Friends,
if you missed the 2019 Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery, you missed another
great one. The festival celebrates authors and writers from Alabama or authors
who have written about some aspect of the state over the past year.
I
can’t tell you how much fun it is to hang out with fellow authors to
commiserate and celebrate. Away from our
book signing table and panel discussions we talk about marketing, publishers,
toss ideas out at one another. A great time with plenty of information for authors
who are published through traditional imprints or go the self-publishing route.
The
lineup was phenomenal. I especially enjoyed hearing from Frye Gaillard as he
talked about his latest book, A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s. It was an
interesting discussion of how the 60s parallels what is happening in the
country and the world today.
I
was honored and humbled (if you were there, you could tell) to be on the
Exploring Alabama Outdoors panel with Craig Guver, author of Lizards and Snakes
of Alabama, and William Deutsche, author of Alabama Rivers: A Celebration and
Challenge.
It
was a fascinating 50-minutes talking about Alabama’s biodiversity, how the
environment - rivers in particular – are facing their biggest challenges to
date, and the amazing reptile world the state hosts. Then our moderator, Kim
Nix, turned to me to talk about hiking with your dog and I was barely able to
muster phrases like, “uh, yeah. It’s beautiful out there.”
Just
kidding. I think the three of us fit together on the panel nicely.
The
day also features an Open Mic where writers get 15-minutes to tell or read one
of their stories of passages from their books. Well, I thought I’d give it a
try this year and tell one of my humorous short stories about growing up that
was loosely based on faulty memories.
I
showed up at the stage and I’m greeted by a woman who introduces herself. I
tell her who I am and that I’m scheduled for the 12:15 slot. She says that she
is scheduled for 12:15. She said, "Well, I only need 5-minutes. I'll go then that leaves you 10-minutes."
“Uh..you..uh..I...but..”,
he stumbles before reluctantly saying, “Okay.”
Now,
when I do the podcasts of these stories just like I used to in my radio days, the
basic story starts off being 15 to 20-minutes, then it morphs into something bigger as when I'm telling it I recall other little bits of the tale or a related story. Before you know it, I've gone 30 to 40-minutes long.
All week long I practiced the chosen story, honing it down to 15-minutes exactly and
promising myself I would not veer off course. But now, only 10-minutes? YIKES!
I
quickly regroup and decide instead to tell a story from my new book, Hidden
History of Mobile (Alabama). I was winging it. It was a chapter about the Marx Brothers,
in particular, Harpo, who had a significant piece of Marx history occur right
there in Alabama's Port City.
I
didn’t do too bad, but you could tell I was a bit blindsided and derailed by the switch. The story, coincidentally enough, was about the Brothers begin literally derailed on a train.
ANYWAY, I began and immediately made a glaring mistake, calling the
Marx Brother’s aunt "Mimi" instead of "Minnie". For some reason I was confusing John
Lennon’s aunt Mimi with the Marx Brother’s aunt Minnie.
I chuckled to myself thinking, "How appropriate. Just like the comedy group the Firesign Theater's album, All Hail Marx and Lennon."
But,
I survived and had a good time with it. Stay tuned. I’ll be posting a condensed video of both the panel and Open Mic very soon.
