RedPubPod #028 Les Brown

[00:00:00] This is RedPubPod, a podcast from RedHawk Publications. Welcome to RedPubPod, the best place

[00:00:16] to find out what's going on in Western North Carolina literature and beyond. I'm Richard

[00:00:22] Ellor, and with me today is Tim Peeler, our editor at RedHawk Publications and Patty Thompson

[00:00:28] and our acquisitions editor. Thank you guys for being with us. Thank you. But the real

[00:00:33] star of today is Les Brown, who's got a new book out called Iron Bridge Sunday. Les, let's

[00:00:40] start with how you became a writer in the first place. Oh, guys, I spent most of my life,

[00:00:45] my adult life teaching science, biology and geology and so forth. So the writing that

[00:00:54] I did during my career was actually not like literary writing at all, because it has to be

[00:01:01] sterile and completely just, you know, you couldn't put any emotion or anything in that kind

[00:01:06] of writing. So later on in my career, I got kind of interested in stories that my family

[00:01:13] told me. And I started writing some of those down and that gave me kind of the seed to

[00:01:21] build on. And I'll have to credit my wife in pushing me into that because I had written some

[00:01:30] of these humorous kind of anecdote stories that my family told me and she was writing down

[00:01:35] the road with me one day. And I heard her over there laughing. She never left, did any of

[00:01:42] my jokes I've ever told him a lot, but I said, what is what are you laughing at? She said,

[00:01:48] she was reading one of my stories and she said, this is good. And she encouraged me to go to

[00:01:55] Heinmann writer's workshop in Heinmann, Kentucky. It's an ongoing annual writer's workshop.

[00:02:04] And I went to that for about four years in a row, often on that even and had some instructors

[00:02:11] up there that were just amazing. People like Lee Smith and Ron Ration, a bunch of those people

[00:02:20] like that. So that gave me the kind of the push or the ambition to keep on working on these stories.

[00:02:29] And so it evolved from there. And I've written this, I've been writing then for about 30 or more

[00:02:37] years. And these stories in the current book are a culmination of that.

[00:02:45] Something I mentioned to Tim a little earlier, you know, we were nearly at 150 books right now,

[00:02:52] Red Hawk Publications. But this is only our second short story collection. Our very first short

[00:02:59] story collection was The Winner of Adventurebound Books, a chatbook contest by Elizabeth Davido.

[00:03:07] She did a short story collection called Animal Eyes and Other Stories, which was Harajandra.

[00:03:13] And she won her prize, she won a publication. You were selected from your acquisition

[00:03:20] editor that happens to be me based on them on the merits of just simply being incredible dialogue

[00:03:29] and story rich storytelling. And the reason I'm bringing this up is there are different kinds

[00:03:36] of short stories. How do you define or how do you label these short stories because they're

[00:03:45] different from some of the other short stories that I'm accustomed to, let's say?

[00:03:50] Well, I think they are different. In fact, the first part of the book is mostly based on

[00:03:57] anecdotes that come from my family ancestry. And stories my father told me, my uncles and cousins

[00:04:05] and that sort of thing. And the second section is just developed from my father's generation

[00:04:14] and building on the people I knew during his life, my uncles and aunts and those things.

[00:04:22] And then the next part, of course, is my generation, the kids that I grew up with and cousins

[00:04:29] and schoolmates and so forth. So I don't know, the classic short story has these elements that

[00:04:38] are official. You know, he's supposed to follow a certain format. But I never really had studied those.

[00:04:45] And then really follow them in developing these stories exactly. But I think they turned out

[00:04:52] to be pretty much on target as far as I can tell. So they come sort of natural to me actually.

[00:05:04] I don't know whether that makes any sense or not but I just know that my dad was a great storyteller.

[00:05:11] So maybe there's some genetics there, I hope. And it's as if to say that there's elements of truth.

[00:05:18] There's element of I'm sure what you may have drawn out to fictionalize to make it a fuller story.

[00:05:26] But that probably is also what I'm trying to put my finger on.

[00:05:30] There's just an element of authenticity. And as I read these stories,

[00:05:36] I can hear stories that my mom would have told me about her great aunts and uncles or stories

[00:05:41] I hear my husband who's 71 him telling me stories that his grandfather told him. So it does

[00:05:47] harken and bring you back to another time. And yet the topics are still relevant today. It's there's

[00:05:55] a lot in here. Well, I appreciate that. That's what I'm hoping people will get out of this is

[00:06:03] visiting the past and visiting some of the things that they may be familiar with. And also

[00:06:09] not only the humor of it but the tragedy of it. So I hope this book goes through that spectrum of

[00:06:19] all the way from tragedy to almost slapstick humor. And that's what I hear people say.

[00:06:27] Well, as you know, last time a huge fan of this book and I think I gave you pep talks all the

[00:06:34] way through the editing process. Oh yeah. Anyway, I'm very interested in the process that you went

[00:06:42] through. Did you write these chronologically the way that we see them in the book or were these

[00:06:48] done piecemeal and then you puzzled them together? The only chronological thing about them is

[00:06:54] the first part that part of that the stories that my ancestors told me. My father and the

[00:07:01] generation before him that go way on back to the ancestors. So that part was the first part that I

[00:07:08] wrote. The next part, both the second and third section of it are a piecemeal. I put those together

[00:07:15] from attic dots that were told to me or just things that actually things that I did as a kid

[00:07:25] or stories that I heard my family telling as a kid. And then I just build on those. So a lot of it

[00:07:33] comes from, and I usually an authenticity of my family history. But I don't know if the

[00:07:44] stories that we've loved themselves that it's not that I followed any format or any chronological

[00:07:53] sequence. They just kind of evolved, you know, to have a thought or an idea from somewhere in the past

[00:08:00] and just go with it. So the process besides being kind of a practice in oral tradition, I would say

[00:08:11] it was also very organic. Oh yeah. And that's what it sounds like to me which is I think the reason

[00:08:18] that it comes off as authentically as you say. I think that's a good word, organic because

[00:08:26] there are real people and real things that could happen. In some cases they're based on authentic

[00:08:35] things that happened. They're all fictionalized. Everything in here is fictionalized. Except then

[00:08:42] the first part were the ancestral stories. Those did pretty much what they told me but I put my

[00:08:49] spin on all of them. But the later ones are, you know, some of them are absolutely from my own

[00:08:58] ether out there. I don't know exactly what you'd call it but just came from nowhere.

[00:09:04] There are definitely based on events in my own life. For example, my father who was unfortunately

[00:09:14] an alcoholic plays a big role in a couple of these stories and that was a hard part to write

[00:09:22] but in a way cathartic for me. I've had this particular conversation with someone very recently

[00:09:31] because most good writers that I know have had something like that in their life that was

[00:09:38] almost too much to bear. And it's one of the things that helped post them forward and maybe

[00:09:43] make them a little more ambitious than they might have been. Do you feel like dealing with your

[00:09:48] father's problems did that for you? I would know that. You know, where you got from North

[00:09:53] Cove is pretty remarkable. No doubt it influenced my writing. I've also got a couple of

[00:10:02] chatbooks, a poetry that I've written and a lot of those stories deal with my father's alcoholism.

[00:10:09] So yes, it did play a big role in it. And some of the other hardships that we heard

[00:10:15] in the family are also in some of the stories. There was one story in there that

[00:10:21] was published, well actually it won a second prize in the Western North Carolina writer's network

[00:10:31] about my about an aunt who was beaten by her father until she aborted. And that story is

[00:10:43] probably the most hurtful or tragic story in the whole book. But it's based on a family story

[00:10:54] that was told, and of course I put my own embellishment on it. And I have no idea how the

[00:11:02] things occurred but I created those to fictionalize the story. Did you ever feel like whenever you

[00:11:10] were writing these that you were walking around looking at yourself? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. In fact,

[00:11:19] the character that is a thread all the way through it is a kid by the name of Billy Fletcher.

[00:11:26] And he's my doppelganger. So he's me and in some ways he's like me in other ways. He's

[00:11:40] a little smarter in ways, but he is kind of my character. And all of the other kids in that

[00:11:49] life section are roughly based on people that I knew, you know, Oscar was.

[00:11:55] Co-orts. Co-orts if you were generation. Yeah. But they are certainly not those people.

[00:12:02] I want to go back just a little bit to that specific short story reference bastard.

[00:12:09] I hope our listeners will understand this short story collection includes over 20 short stories,

[00:12:15] about 23, 24 of which nine have already been published over the course of the many years. And

[00:12:22] about five of them have placed or won some type of recognition or an award. So in essence,

[00:12:31] this is your short story collection, but it's also the best of for sure. You are presenting us

[00:12:39] with some real gems here. And while bastard was a little challenging to read at the same time,

[00:12:44] again, we put ourselves back in time, back in place realizing that that could have been what happened.

[00:12:53] Whether it did or didn't, but the fact is you do represent some universal truth in this book within

[00:12:59] all of your short stories, including talking about religion. Atheists, race, you know, every day working,

[00:13:10] how it is to handle a farm with a lot of family and community. There's just a lot of things,

[00:13:16] again, I picture a time hundred, twenty years ago, but I also know that these are still universal

[00:13:24] truths that are still being tackled with today. I didn't hold back, you know. These stories needed

[00:13:31] to be told and wanted to be told. They were in me and I had to get them out even the one suit was

[00:13:39] very painful. But some of them were just plain fun to get out. They're quite a number of those,

[00:13:48] particularly in the latter section, where I'm with all my friends and so forth.

[00:13:54] Yeah, an interesting thing, I'll forget a question about

[00:13:59] do you write stories of how do you come up with a plot and so forth? To me,

[00:14:07] the characters write their own story. They do what I'm not. You know, I don't tell them where

[00:14:14] they go and what do they tell me what to write and you know, just kind of let them go where they want

[00:14:22] to go. Do you want to read us like a short section from one of the stories? Well I could

[00:14:29] think our audience would like to hear that. This will be in the middle of one of the stories. It's

[00:14:35] in the middle of the story called the poker game. You think it's a sin what we're doing out here,

[00:14:44] ever sat or denied, drinking, cussing, carrying on like we do, asked for her. Well my grandma

[00:14:51] wouldn't even let us play old maids but she'd take a little sip of whiskey and honey

[00:14:56] even give us, you know, give us something when we had the group. Sin said basal. I ain't right,

[00:15:05] sure what that means. Everybody sins if you go with a good book, don't know anybody, don't

[00:15:12] covet something, not be as simple as somebody's big old meter plant or somebody's ass,

[00:15:18] you know like the donkey, the one Bible says about it and I'll have to say that I have lusted a bit

[00:15:24] for some of them women in their underwear and the Sarah's Roadbook catalog. You've done more than

[00:15:29] lusted over that catalog in your outhouse, said to Helmer. I just don't think it's a sin if anybody

[00:15:36] ain't hurting anybody else said could. Don't know as I've heard anybody in my life except maybe

[00:15:42] Toby Pates when we was in the fourth grade I punched him in the nose because he called me a nasty

[00:15:48] hillbilly. It's still crooked if you look at him next time. I like to get out of the house and

[00:15:56] shoot the shit with your last holes more than anything else since they fired me from the furniture plant

[00:16:01] I guess said Helmer, you call that shak you live in a house said could you don't have nothing to show

[00:16:08] for it for your ears. You're one to talk said Helmer you live with your wife and mom and daddy

[00:16:15] and that old trailer on their land at least I own my shak since pearly died I ain't beholding

[00:16:21] to nobody no more. I do as I please and I please to be out here ever warm Saturday night

[00:16:28] with from spring till winter runs out runs me out of the cold. My real mittes is got so bad I can

[00:16:34] hardly get down to the creek to fish no more. So what else have I got to do? We're all doing

[00:16:41] something we're being a bunch of happy born losers I came fuss with that said burnt burning.

[00:16:48] We come out here every Saturday night and get scum drunk ate a mother's son of us going nowhere

[00:16:54] we're all gonna wind up right here we're Hilmerious older than ox yolks and poor than straight dogs

[00:17:01] but it ain't no sin in my book you better watch out old man you're asking to be struck by lightning

[00:17:08] said could I've been baptized don't completely underwater yonder down yonder tyrant bridge when I

[00:17:16] was about 11 years old if that preacher was telling the truth I don't have to worry about going to

[00:17:22] Hill because everybody at save has been dumped why was you dumped as basal wasn't you a Methodist

[00:17:30] still am my daddy always said once a Methodist always a Methodist my great-grandpa was a circuit

[00:17:37] writer come through here and made everybody feel guilty about making whiskey but that don't seem

[00:17:43] right that been making whiskey good liquor ever since that came over here on the Mayflower you're

[00:17:50] dumbass coulda man said could her not they didn't come on the Mayflower almost everybody up here's

[00:17:57] from Ireland according to daddy they was pouring sooner dogs you never did tell us why you got dumped

[00:18:05] the preacher let us decide whether to get sprinkled or dumped of course a bunch of us young and

[00:18:10] so I wanted to get dumped since it would be in the swimming hole down under the iron bridge at least

[00:18:17] we got purified all over especially down on those parts that needed purified most sprinkling don't

[00:18:23] get you on them those them parts said could maybe we should all get dumped sounds like koots got

[00:18:31] a point said elmer I didn't even get sprinkled nobody in my family's been has been the church since

[00:18:37] the Mayflower and all the Irishman landed at Plymouth Rock and started Thanksgiving ain't that where

[00:18:45] they come to I guess that's where the Plymouth Plymouth Rock chickens come from been thinking a lot

[00:18:51] about that stuff since I was about as old old enough to croak I had a Plymouth once lost my driver's

[00:18:59] license do we need a preacher to get dumped said baseless that's an amazingly rich dialogue and

[00:19:10] hearing you say it just brings it to life less I feel remiss if I don't say this I'm hearing the

[00:19:15] ghost of Robert please folks go out and go to our website and get this book you'll want to read it

[00:19:23] it's called iandridge sunday and other stories by less brown and of course you can get

[00:19:29] another website redhawkcubbication.com now my question would be since you've written poetry too

[00:19:37] is that a different process from the short story you know that's an interesting question I think

[00:19:43] that the two are compatible because there's in order to write a good short story I think you have

[00:19:54] to have a poetic voice or there's a rhythm or something that you have to get into and I think the two

[00:20:02] really are compatible but I didn't start writing poetry until very late until well after I was retired

[00:20:12] and I just that was something that just got a spun out of a short story efforts and I read kind

[00:20:22] of read into what you say writers block on my short stories and the poetry gave me a direction

[00:20:28] to go for a while that I'm kind of thinking I'm getting back into that old groove

[00:20:34] all right let me ask you this I've I have been to a pottery show that less did and he's a master

[00:20:44] craftsman as well also a photographer he's an illustrator illustrator a lot of people don't know this

[00:20:54] what would you say about doing all of those different things I mean how do you balance all of that

[00:21:00] my bad answer is that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up

[00:21:06] but no I tell people that I'm not satisfied unless I'm creating something you know

[00:21:13] whether it'll last beyond me or not that's up to society decide or my readers to decide

[00:21:20] but it's just fulfilling to make something and to create something or whether it's verbal or

[00:21:28] and a lot of the photos that Les has taken have become covers for his poetry books or maybe

[00:21:34] choices and and in this particular short story collection when he mentioned to Robert that he

[00:21:41] had illustrations to go inside we were pretty quizzical and curious and then when we saw his drawings

[00:21:46] we're like yeah of course they're going in so I think the readers will be surprised to see some

[00:21:52] interesting sketchings and drawings that accompany your stories well done

[00:21:57] thank you so much I appreciate all of you in your support for me I suppose that means there's more

[00:22:03] than one way to tell a story right with your images as well as your text oh yeah yeah in fact

[00:22:11] you can kind of see the story in your mind and the place is in your mind a lot of places in this

[00:22:17] book or where I grew up there's one a story called the flats and I can see this place right now it's

[00:22:24] like a swampy place in the creek where it widens out it's where the kids went for all hunting and

[00:22:32] there's a story about that in there and I can see this out of the mountain that we won't

[00:22:37] hike down in a scout hike that one another story that is just a great story

[00:22:46] that I like yeah my goodness interesting experience and that one's based a lot on truth

[00:22:54] except the dialogue and everything are totally fiction but you know I literally can feel and see

[00:23:02] this place my home being is ingrained in that valley that I grew up in I still call that home even

[00:23:10] all of it in states for and if you don't mind me asking because I'm not in North Carolina native

[00:23:16] the locations that you use as names do they exist or are these fictionalized names for where

[00:23:24] you actually come from their fictionalized names of the places I came from because you're from

[00:23:32] Lentville cove right it's North cove North cove okay so if anyone's reading this you can transport

[00:23:40] your mind to that part of Western North Carolina fictional names but at least you know

[00:23:46] the topography and geography of how beautiful it is oh yeah yeah the beauty of it just

[00:23:53] you know it's ingrained in me and that everything in the book kind of expands out of that

[00:23:58] environment and not only that with the people and culture one thing I hope that people won't

[00:24:06] see this hillbilly book because hillbilly is a derogatory term pretty much it's good you know

[00:24:16] like an app you know it's not we don't like that but these people in fact the majority of the

[00:24:25] people in there really were not what I would call hillbillies they were most other factory workers

[00:24:32] farmers in fact my grandfather had a big farm about 500 acres up there before he divided it

[00:24:38] up among his offspring and that created some problems because then no one had a farm big enough

[00:24:45] to make a living on so I started getting kind of hard after his death and the division of all

[00:24:54] the farms up there so and there were always a bunch of as there are everywhere people that are lost

[00:25:03] like in this poker game the image you see when you read that story I hope there's a bunch of

[00:25:09] guys that are lost sitting around to come far out behind a store with a railroad track in the back

[00:25:17] played their poker and carrying on with each other but that's pretty much what I see when

[00:25:26] and when I wrote that story well patty mentions the universality of it because it's just people

[00:25:32] trying to figure out their lives and what lies beyond and all that sort of stuff and that happens

[00:25:37] to everybody exactly yeah and even the tragic part of it those things happen too in fact I've got

[00:25:45] as patty said I've got elements of racism in there and this is an interesting twist on racism

[00:25:53] I hope that people can pick that up and that story and of course the sexuality and so forth

[00:26:04] I hope that people won't be offended by the language I use a lot a little for a lot of words

[00:26:13] and so forth but I never in any of them drop the f bomb I hope that won't offend people

[00:26:21] but they redo that there that's the way people talk and I think that works more and more so

[00:26:28] as we go forward in that it gives your characters the full range of expression

[00:26:33] yeah hoax over yeah

[00:26:36] yeah there are definitely some strong female characters in here with just

[00:26:43] just as the woman in the group it does seem like the women kind of held down the farm

[00:26:49] in some regards while the men did the hard work and you know they blew off their steam the way

[00:26:54] they knew best through the jug but the woman you know they made sure that the guys got home

[00:27:00] the kids were dressed ready to go to school went to church and I imagine again kind of universal

[00:27:07] and certainly back in that time and place you show the roles and the reversals and how things

[00:27:15] were a little different back then yeah they were and the role of women is of course shifted back

[00:27:24] most of the women up there were home makers but they were strong women there's no doubt about that

[00:27:31] and the tragic part of the thing about my father was my mother having to deal with that

[00:27:39] and that's another you know tragic part that I had to write about and kind of get out of my system

[00:27:45] but in any case they endured that was one of the words that you used in one of your short stories

[00:27:53] about I think it was Sarah you know what the the women endured yeah they endured

[00:28:01] and the men were all good looking

[00:28:09] one other thing I wanted to mention you turned 83 a couple days ago is that right

[00:28:15] yes so have you heard the night thank you so you're an octogenarian writing short stories about

[00:28:23] childhood at the point where you're almost as far away from it as you can get exactly I think

[00:28:29] that's a pretty remarkable thing that you could hear that exactly I hope that the younger generation

[00:28:37] who knows nothing really about the generation said I'm writing about can look at this and get a

[00:28:43] picture a snapshot of those three generations that the book takes up it doesn't take up anything

[00:28:50] of the current recent generations but it looks back at those times and hopes that hope that's

[00:28:58] what will come through well that's pretty important for them to understand how the world got

[00:29:04] to a place where they joined it oh yeah yeah and they join it with a lot more a lot of different

[00:29:11] things today cell phones in fact we had no no electricity until I was seven years old

[00:29:20] used outhouse all that time too so I grew up from you know that generation all the way up through

[00:29:30] cell phones and people going to the moon and so forth and it's interesting to watch that evolve

[00:29:38] and I think back to the generation that the book starts with and those are the people who

[00:29:43] used horseback and of course there's a story called Christmas candy in there that goes back

[00:29:50] to horse and buggy days and old men interacting with each other brothers drinking yeah a lot

[00:30:05] of drinking yeah well and now there's the element of truth about that is it my great grandfather

[00:30:11] owned a legal still and we have property up there now on still house branch which is part of my

[00:30:19] great grandfather's my grandfather's farm and he had that legalized still until prohibition

[00:30:28] and it the the drinking continued after that in fact look her making continued after that I'm sure

[00:30:35] in a lot of places you know it's funny by the way I was just nobody when they grew up think

[00:30:41] thinks of themselves as having hardship like we would think of them having it's just the way

[00:30:46] you dealt with life yeah sure yeah we grew everything in fact farm but I grew up on was self-sufficient

[00:30:54] we made everything we killed their own hogs we made our own molasses for sweetening

[00:31:01] we grew everything we ate and you know the only thing that they bought I guess was things like salt

[00:31:09] and you know the staples that couldn't get anywhere else plus the pants it's so forth but

[00:31:17] I can remember my uncle standing stirring the molasses and making those and can

[00:31:23] remember vividly the hog killing since the fourth so those are ingrained in my memory

[00:31:32] that's kind of what I pull from for writing do you still have relatives that live up in the North

[00:31:38] Colville area I'm the last one of my first cousins all of my generation before that are gone of

[00:31:49] course my father's generation and then all of my generation are gone except me and I may have

[00:31:56] one other cousin who's still living in rest home up in Marion I'm not sure about that I need to

[00:32:04] find out if she's still living but she would be in a a minority some sure have you had anyone to

[00:32:11] complain about how you portrayed him or her in the story not yet sounds like sounds like they may

[00:32:19] be gone well they really are they're all gone all the guys in your well neveration in that story no

[00:32:29] now the ones of my generation there's some of those a bunch of them are still living but I doubt

[00:32:35] that recognize themselves in these stories there's an interesting thing that happened too

[00:32:42] some of these stories involve like four kids four boys interacting with each other

[00:32:49] like one called honeycutton or Ellis as far as I know in the authentic element of that I was

[00:32:57] the only one that participated in that but my mind saw me with a bunch of boys doing all this stuff

[00:33:06] and you know that it's kind of an interesting thing that my mind really turned itself on its head

[00:33:14] and put me with a bunch of my friends doing something that I did alone and there's one called the cage

[00:33:25] and I don't know I know that there were some other kids involved in that but I don't know who they were

[00:33:31] I can't remember

[00:33:36] feeling into blanks creatively I'm so into you good for you

[00:33:41] do you have any more stories to come well I've written a few others and I'm not sure

[00:33:49] how much more I've got in me but I do have one that if I can ever get it polished up it's maybe

[00:34:01] no fellow length but I'm not sure it's ready for anyone else's eyes what's that what's

[00:34:10] that process like for you I mean how do you know when you got an idea and you're taking it forward

[00:34:17] how do you know when you're going to fully commit to it to write this whole thing down

[00:34:22] I think I'd have to have somebody else to read it and react to it before I would devote myself

[00:34:30] to fully committing to it now the short stories I would just write those and maybe have my

[00:34:38] favorite editor who might live with she's she's my best in first editor but I have

[00:34:47] her look over short stories and poems and then I maybe try to get them published if I get one or

[00:34:55] two published and that's certainly some motivation to continue but this really took a lot of

[00:35:03] lot out of me you know I think it's the icing on my cake 83 years old you know I'm proud to have

[00:35:14] at least published it and it's been a been a joy to have worked with you guys and with the people

[00:35:23] that read it I can't believe the the comments on the book especially Tom and Lee Smith and Ron rash

[00:35:34] and Tommy Hayes they were just more than generous with their comments I noticed that Tom rash helped

[00:35:46] you as well Tom yeah Ron's brother yeah he read it in fact I had several editors to look over it

[00:35:57] and they're mentioned in the knowledgements and I think they they certainly helped a lot and

[00:36:06] tightening it up and so forth you know it's kind of like verbal diarrhea when you first start out

[00:36:15] does that bunch of it then you have to be willing to give up those words that you love

[00:36:22] and accept the judgment of some intelligent people like him and the other editors

[00:36:31] is that how you do it is you just let it all come out and then cut what you got to cut yeah

[00:36:38] that's exactly what you do you write it and let the characters do what they want to make

[00:36:44] the story go where it's going to go and then you have to go back and pair it down and clean it up

[00:36:53] tell truth I was not the greatest grimmerian I grab her and writing style was not that good until

[00:37:04] I started writing long 30 years ago and going to these writers workshops and I quickly learned

[00:37:12] that editing and good editing is essential to anybody's work so if there's anybody out there

[00:37:20] it's listening to this that has any ambition of writing a book you need to be

[00:37:28] to get it edited by some other readers it's one of the number one things we do when we accept people's

[00:37:36] manuscripts we ask them who's read it you know and typically you can tell

[00:37:43] a writer who's got their craft down they'll say oh I've had several people look at it and

[00:37:46] look it over and I recently had a 22 year old person who wrote 190,000 words and I'm like well

[00:37:52] who's read read it for you nobody so sweet and I told him you know I admire your hood spell

[00:37:59] forget now 190,000 words you have someone read that you come back to me and he's doing the work

[00:38:05] good found himself in that or some people listen I want to thank you less for what you

[00:38:12] you helped us you kind of collaborated on another one of our projects Cecil Willis yeah he's got a book

[00:38:19] coming out shortly if it's not out already and it's called Hillbilly Odyssey and it's a memoir

[00:38:25] he was brought up in Canton North Carolina Hillbilly Odyssey resilience in a small mountain

[00:38:32] mill town and Cecil was very encouraged by you reading it on his behalf and providing an advanced

[00:38:40] praise or a blurb well I appreciate his asking he's got a good book there the what happened to

[00:38:49] the cat to that town can't close the mill closed and certainly he's got a strong history with that

[00:38:57] and a lot to say about it and one of the reasons I bring it up is as most folks know with

[00:39:04] with Redhawk publications we don't have this strongest marketing and distribution mind but we do

[00:39:09] the best we can and your short stories taking place in the mountains and his memoir taking place

[00:39:17] in the North Carolina mountains I would love to see the two of you maybe dovetailing and doing a

[00:39:22] little bit of reading together a discussion together because they're they're two heads of the

[00:39:29] same coin in a way he bring the fiction and he brings the history and the memoir I can see the

[00:39:37] two of you doing something together so stay tuned listeners that would be fun there might be

[00:39:42] good opportunity to have you both on stage doing something together it's in my mind

[00:39:48] okay plan to deceive plan to see yes well thank you last thank you for joining us today we

[00:39:55] certainly appreciate it and you've gotten great press for the the book so far and we hope

[00:40:01] more good things like that continue to happen well I appreciate it and I appreciate everyone who's

[00:40:07] bought a copy of it and if you haven't bought it go to redhawk.com and I'll pretend to

[00:40:13] robber redhawkpublications.com and or pick up a copy you'll get it cheaper than if the buy

[00:40:21] don't Amazon that's right but anyhow anyway you can get your hands on one please do you know how

[00:40:28] to market as well you wear that as well as the uh potter hat and the rider and the photographer

[00:40:35] and we always encourage our listeners to again follow us on our Facebook Instagram we're also on

[00:40:42] X and TikTok and um we've got our website so by all means like subscribe follow and share

[00:40:50] there you go yeah just one more final thing now that you've been on redpub pod can you say that

[00:40:56] can I say that I've been on redhawkpub red redpub pod excuse me well I have been on redpub.com

[00:41:06] um okay let's go ahead and check out redpub pod redpub pod

[00:41:14] yeah I have been on redpub pod thank you for allowing me to do this and we thank you for being here

[00:41:24] that's all right thank you thanks Lewis okay thank you

[00:41:28] you've been listening to redpub pod redpub pod

[00:41:35] redpub pod

[00:41:38] about yes from redhawk publications