is that i said twenty thousand and one wayward you know i'm interested in the title of your book that because this is the story of your wife loses the west thank you get to write it
night and that the last time you have to pick up the title for what your life was all about mom fascinated by that well being born and raised in kentucky lopez contrary to kentucky and also the tie in with my mother she was always on the on the bus going somewhere and around and the second time he was a hit song for me in the seventies written a really good friend of mine who haven't seen much of a world knowledge a man must allow our cells richard chose that title effect just are not the coverage is a lot of other people's songs and they call me one day and said we've been doing some research on your songs were using very strong so i actually went back in and just get or songs in mind you know that i've written on the first of the chapters a state kentucky was written by ronnie light i don't know an old song but this bus ticket to kentucky mean that something is to know specifically that you would
you would cry from his time well trained what i saw my life and that song we know we did all my relatives thought that i had written the song all my thoughts and kentucky because it starts off like he said an n and then later on it says the network into the sea and i guess the nineties when you know kentucky and all this and again in the song is actually all the biographical always said that you know any defense that know the song that and even to some diseases they you know certainly are like that wasn't about it the nsa and then even ask at this as far you know also i'm sorry was that when you sat in on the things like that so it's a very very truthful somewhere else also i knew that he had a few words of civil unions say about him well the thing that you know for him to say even that done for me the most is when he said that my family were leeches on family didn't even live in
this town and you know we were married not never that's what family was during our mandate so to say things like this is so strange especially after being divorced or twenty seven or twenty years ago one thing when he was on your show and every night all about it when he took credit for my career of a culinary jew few years to try to take possession of it they all told me that i think you said something about he was so brave to confess this that they had done to you know the charts anything you know and no my boss how dark on the office you know the athletes it's never worry about this stuff to worry that that's because you know me i came here in fifty nine with that my first song was invited to join the grand ole opry that's formatted him unless they imitated forget before i met him you know is this drake i've said this all girl came here before she ever met that means she has to
start that put mr roy but also that are you know so i feel bad about that but on the same time like i said he's just a small part of my mind to it we're talking about here for a human being we were talking to jimmy working together one day what they remember but it they didn't remember things civil so loving both the people as i do i hope there's some of that in there that they don't exactly remember all and you started their conversation that we said you know how much of this is what we remember in them out of what may be some of what we think that as you but luckily as
us hear about that time let men were lined cove your first book go was thought that the grad made your reputation i get is a is that it in an element of the question almost every title and thirdly on the seventh day god created sharon lies out like a country song there's talk about that aspect of the assad files come from some an actor who's reading the manuscript and it hurts sometimes like life here the idea is yours take a guess about the bubble ready to unite and country music and being a public figure and that was just a dollar and we are public people because we submit i'm thinking about going into your forties or the media but seems we all have about our reputation
people are watching to see what you're doing and one that you make this may be one small mistake and then and you see this happening all the time now and just maybe one one love bad moments of indecision love the bad decision and suddenly you're in all the tabloids and everything you know i've run for well i am and how glad that actually there is he is from shakespeare's seven ages of man and if i could write a book for every title i'd like to use for shakespeare what writer hasn't really think of the sound and fury of mice and men know that's robert burns oh sorry wrong guy that's right and they get a lot once the estimate about tidal phenomenon wanted friends of riches book on mobile i wanna know what i should call it so that drums and there's a number of other people that you
know brawn will be my god created yeah and jake was shakespeare would talk about reputation when he said and i love the eighties he used to my purse you try to do my good name and that's what happens you have to take them out of the delaware that a lot you know so that the rest of the country well i didn't take my previous titles on the battle but now burns and then my father is never anything i've written here he said we won't get that kind of an asset whale i got into trouble i know you knew a thing about that battle that's a world
at anything about the battle you know i get up the first day my mind she wanted that put a little notice in the church program and she's alone there as she says silly think that might be sacrilegious i wasn't aware at last and that all shtick i was at a drag race in indianapolis anywhere the bumper sticker on the back of a share the tv ads that is good news is that's where that's not that time i had an alcohol if she's in that was in if i carry get a country that they cancel halloween that state with a current you know there was a buzz there is an awfully patrick anderson wrote speeches for jimmy carter he wrote a book about a murder and washington anyone to call it an affair of state that would involve sex murder politics lots and
the editor convinced him to change it for the president to a swiss baron that story that book came out just a week that the book came out on president kennedy by a woman city of carole patton ensign gave a copy of a proton carter whose photograph coming off air force one after the president elected an anderson's boat and columbus island but he's got the heavy end of that back on track just some places the president then and rosalynn carter inedible you know getting
back to the un about your parents having man and how real that will be trump or something like that in fiction to an end talking about writing in and craft i teach at university of maine in the summers and all of my beginning writers will say to me and how it has over them say but it happened just that way just the way i wrote it happened how can you say it doesn't work and i think that for those of us who write fiction we know that we have to take reality and put it into fiction shame and crank up fiction because many times i will see or hear about things that happened in real life and i'll say i can't use that fiction nobody will believe it it wouldn't be real in the world of fiction and then so it's a good thing yours is not actually can have a lot of that running down but enough about that too because i guess it's really important is an actor like you want people to believe in this wave of doma the soul searching and all the only are you know some pay la to find and that's what you know i feel like i'm leaving something behind on me and my record to that for sure but this is like the delegates and less like a set again for those for those kids were
those nicknames that you mentioned you know which are the stories we heard or like to go back and walk through the head and there's there are some things in my book that think a really unbelievable sure and then actually when i am when i went to that you know the red ball that the press called a hospital where i was taken and all that i had ever counselor and yet i didn't have a counselor at the time of the accident that when i started writing this and talk about it to mice you know i start falling apart and i started hearing the sirens i thought i heard the sirens that i don't really remember hearing the day of the accident you know but i had to stop and so like i had to stop because it is it was really heartened to wrangle him in a gripping moment in the book i think that is what i think that is the gun and that's that's the conversation stopper and that's proof that writing is therapeutic writing all your show you're not even writing fiction it's therapeutic because you have a lot of a lot of the things that happened to you in real life as a writer you might change it on the patient and the skies it's that nobody knows
it's usually we're like going to the same what process is a on dealing with the past so it's a lot of you write one book and you have two three were writing credit on that one no one that i think about it in every process to you your memory is a book a great select for it goes back and it just takes out what you need and it gets rid of all the extra stuff we end up until last year the huge creative writing agent to take this memory and in saying that his plan and imaginations that you gotta let it grow in your imagination if the uk he's going back to the scene i should tell our audience that next week again other participants in the pantheon thirds of them will be with us to discuss their writing as is the street and tom just a word about that symposium and the idea for creating this
leaves the new jersey state university where you bring together writers each year for a conference really give republican operative common man exploring some ways we're exploring today just what my prostate well i wanted to add something was really upset about the memory and we were talking about the human mind the way i've often thought that the human mind was too much of a machine for the small task it as keeping us going about this plan that's one of the great mysteries right and one of the beauties of writing to let you remember things years later that you didn't hear sirens now that you didn't hear them out that some of the things that the human mind can do and there it is a marvelous mccain and put to the test for writing books and writing and jono
is i think the human mind is at its best that's when it's doing its best biscuit it can do things they're that it can do and making coffee important thing which is our primary i care about it about to you know years ago when i was up along with them to love riding along with reading and being a national identity and no that i'm really became an i don't recognize but johnson thought but i'm really recognize in the tennessean newspaper that he edited and i thought when i got here at the time this was in sixty two i realize how fortunate i was to have found myself on a town with a newspaper like this because how this day was very about carrying a little word newspaper care about boxing has huge book agent and that but as i got to travel around and some of the social circles in their trio among some of them were people on all its words and i made friends and printed
they're middle tennessee state university said you know i talked to them about the possibility of bringing wives and the constitutional reform and have a symposium and everybody get together even have to fall and it was really a place to do that it's a giant show as we get to talking about this and we raised the money we have this what the mpaa to make this an annual there and all my friends patrons of the arts the rulebook smallwood justin around the country have donated money to the south i think when john aragona beast you're somebody that we hope having a symposium bringing people in and i which he did a little book of wood brought a minimum of the worry that say them the way we who live in nashville like to think that there were sort of the center of a literary sell for
different and there are other opinions with that that's why we're here and that's my funeral we were caught we would call the athens of the south and that long before we were called new justices skater another book mercy and thought about it was not just want this to do good you know and it out on that these girls teach locally not very well thank you john i'm so happy to be here and appreciated and get favorable been working on coming out in june and it is about sixteen ha tom t hall kathy pelletier skeeter davis and sylvia robinson at that our guests unaware none were heroes to then john singleton chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university in the
game
Series
A Word on Words
Episode Number
2208
Episode
Southern Woman Voice, Part 1
Producing Organization
Nashville Public Television
Contributing Organization
Nashville Public Television (Nashville, Tennessee)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/524-r49g44jv8n
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/524-r49g44jv8n).
Description
Episode Description
Southern Woman Voice Pt.1; Cut 1
Date
1993-10-07
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Literature
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:29:54
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Producing Organization: Nashville Public Television
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Nashville Public Television
Identifier: A0396 (Nashville Public Television)
Format: DVCpro
Duration: 29:09
Nashville Public Television
Identifier: cpb-aacip-524-r49g44jv8n.mp4 (mediainfo)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 00:29:54
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “A Word on Words; 2208; Southern Woman Voice, Part 1,” 1993-10-07, Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 24, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-r49g44jv8n.
MLA: “A Word on Words; 2208; Southern Woman Voice, Part 1.” 1993-10-07. Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 24, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-r49g44jv8n>.
APA: A Word on Words; 2208; Southern Woman Voice, Part 1. Boston, MA: Nashville Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-524-r49g44jv8n