Truth & Wisdom from the Mouths of Babes

Children are the most precious beings on earth — and they say the most special things.

On a recent visit, my two little sweethearts, wandering around my office looking for things to get into,
discovered the proof copy of Gather at the Table on my credenza.

Julian picked up the book and looked at it quizzically.

After a ponderous moment, he said:

“This is you Shama?” (Shama is my grandma name)

Intrigued, Violet came to his side to have a look… “This your book?”

I explained that, “Yes, that is me and this is my book… I wrote it.” 

In turn, they each remarked:

“What are you doing at the beach?”

“Can we go to the beach with you next time?”

There is nothing like the benefit of a child’s innocent wisdom.

Violet & Julian at Shama’s House

Making Peace with the Past

Tom DeWolf and I penned an article that has just appeared in the Oklahoma Humanities magazine. The them of the issue is “reconciliation” and our contribution is entitled “Making Peace with the Past.”

Oklahoma was one of the stops on the road trip we took last year to inform the writing of our book. It was a moving experience in many ways. For me, it provided an opportunity to connect with one of my ancestors — Owen Gavin — who lived in Pottawatomie County. His story is told in our article along with an account of the Tulsa race riot and our thoughts about how to use this horrific history to heal.

There are many illuminating stories in this issue and we are proud to be a part of it.

Here is the link to our article: http://www.okhumanities.org/Websites/ohc/images/Magazines/summer_2012/making_peace_with_the_past.pdf

Hilltop Haints

I just returned from the national gathering of Coming to the Table. This is the group that brought Tom and I together in 2008 and led to our collaboration in writing Gather at the Table. The group has grown a lot since then.

Sixty-five inquisitive, motivated souls gathered at Richmond Hill, a location of enormous historical importance. We spent a weekend engaging in dialogue about history, slavery, racism, and healing. As the birthplace of both America and American slavery, Virginia (not to mention Richmond) held deep meaning for us all.

Over the course of the weekend, Tom and I made a presentation about our book to an enthusiastic audience. The many compliments we received for our reading inspired hope that our book can become a best seller. I also led a genealogy workshop to teach people how to do both forward and reverse research to discover linked descendants. During my personal time, I spent several hours at the Library of Virginia, a leading research center for genealogists and historians.

The great irony for me was finding out that the man who gave the city of Richmond its name in 1737 is connected to the family I am researching in Mississippi. William Byrd gazed out over the horizon at what is now Richmond Hill in 1737 and named the town for his birthplace at Richmond-on-Thames, England. One of Byrd’s descendants, Bathia Byrd, married Charles Gavin — the great grandfather of Robert Gavin — the man who fathered 17 children with my GGGrandmother, Bettie Warfe.

It is a small world indeed when one can time travel through centuries and find such profound connections. That idea is even more poignant when considering that Richmond Hill is so near to St. John’s Church, where Patrick Henry delivered his speech that extolled: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Richmond went on to become the capitol of the Confederate states. Richmond Hill is today an ecumenical retreat center focused on prayer, healing, hospitality and reconciliation.

This experience reminded me once again how powerful ancestral spirits can be. The bright ones stand with us as we attempt to heal from the traumas of slavery and racism. There was a great deal of talk about that over the weekend — along with a heap of praying and reconciling.

My takeaway from all this is the satisfaction of knowing that many people see things the way I do. Our “hidden wound” longs to be healed and there are at least 65 people on planet Earth who are committed to transformation. It was powerful indeed to sit atop Richmond Hill in unity, gazing out at a future we will help unfurl.

After processing my feelings on the long drive back home, I arrived to updated news about the Obama family being eviscerated yet again; women under assault over reproductive rights; growing outrage over the murder of a boy named Trayvon Martin and the impending trial of a soldier who massacred 16 people in Afghanistan.

When Gather at the Table goes on sale on October 9, our greatest hope is to be a beacon of light in a dark and scary world.

Ashay… ashay… to the ancestors who brought us this far.

Meeting two of the most important people in my life

Yesterday, February 9, was the fifth anniversary of the day on which I met two people for the first time; two people who have changed my life in dramatic ways. Both of them have influenced my writing and several other aspects of how I live my life.

One was my granddaughter Alison, who was born that day. The other was my editor at Beacon Press, Gayatri Patnaik, who I met by telephone when I called her from my daughter’s hospital room.

As Sharon and I continue to prepare for the publication of Gather at the Table in October, edited as my first book was, by Gayatri, I wrote about my celebration of February 9 at my other blog site.

Another big step in our journey behind us

While I worked away in my office last evening, Lindi watched the two women’s semi-final matches in the Australian Open tennis tournament. These two seemingly unrelated activities have quite the fascinating connection… at least to me.

My work was finishing up the review Sharon and I have been doing of our copy edited manuscript for Gather at the Table. We received it from the managing editor at Beacon Press last Friday. We’ve spent approximately three hours each day on the phone since then, working our way through the manuscript page by page, discussing whether to accept, reject, or modify each word, sentence, or paragraph our copy editor has recommended that we change. Almost every page has at least one recommended change; some have several.

The role of a copy editor is to correct errors in grammar, spelling, word or phrase usage, and style guidelines established by the publisher. She or he is charged with improving the flow of a story, to tighten things up and eliminate awkward phrasing.  We LOVE our copy editor! We’re proud of what we’ve written, and her work has made our book better.

You’d think it would be tedious to review a copy edited manuscript, but it isn’t. We continue to enjoy every aspect of the publishing process. This morning we sent the manuscript back to the managing editor. This part of the process has all been done online. According to our publishing schedule, sometime in late March we’ll receive a physical copy of the page proofs, which we will then proofread and mark corrections in red pencil; our final review before the book is prepared for printing.

So what does this have to do with my wife watching the Australian Open? Exactly one year ago at this time, Sharon and Lindi and I were in Tobago. Sharon and I wrote the first three chapters of Gather at the Table during our two week sojourn there. Our host for the trip, the owner of the house in which we stayed (Sharon’s daughter-in-law’s father) is an avid tennis fan just like Lindi. I’m not sure we’ll ever watch the Australian Open again without thinking about the wonderful – and warm – adventure we had in Tobago with Sharon. With all the snow and ice and freezing wind at our home in Oregon these days, I wish we were back in the Caribbean!

Our adventure continues, as does the countdown to publication in October.

Happy New Year – (or as we think of it, 282 days until pub date)

Welcome to 2012! Today is the first day of the year in which Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade will be published by Beacon Press.

Sharon and I will spend most of this year preparing for (and anxiously anticipating) our book to hit shelves (both physical and virtual) on October 9. Gather at the Table will be available in hardcover as well as electronically (Kindle, Nook, etc), and hopefully on audio.

Throughout this year we will update you on news about the book, our ongoing journey, and will create occasional videos from our travels together. We thank you for spreading the word to your friends. Anyone can subscribe to this blog (click the link in the upper right corner of this page) and to our YouTube page (yellow “subscribe” button near the top left of the page).

We’ve just posted our latest video, a brief encapsulation of our 6,000-miles-in-one-month-road-trip through 21 states this past spring. Let us know what you think!

The Skill of Writing

It is hard to be a writer. I know because I am one — and wow, does that feel good to say!

Beginning as children (well, most of us), writers are compelled to express themselves. The opinion driven angst of youth urges us (often in dreams) to get things off our chest. So we write in diaries, post our thoughts on Facebook, Tweet and text voluminously. In the old days, we filled yellow legal pads and diaries with long diatribes (at least I did).  I lost my writer’s ”virginity” when my mother hunted and found my locked diary, read my private thoughts and loudly berated my insolence. After that, I evolved into craving a larger audience — one that might not be so judgemental.

In the long run, the ultimate goal of writers is that our prose will incite millions of thinkers to think and readers to read — not for the money (although that would be nice) but for the pleasure of striking the musical chord of popular resonance. We have at our disposal 26 letters and approximately one million words with which to do this — in a form that is grammatically superior. When all else fails, we thank God for spell check and writer’s license!

I started honing my writing skills early in life. In grammar school, Sister Mary Martin De Porres taught us to write in cursive; Sister Theodore taught us to diagram sentences with perfect precision. In high school, Sister Evangeline taught us the archaic roots of language with Latin. In a secular state college, rhetoric was my favorite class (lots of puns; no nuns). All along the way, when my work was offered to the scrutiny of peer review, I was both attracted and repelled when my innocuous poetry and amateur essays induced accolades from students and teachers alike. I eventually accepted that writing is something I was meant to do. I have been at it ever since — walking a long and arduous road toward continuously improving my skills with every tool I can find.

Enter Strunk and White.

In their 105 page book — Elements of Style —  the authors wax in prolific brevity (an oxymoron I know) through evenly divided sections. There are 11 “Elementary Rules of Usage,” 11 “Elementary Rules of Composition” and 11 “Matters of Form.” Borrowing from their wisdom, my motto is “Good writing is concise” (much to the chagrin of some editors who want more and more and then some.)

When Tom posted this rap on his Facebook page, I just couldn’t help myself. I had to pass it on. Hopefully, when Gather At the Table reaches book stores in Fall 2012, our readers will see that I learned my lessons well.

The shifting landscape for books

A question for you: how have your reading habits changed over the past few years?

When my first book, Inheriting the Trade, came out almost four years ago, it was initially available in hardcover and audio formats. Within a year it became available in softcover and digital editions. The softcover is the preferred version for reading clubs and is now in its second printing.

The digital launch of Inheriting the Trade was pretty low-key. How things have changed in four short years. EBooks have become the fastest growing segment of the publishing world. According to the American Association of Publishers, eBook sales in August 2011 were up 116.5% over August 2010. Sales of hardcover books in the same time period were down 11.2%; softcover sales were down 5.7%. The one other bright spot in book sales was for downloaded audio: up 30.2%.

When Sharon and I met with the marketing and publicity team at Beacon Press in late October regarding next year’s publication of Gather at the Table, they made a point of letting us know that our book will be available digitally right from the start.

Sales of Amazon’s Kindle readers quadrupled on Black Friday this year compared with 2010. Barnes and Noble experienced a loss in the third quarter this year due to the decline in the sale of physical books. They plan to invest more heavily in their Nook e-book reader and digital media.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you own a digital reader? How do you like it? If you don’t own one, why not? Personally, I haven’t invested in one yet. Until recently I never even considered it. Now, I’ll be surprised if I don’t have one by the time Gather at the Table is published next October…

Change

While going through some old paper files, I came across a clipping from a 2006 Vanity Fair magazine entitled “Special Alert: Horoscope USA.” It predicts “A planetary configuration not seen since 1776 is coming our way, heralding chaos, revolution, and rebirth” — a 20 year span of massive upheaval that will forever change how America sees itself and how it relates to its citizens and the world community. As the article says, “It’s going to be the 1960s, in spades.”

Astrology is one of many subjects about which I maintain an ongoing curiosity. I accept the idea that celestial bodies have an influence on human behavior. Native American prophesies intrigue me. I have read Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, and the books of Seth. I am inclined to believe something hugely significant will occur on December 21, 2012.  Add into that mix of prophetic resonance the realities of wars, global warming,  food insecurity, water and energy resource depletion.

The convergence of so many huge challenges all at the same time makes it impossible for any thinking person to ignore that things are, indeed, changing — prophesied or not.  They have to.

By the time Gather at the Table is published in October, 2012, who knows what the state of the world will be? The leadership of numerous countries will have changed. The winner of the American presidential election will not yet be known. The EuroZone may no longer exist.  Occupy Wall Street may well have packed up its tents and gone home.  The writings of H.G. Wells may gain new import. Wars may have proliferated. By the end of December, the world as we know it may no longer exist at all.

Whatever does or does not happen, Gather at the Table will enter the public consciousness at a propitious time. A time when people are actively engaged in laying destructive legacies to rest; seeking new solutions to old problems and building new footpaths toward a better world.

It is my fervent hope that, of the 3,000 books published each day, Gather at the Table will find its way to the top of the heap as a beacon of hope in a world of change.

WRITER’S BLOCK

Some days, writing flows like manna from heaven. I wake up before day with a mental sheaf of ideas rustling in my head. Whole sentences, already formed into grammatically correct paragraphs, clamour to be presented on a page. All I have to do is boot up the computer in time to capture the rush of content before it dissipates into one of those dreams we can never remember.

Then, there are days… and days…. and days…. when I just can’t get anything out.

I sit at the computer and stare at the screen. I check Facebook 99 times an hour. I get involved with the stunning news reports of the day: Riots in England; murders in Mississippi; helping The Help; brooding over my finances (or lack thereof); emailing people I haven’t talked to in years, just to say hello; combing the dog. When those diversions don’t work, I go into my garden to check my tomatoes; water the flowers and whack weeds.

Arghhhhhhhhhh.

My current mission is to draft Chapter 6. Tom is working on Chaper 7. We have mutually committed to switch drafts on Friday. It is this disciplined approach that keeps the machine that culminates in our book rolling onward to our delivery date in December. These two chapters will get us halfway to the end.

Maybe it’s the topic. This week, I am writing about “mercy.” The preceding section, which we completed more than a month ago, was on “truth.”  Mercifully, the truth section tumbled out of my head like a waterfall, perhaps in tribute to Albert Camus’ statement that “Acknowledging the truth will conquer it.” My writing during that time proved his observation beyond doubt. Today, the truth is that I am having a really hard time conquering mercy. Knowing that mercy starts as an individual act that has ripples for everyone else, I long for an act of grace to get me over the mental hurdle of actually writing about it. There is so much going on in the world that cries out for truth, mercy and justice (which is the next section of the book).

I just heard the “bing” of a new email message. I can read that, check Facebook one more time, tune in BBC to see if the streets are still on fire and then… MAYBE I can do what I am really supposed to be doing. Failing that, maybe I’ll take a nap!