RedPubPod #030 Julia Nunnally Duncan “When Time Was Suspended”

[00:00:00] This is RedPubPod, a podcast from RedHawk Publications.

[00:00:10] Good morning, good afternoon or good evening out there in podcast land.

[00:00:18] Wonderful thing about podcast is you can listen to them when you want to so if it's three in the morning I hope you all listen to us.

[00:00:24] Richard Eller is here, Patty Thompson is here. I'm Robert Kanipe, you're somewhat host and we're coming to you live from the

[00:00:32] Bush Welded Studios on Katapa Valley Community College campus. This actually our second podcast in New Digs and we don't have the...

[00:00:41] Is it plush? Is it welded?

[00:00:42] Well, it's welded as much as our students can weld it. And we are here today with poet Julia Nonelli Duncan. So welcome.

[00:00:53] Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Did you have a good drive in there?

[00:00:57] Wonderful. Okay, great. Stop any fast food places or anything like that for a cup of coffee or...

[00:01:02] Not yet.

[00:01:03] Okay, not yet. Okay, so if you hear someone stomach-grabbing over the microphones it will probably be our gas.

[00:01:11] I might recommend if you're looking for a place you might want to go to Tasteful Beans which is located in downtown Hickory,

[00:01:18] Poets Scott Owens. Owens and I'll write it. Right, so there's a lot of good poetry books there.

[00:01:24] That's a lot of great Red Hawk Publications books there.

[00:01:27] He does. I read about it and I've met Scott in the past.

[00:01:30] Yeah. And of course being in the host and I guess founder of Poetry Hickory maybe you sign up and see if you can get yourself a date there.

[00:01:38] Do some rings.

[00:01:39] And now that we've given Scott Owens the free advertising on this episode, the plug that he deserves.

[00:01:45] I just want to read latte guys.

[00:01:47] Oh, it's very self-suff-suff-service.

[00:01:52] Julia Nonelley Duncan is an award-winning author of 11 books of prose and poetry including a new essay collection called All We Have Loved from Finishing Iron Press.

[00:02:01] Her upbringing in a western North Carolina textile town plays predominantly in her work which is filled with family community and history.

[00:02:10] You are an alumnus of Warren Wilson College and you're a teacher.

[00:02:16] I'm a guest host.

[00:02:18] Yes.

[00:02:19] English and humanities it make Dowell Technical Community College for over 30 years so you're in good company here with the rest of us community college teachers and worker bees.

[00:02:30] You now devote your creative energies to writing and playing classical piano.

[00:02:35] Yes, wow.

[00:02:36] Wow, classical too.

[00:02:38] Oh yes.

[00:02:39] And that adjective in there.

[00:02:40] Oh absolutely.

[00:02:41] Played a little Bach right before I came.

[00:02:44] Oh did you really?

[00:02:45] Oh great.

[00:02:46] Wonderful.

[00:02:47] I'm a debut see kind of guy.

[00:02:49] Oh wonderful impression of him.

[00:02:51] And I love Chopin too.

[00:02:53] Oh I do too.

[00:02:54] I do too.

[00:02:55] You live in Marion North Carolina with a mountain woodcarver husband and Steve.

[00:03:02] Exactly.

[00:03:03] And you got a daughter Annie.

[00:03:05] Yes I did.

[00:03:06] Good.

[00:03:07] Any grandkids or anything like that?

[00:03:08] No.

[00:03:09] Okay, well welcome.

[00:03:11] Thank you.

[00:03:12] We're here today to talk about her book called When Time Was Suspended.

[00:03:15] It's a new book of poetry from Red Hawk Publications.

[00:03:20] It is currently on sale for pre sale on our website at redhawkpublications.com.

[00:03:26] You can save a few dollars if you pre-order it today.

[00:03:30] So go on there, take a look at our wares and look on the new releases of the pre-order section

[00:03:37] and you will find Miss Duncan's book.

[00:03:40] So we'll open up the floor here for any questions that anybody might have.

[00:03:44] Patty?

[00:03:45] This is not your first book.

[00:03:47] No.

[00:03:48] It was interesting the other day we had to see so well.

[00:03:51] It was his first memoir with Les Brown.

[00:03:54] It was his first collection of short stories.

[00:03:56] But for you, you've had an extensive publishing background.

[00:04:00] I have a little bit about your writing journey.

[00:04:02] Absolutely.

[00:04:03] I started publishing books in 2002 with Irish Press in Tennessee.

[00:04:11] And sadly Bob Cumming just passed away recently.

[00:04:16] So he was my first publisher, Fred Chappell, who also sadly just passed away.

[00:04:22] I had written me an endorsement with that first short story collection

[00:04:27] and that sort of got me started.

[00:04:29] Well K-Bire also sort of introduced me to Fred.

[00:04:33] So all these people have passed since then but they had a big part of my early publishing.

[00:04:40] And so I started out with Irish Press publishing a couple of short story collections.

[00:04:45] And then after that Parkway Publishers published a novel and then March Street Press.

[00:04:52] And so it just, you know, different publishers through the years.

[00:04:57] And then in 2016 my first essay collection was published by Lexio Publishing

[00:05:04] and in between poetry books.

[00:05:08] So Finishing Line did one in 2018, a neighborhood changes.

[00:05:14] And then Finishing Line has just done, we have loved which is another essay collection

[00:05:21] that came out in November 2023 and then Red Hawk Publications with One Time with Suspended Now.

[00:05:29] Well, welcome to the family.

[00:05:31] Well thank you. I'm very, very pleased to be here, believe me.

[00:05:36] You're getting around circle but you finally found us.

[00:05:38] How did you find us, by the way?

[00:05:40] I'm just curious.

[00:05:44] Maybe I read about someone else.

[00:05:48] Maybe I wouldn't surprise me.

[00:05:51] Something kind of telepathic.

[00:05:53] But I think I was just like reading about one of your authors or something.

[00:05:58] I'm not really sure but that's really not.

[00:06:03] We have gotten, could acclaim from local and state line poets.

[00:06:08] So it's not surprising that maybe we were subliminally on your lip radar.

[00:06:13] But we are very fortunate to.

[00:06:16] We take joy in being part of the ether now.

[00:06:21] It could be that your subconscious was telling you that there was a really weird publishing editor named Robert K.

[00:06:27] Really likes kind of dark country poetry and thick, plastic poetry.

[00:06:35] Well, it's that.

[00:06:38] Your book is really cool because it's kind of dark.

[00:06:42] It is.

[00:06:43] It's a darker side of Appalachian poetry.

[00:06:47] Appalachian nostalgia.

[00:06:49] It's very, very popular to think about the good things that went on with grandma and grandpa and the farm and everything.

[00:06:56] But you touch on some things in this book that are sometimes just surprising.

[00:07:03] I know and I can thank my mother, my late mother for that because she told me stories, my entire life about some things that happened in Marion,

[00:07:13] you know, in her childhood and so on.

[00:07:16] So those kinds of stories stick with you.

[00:07:19] And then I discovered Stanley Burns photos from the Burns Archive and sort of fell in love with those medical and photographs.

[00:07:31] And I've always loved photographs, especially old photographs and have found some darker moments in that.

[00:07:40] Have you ever...

[00:07:43] It's from the Greek being able to describe something in immaculate detail.

[00:07:50] And it has over the years kind of turned into the description of art.

[00:07:55] And the more you can deeper, you can describe it, the better the person can see it.

[00:08:01] That's one of the reasons why I was really excited that she didn't want to put the images in there.

[00:08:05] Which is why she let the words do it.

[00:08:07] And that's what I was going to say.

[00:08:09] Without the photos there, you start to visualize.

[00:08:13] And in my image of the guy without the arm or the guy with the green-green leg, it's going to be different from everyone else's.

[00:08:19] But as you read it, you're giving the reader the luxury, the privilege of interpreting what you say in your words.

[00:08:27] Well done.

[00:08:28] Well thank you because you never know.

[00:08:30] I mean you want it to be clear if you don't have the picture in front of you.

[00:08:34] And I studied those photographs, studied those photographs to try to write those as clearly as I could convey that as clearly.

[00:08:43] Because they are in most cases quite disturbing.

[00:08:46] But I wanted some redemption when it's not just a description of dark things or tragedy or whatever, but some humanity in there as well with the medical issues and the injuries during the Civil War.

[00:09:03] Because they were very poignant pictures to me too, as well as disturbing and fascinating as I can be.

[00:09:09] How many people did we lose in the Civil War?

[00:09:12] At least 640 but some people say closer to a meeting.

[00:09:17] And so in a way, reading your poems, excuse me, it's as if their life was not lost for nothing because you've given them the respect.

[00:09:28] Oh thank you.

[00:09:29] That person whose name we don't know, but at the same time we honor that person.

[00:09:34] Well thank you.

[00:09:35] That is very fascinating.

[00:09:36] And the key to the thing is, these are people who survived.

[00:09:42] The idea.

[00:09:43] These are people who are having their photographs made with their eyes out and their limbs missing.

[00:09:49] And I love the descriptions of some of the faces, the indignant look on the face of one of these gentlemen who wanted these photographs.

[00:09:56] I think he was the one who was shot through the face and the bullet grazed his eye.

[00:10:01] And I can see it even though I've never seen that photograph.

[00:10:05] And I want to talk to you about the metaphorical aspect.

[00:10:09] Are you commenting on war here?

[00:10:12] Or what are you wanting us to think about when you describe these photographs to us in this detail?

[00:10:22] I'm not necessarily making a commentary on war, but I am warning the sacrifice expressed because they were great sacrifices that these people, these men had to live with the rest of their lives.

[00:10:39] And some did all right without some didn't do so well with that.

[00:10:43] It's just like any war that there would be this kind of psychological and physical repercussions.

[00:10:51] But I've just had an interest in the Civil War more so World War One now, actually.

[00:10:59] And I write about that a lot, but my own family ancestry is rich in both Civil War participants and World War One participants.

[00:11:12] So there were just losses and a great deal of suffering.

[00:11:19] And certainly I recognize that in the photographs and by what I've read.

[00:11:23] So I just wanted to maybe just give a little humanity to some of this.

[00:11:29] Yeah, because you mentioned sacrifice several times in some of the poems.

[00:11:35] Even in the World War One poems when you're talking about there's a poem in there where a member of your family's, I don't know whether if they were married yet or they were betrothed but he was killed in France.

[00:11:48] Yes.

[00:11:49] And it's a great poem because...

[00:11:51] I'm going to read that one.

[00:11:53] You talk about this woman living her life without him and going 70-some out of years or something like that past that trauma.

[00:12:03] And that's some things that we don't think about when it comes to the sacrifice of...

[00:12:08] And it's not just war sacrifices, sometimes disease does that, sometimes accidents do that.

[00:12:14] And it makes us think about how we need to carry people or how we carry people who have left us long after they've left us.

[00:12:24] I agree, I agree.

[00:12:25] And that particular poem...

[00:12:28] I remember this lady, this is my great aunt, I remember seeing her when she was quite elderly and she and her elderly sister out here and there in town.

[00:12:40] And my mother told me this story and I have the photographs, the family photographs so it was just a compelling story that I heard all my life about my great aunt Lola.

[00:12:52] I wanted to capture it some way.

[00:12:55] And yet you also have poetry of hope though?

[00:12:59] I love the one that you wrote about your little daughter, which was a baby.

[00:13:03] Yes.

[00:13:04] And my hopes have been fulfilled. I mean she's done quite well and...

[00:13:12] Hey Annie, if you're listening.

[00:13:16] But now there is hope.

[00:13:19] I certainly didn't want the book to be just one of despair but hope as well because I mean there's hope and love too.

[00:13:30] I guess people who live for us is that hope.

[00:13:33] You also have some personal history in your collection, this collection too, right?

[00:13:38] Like Christmas Day 60 before?

[00:13:41] Absolutely. Memories, my own experiences.

[00:13:44] And I explore my childhood in the 60s and my asses a lot and in my poems.

[00:13:52] So absolutely there is well memories that I have of growing up in McDowell County and some of the things that I experienced and Christmas time and all of that.

[00:14:04] And all of this could be classified as history, just presented in a rather unique way.

[00:14:11] Yes, I think so.

[00:14:12] I do believe that that's a huge part of what we do here at Red Hawk Publications is we bring to press and market some of this art that is historical.

[00:14:23] We spoke with Dr. Willis yesterday.

[00:14:27] Is memoir, is this terrific synthesis of memoir in history book?

[00:14:32] And your poetry is the same way.

[00:14:36] It gives us history, it reminds us of things.

[00:14:39] And I made a note this morning that while I was reading this, I felt like in my life, I was somewhat at the age of six or seven years old on the end of a particular kind of time that became encroached by modernity.

[00:14:56] I can remember my parents leaving me in case with my grandma, Meeny, can I and she had outdoor plumbing.

[00:15:02] She used to walk to the store.

[00:15:05] She would be so kind and nice while mom and dad were there, but the moment that their car crested the hill she says,

[00:15:11] you ain't going all the way around here and reading them comic books.

[00:15:14] You go come out here in the field with me and you're going to host some taters.

[00:15:18] And I just go like, oh no, I don't know how to host taters.

[00:15:21] I thought that you were going to learn right quick because I found out that if you wanted to eat them taters, you had to get out there and hold them taters.

[00:15:29] But I do feel like that I was on the tail end of that.

[00:15:32] So, I've got these rather vivid memories of the stuff I get right about.

[00:15:37] But at the same time, it's almost like it's another world.

[00:15:42] It was really. That's the way it is with some of my memories too.

[00:15:45] The outside toilets and the things, just really rural, agricultural aspect of the neighborhood where I grew up.

[00:15:53] It's very different now. Neighborhoods have changed a great deal and the one I grew up in has.

[00:15:59] So it was still, you know, it was late 50s, early 60s when I was very young.

[00:16:04] And the world is quite different than it was then.

[00:16:07] It seems like it happens so quickly when you think about it.

[00:16:10] Dr. Willis has bookt discusses two seaters and out houses that had one seat versus two seats.

[00:16:18] As a small child in the 60s, my mom would bring us to Virginia to see her Aunt Minnie.

[00:16:23] And that smell of an outhouse I could still tell you what it smells like.

[00:16:27] I can't. I can't. Still somewhere in there.

[00:16:30] It is. My grandmother and Minnie was 76 years old before she had indoor plumbing.

[00:16:35] And we literally built a bathroom on her part of her back porch

[00:16:42] to which she then complained incessantly that we took the area that she dried her apples.

[00:16:47] So you can no longer have any fron apple pies because you wanted to build an indoor water closet

[00:16:54] that I don't even need.

[00:16:56] So even even own up there, she was feeling like she could make it up and down that hill to the two-hole or down there in the in the

[00:17:04] middle of the night.

[00:17:06] Trying to give her the convenience that she didn't want.

[00:17:09] She did not want it.

[00:17:11] And what's amazing is students now, that's as foreign to them as being a caveman.

[00:17:18] So it's great to preserve it because it does deserve that respect and that acknowledgement

[00:17:24] that we didn't have all this stuff at one time.

[00:17:27] And nobody suffered.

[00:17:29] Not really. I mean, it's like your aunt or grandmother that didn't think she was suffering by walking up the hill to...

[00:17:36] Oh, she suffered more giving up that spot that she dried those apples in on that back porch because she complained

[00:17:42] because it was the perfect sunlight area.

[00:17:45] The sun stayed on it all day long.

[00:17:48] So the apples would dry in half the time that my Aunt Venise or someone else's apples would dry

[00:17:56] if she could make twice the apple pies, fried apple pies that anybody else could because she could dry them faster.

[00:18:01] So we just tore her up when we took that area to build that.

[00:18:05] And her house upon, upon not center blocks but rocks gotten out of the local creek.

[00:18:13] So this old A-frame house is up off the ground where you can walk crawl right up under the house

[00:18:19] and her steps were these giant rocks.

[00:18:22] And when you needed to go to the bathroom as a boy, you just went on the back porch and you just went...

[00:18:29] Just killed the weaves there.

[00:18:32] I mean, there is science to all of that.

[00:18:35] The ventilation that comes through underneath and...

[00:18:38] That's what it is.

[00:18:39] Yeah, to keep it dry.

[00:18:40] And she had giant wood stoves that she cooked on.

[00:18:45] The wood was in the middle and she'd take the burner kind of thing off and wood in there and put the burn thing back on

[00:18:52] and have all these pots going on this thing.

[00:18:54] Oh, we'll talk about smell.

[00:18:55] I remember my grandparents' house had that and you could go in and I knew it was their house.

[00:19:00] I could be blind and going there and just the smell of it.

[00:19:03] And I have to say as someone from the Northeast, when I hear you guys talk about your memories from being brought up down here,

[00:19:12] I'm a little envious because my memories are maybe going to Harlem or Bedstuy in New York.

[00:19:19] And believe me, it was colorful and it was wonderful and there were odors there too.

[00:19:23] But I just think that this was a simpler time and it sounds right to say simpler but it was without the modern convenience.

[00:19:31] And I don't know if the young people today will have these memories.

[00:19:35] Well, there are definitions...

[00:19:36] There's a lot of memories going to be of McDonald's.

[00:19:38] Yeah, their definition of lower tech is higher than ours because those grandparents did everything with the drying area.

[00:19:48] They did things with an ingenuity that we don't even think about today.

[00:19:54] But it was important to that age and you're right, it wasn't simpler.

[00:19:59] They had their own concerns and issues and that sort of thing.

[00:20:02] It was just as complex to them as ours is to us now.

[00:20:05] But it was different and more self-reliant.

[00:20:09] Absolutely.

[00:20:11] Who do you say?

[00:20:12] I would say certainly self-reliant.

[00:20:14] Do you still have family in the area and are any of the old homesteads still there?

[00:20:20] Well, my grandmothers...

[00:20:22] Both my grandmothers' houses are still there.

[00:20:25] They don't look the same.

[00:20:27] They've not been kept in the way and my childhood home is still there.

[00:20:31] My nephew lives there now.

[00:20:33] And so, yes, there are some still.

[00:20:37] But they've changed.

[00:20:39] I mean, the grandparents' houses have been altered and there aren't the beautiful flowers in the yards

[00:20:46] and the little gardens in the back.

[00:20:50] And some of the millhouses in Clinchville were my mother grew up.

[00:20:54] While she was still alive, we would drive through Clinchville and look at those houses.

[00:20:58] And she'd say, that's where my grandma Davis lived or that's where we lived and everything.

[00:21:04] And they're still there but I don't think they look exactly like they did in the 20s and 30s.

[00:21:11] You've even got a poem in your collection here that kind of shows that movement from the older way of living to the newer.

[00:21:22] This poem called Remnitz.

[00:21:25] And I'm thinking, are you the girl?

[00:21:28] No, that would be my mother.

[00:21:30] That was her grandmother who would come from the country to her son would bring her to the mill village

[00:21:38] to spend some time with my mother and her family.

[00:21:42] And my mother would walk to town to marry and to buy some remnants for her patchwork quilts.

[00:21:51] This is a story my mother told me many times too.

[00:21:54] And I just love how, you know, grandma's got a focused job to do to get these remnants.

[00:22:00] But the girl is looking at the cafes and the movie theaters.

[00:22:04] And these things.

[00:22:06] And that really touched a nerve in my growing up when we used to come to downtown Hickory

[00:22:13] and you know because your eyes are looking at these new things

[00:22:16] and thinking about these replacements or these things you're not used to.

[00:22:21] That you love to try but grandma, my mother, dad is like not time for that.

[00:22:26] Not time for that.

[00:22:28] So that poem's called Remnitz and it's on page 16 in the book.

[00:22:31] If you get the book you can take a look at that.

[00:22:34] Where does one get the book?

[00:22:35] One gets the book at Red Hawk Publications.com.

[00:22:39] And it's currently on sale for $13 and you choose your shipping.

[00:22:44] If you get over over $50 worth of books on our site, it's free shipping.

[00:22:49] So go to redhawkpublications.com and take a look and order you a copy

[00:22:54] of when time was suspended.

[00:22:57] I want to talk about this poem called Aprin.

[00:23:01] Yes.

[00:23:03] Another one of my mother's stories.

[00:23:06] This poem called Aprin.

[00:23:09] You weren't planning to read this, were you?

[00:23:12] I can. Read it if you'd like.

[00:23:14] Can you please?

[00:23:15] Certainly can.

[00:23:16] Just read that right quick and then I want to talk about this.

[00:23:19] Oh, it's on page 23.

[00:23:21] Thankfully we have page numbers in our book.

[00:23:24] All right, this is Aprin.

[00:23:26] She worked in Clinchville cotton mill and that evening after quitting time

[00:23:30] she filled her Aprin pockets with rocks big enough to hold her down

[00:23:35] into the waters of Lake James to drown.

[00:23:40] That's heavy.

[00:23:42] It was a heavy story the way my mother told it to.

[00:23:45] Is there any background on that?

[00:23:47] It's like why she did that?

[00:23:49] It's a mystery, it's like an old Appalachian ballad.

[00:23:52] It's just something happened and we don't really know exactly why

[00:23:56] but we just know what happened.

[00:23:58] And she...it's interesting that she worked

[00:24:03] that day, had her little Aprin on and she knew what she was going to do.

[00:24:08] I suppose.

[00:24:09] And it kind of rhymes with one of my favorite literary figures of Virginia Wolf

[00:24:17] did the same thing in 1941.

[00:24:20] She filled the pockets of her Aprin with rocks and went into the river Use

[00:24:25] because she was afraid that the Nazis were coming and she would rather die

[00:24:29] than live under the oppression of the Nazis.

[00:24:32] And you wonder in this poem that you've written here,

[00:24:35] what was on this woman's mind?

[00:24:37] What was scaring her?

[00:24:39] What was terrifying her that led her to do this kind of thing?

[00:24:44] I have no idea and I can't begin to understand what would motivate her.

[00:24:49] But it's just provocative.

[00:24:51] Yes it is because it's a very resolute decision.

[00:24:54] Yes it is.

[00:24:55] Very resolute.

[00:24:56] One has to hold oneself under the water.

[00:24:59] One has to want to do that.

[00:25:02] To do that.

[00:25:03] I mean, that's a resolution.

[00:25:05] Yes it is.

[00:25:06] And it's just...it's very provocative, very good poem too.

[00:25:10] Thank you.

[00:25:11] Because there's not a word wasted in it.

[00:25:14] So you must have worked on that one a while to get it like that.

[00:25:19] Right.

[00:25:20] I'm kind of a fan of terstness.

[00:25:23] I guess I'm influenced by check-off a little bit and that kind of thing.

[00:25:28] Yes, I appreciate that.

[00:25:30] I'm glad it was made into you.

[00:25:32] Yeah, that was terrific.

[00:25:33] I know there's another poem you had on your list to read.

[00:25:37] And if you wouldn't mind we'd read that to us as well?

[00:25:40] Absolutely.

[00:25:41] Well, I was going to read when time was suspended, which is on page 62...67, sorry.

[00:25:51] And that's where the title of the book comes from.

[00:25:55] Yeah, sorry that one.

[00:25:56] When time was suspended, mysteries are there.

[00:26:00] Faces from long ago that no one today can identify.

[00:26:04] And revelations too, youthful versions of loved ones who lived in a past we never knew.

[00:26:11] Photographs capture times we might forget if not for an image to remind us of that day.

[00:26:17] Sad, enlightening and dear family pictures can be,

[00:26:22] allowing us to see what we and others were then at that moment when time was suspended.

[00:26:30] That's good.

[00:26:31] Thank you.

[00:26:32] Thank you.

[00:26:33] Well, photographs, I love photographs.

[00:26:36] I inherited most of the family photographs from both my maternal and paternal families.

[00:26:43] And so I've spent a lot of time studying photographs.

[00:26:48] And it's just sad and it's touching to me,

[00:26:52] and a lot of times I don't know who these people are.

[00:26:54] Nobody labeled them, which is risky if you don't do that because the time's going to come

[00:26:59] when people look at those and say, who was that?

[00:27:02] And I have a beautiful portrait of a World War I soldier from my father's family

[00:27:09] and I have no idea who he is.

[00:27:12] And I have some of great uncles, I do know who they are.

[00:27:16] But this particular portrait is so beautiful and I just wish I knew who he was.

[00:27:21] What does name was?

[00:27:23] But it wasn't label.

[00:27:24] Then he must have been somebody important in the family for him to have,

[00:27:28] for that portrait to be placed in that album where it was.

[00:27:32] We'll never know.

[00:27:33] I'll never know.

[00:27:35] When my grandmother, Bessie Shadel, from my mother's side

[00:27:39] from Cleveland County down Shelby passed away,

[00:27:42] my wife and I inherited about three fruitcake paint tins filled with loose photographs.

[00:27:49] Deckel edge photographs, black and whites, the only thing on them,

[00:27:53] a little 65 or 62 because they've been taken in process to the end of 1965 or 60.

[00:28:00] And as we identified people in those, one Christmas,

[00:28:03] we had some of those things framed up and gave them to people in the family for Christmas presents.

[00:28:09] Here you're in here with your brother or here's a picture of you when you were in the cradle

[00:28:14] and the family seemed to appreciate that.

[00:28:17] But we've still got dozens and we've got people we don't know who they aren't.

[00:28:22] These older women who looked like they may have been in their 80s

[00:28:26] and in 1959.

[00:28:29] And we have no idea who they are.

[00:28:31] And on that photograph is this ghost of a person, this suspension of time.

[00:28:36] Exactly.

[00:28:37] And they're forever waiting to be recognized again.

[00:28:41] But they're forever alive and that's what's lovely about it.

[00:28:45] Yeah, they're only lost to us as far as our understanding gets.

[00:28:50] But award I forget which one of you mentioned it but award I thought was interesting

[00:28:54] that you said, Terce.

[00:28:56] And what I remember about that generation is they were Terce.

[00:29:01] Yes they were.

[00:29:02] So you've captured that attitude that they brought.

[00:29:05] And I think that's out of hard work and life wasn't easy

[00:29:09] and so you had to get to the point.

[00:29:11] Right, yes, absolutely.

[00:29:14] And it's time that the woman who didn't...

[00:29:17] She left us with a mystery as to why she went underwater.

[00:29:21] And she had an aunt that did the same thing.

[00:29:23] They said she drowned herself.

[00:29:24] And the only thing the family would say was it was over a boy.

[00:29:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:29:29] And what boy, what circumstance?

[00:29:32] I mean, it's left to us to imagine what those circumstances were

[00:29:36] that would cost somebody to take their life after a day's work like that.

[00:29:40] Exactly.

[00:29:41] And so it opens up all conspossibility.

[00:29:43] Yes, really.

[00:29:44] Yes, you could write a novel about it if you really wanted to.

[00:29:47] Yeah.

[00:29:48] And you've written...

[00:29:49] You've got novels under your list, right?

[00:29:52] Yes, I've got a couple of novels.

[00:29:53] Is that how they came about?

[00:29:55] Is just conjecture.

[00:29:57] Well the first one drops are the not.

[00:30:01] I've always been a good while since I've written it.

[00:30:04] But I believe it came from a dream or something.

[00:30:08] The premise or something came from the dream, the character.

[00:30:11] I can't really remember a lot about where it came from.

[00:30:15] I found novel writing to be emotionally draining, to be honest.

[00:30:21] Oh, yes.

[00:30:22] Because you have to live with those characters for a prolonged period of time and everything.

[00:30:27] So I just...

[00:30:29] I haven't written a novel in a good while, but I do enjoy writing essays and poems

[00:30:34] because you can kind of get to it a little bit more quickly, you know?

[00:30:38] So it's easier to jump in and jump out of those stories.

[00:30:42] Oh, I think yes.

[00:30:43] Absolutely.

[00:30:44] Absolutely.

[00:30:45] And I like writing about my life.

[00:30:47] I mean I like writing nonfiction and most of my poems now are that.

[00:30:52] They're based on...

[00:30:53] I mean the poems in this book, I didn't make up anything.

[00:30:58] And I wanted that to be kind of clear in the disclaimer because they're not contrived

[00:31:05] from imagination.

[00:31:07] They're not contrived on stories I've heard or things that have happened or things I've witnessed, you know?

[00:31:12] Yeah, I'm glad you caught that in the baller plate.

[00:31:15] Right.

[00:31:16] Because we have our baller plate copyrighted basically says, you know, there's no...

[00:31:20] You know any identification with anybody living their data is coincidental, that kind of thing.

[00:31:24] And then Julia went in and edited it.

[00:31:27] So it's a wonderful way that can be used in the future when we have stuff like this.

[00:31:31] Right.

[00:31:32] So I appreciate you finding that and instructing a better way to say it.

[00:31:36] Well, it was important to me to make it clear that these people were real.

[00:31:40] You know, in these circumstances I mean I try to be discreet obviously

[00:31:44] in what I write about people and situations and all that sort of thing

[00:31:49] to just be respectful of people and with no ill intention whatsoever toward anybody.

[00:31:56] But yes, I appreciate you're working with me on that.

[00:32:00] Oh, there's no problem.

[00:32:01] We're learning at the same time everybody else is.

[00:32:05] There's a poem in here that I felt a lot of kinship with, a poem called Poison Oak.

[00:32:13] And I think that truly is a metaphorical poem.

[00:32:17] You're writing about Poison Oak as being something...

[00:32:20] I think so.

[00:32:21] What's the other weed?

[00:32:23] Cuts.

[00:32:24] Yeah, they are enemies.

[00:32:26] It's being these things that can strangle.

[00:32:28] They do.

[00:32:29] And you mentioned in the poem about Robert Frost mentioning that nature is always killing itself.

[00:32:33] Right.

[00:32:34] And I went back and I studied really what he said about that.

[00:32:39] And one thing's trying to overshadow another thing because they're all fighting to survive

[00:32:45] and everything.

[00:32:46] But if you live around Kutsu or I guess honeysuckle vines and certainly Poison Oak,

[00:32:54] you'll see that they really do have a lot of their own.

[00:32:57] And it's kind of eerie at times when you think about it.

[00:33:02] And I love the way you put it.

[00:33:04] It's one of the poems in here that I can see there's just something different about it enough

[00:33:11] to where it kind of stands out.

[00:33:13] That and the poem about the Tuesday, where you realized you didn't live in Mayberry.

[00:33:19] Oh, and that's exactly the way I felt.

[00:33:22] Well, everybody, I'm sure felt sort of that way.

[00:33:26] Mary and I had to teach that not.

[00:33:29] And my students were just certain Mary was going to be next.

[00:33:34] And it was a very memorable day for a lot of people.

[00:33:39] Just so that we are talking about 9-11.

[00:33:43] Yes, we are.

[00:33:44] So there's a poem that Julia mentions her feelings on that particular day.

[00:33:49] I also was teaching at a community college that day in Hawaii.

[00:33:54] Now, you tell me the difference between your students were concerned that it was going to happen to Mary.

[00:34:00] Right.

[00:34:01] I'm in Honolulu trying to explain to my students why you should be concerned about this.

[00:34:06] I mean, more an ocean away.

[00:34:08] They had no idea.

[00:34:10] There was no connection to the mainland per se and certainly not New York.

[00:34:15] So to explain to them why I was upset and nervous.

[00:34:18] And they were like, well, why miss?

[00:34:20] And it's like, well, you're livelihood tourism.

[00:34:24] And guess what's going to happen in the next few days?

[00:34:27] No flights, no hospitality, no tourism, no hotels.

[00:34:32] And they got to see it.

[00:34:33] They didn't know it at the moment.

[00:34:35] But they understood for the next year or two that their bread basket which was tourism came to a really abrupt end.

[00:34:42] So it is interesting to just think about what the students' perspectives were when monumental things happened.

[00:34:49] And sometimes they don't think all the way through.

[00:34:51] I was actually a student here at that time.

[00:34:55] I was training to become an educator.

[00:34:57] I was changing careers and I went to a Spanish class.

[00:35:00] And we had a special speaker, a woman from Argentina, who the first words out of her mouth were

[00:35:07] that now Americans can feel what it feels like to live in other countries where you're constantly in danger of being attacked.

[00:35:15] And that didn't hit a lot of the students in the class very well.

[00:35:19] There was some anger there because she had said that.

[00:35:24] I remember the poor professor at the column down a little bit after she said that.

[00:35:30] A lot of essence was lost that day.

[00:35:33] It really was.

[00:35:34] Well, it still resonates today.

[00:35:35] That attack still resonates to this very day in some of the divisiveness and some of the problems that we have politically in the United States.

[00:35:42] It's just still there.

[00:35:44] I mean, it was something that is probably going to resonate for years to come.

[00:35:50] It just is.

[00:35:51] And I think you've called it.

[00:35:52] Oh, thank you.

[00:35:53] I think you've called it in there because the innocence is gone.

[00:35:59] And one of those big historical events that come like COVID is that people go through that you don't realize you're weathering at the time.

[00:36:09] But it's interesting to see like a 9-11 from a Marion perspective or a COVID from a Western North Carolina perspective of just.

[00:36:18] And she's got a COVID moment here which is really will tug your heartstrings because it has mom.

[00:36:25] Yeah, it has to do with was it a grandmother?

[00:36:28] No, my mother.

[00:36:29] Your mother.

[00:36:30] Okay, that toward the end of her life, they had to speak on cell phones and we couldn't be with her at the hospital.

[00:36:36] We couldn't go in the nursing home.

[00:36:38] It was horrible.

[00:36:39] It was a nightmare.

[00:36:40] Seeing her through in the poem she talks about picture windows and basically, you know, that's and so this book is so up to date yet.

[00:36:49] The stagic in its history and its past that it just offers so much.

[00:36:55] I was surprised with every poem that I read that, you know, I went back and forth in time and kind of realized that the humanity is the same regardless of whether you got indoor toilet or not.

[00:37:05] You know, we're all got heartstrings and we've got this need for this connection.

[00:37:11] And that poem is a killer poem because there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who felt the same thing.

[00:37:19] I absolutely agree.

[00:37:20] I'm sure.

[00:37:21] I notice you have quite a few signings coming up.

[00:37:25] I do.

[00:37:26] Would you want to go ahead and discuss them?

[00:37:28] I know the first one I think is at the, excuse me, Mountain Gateway Museum?

[00:37:33] Yes. It's a wonderful historical museum in Old Fort, North Carolina.

[00:37:37] And I'm going to be weather permitting on the front porch there.

[00:37:42] And so I'm excited about that.

[00:37:45] It's a wonderful place to visit if you come and to see me go toward the museum as well.

[00:37:51] It's a lot of artifacts from the area and it's just a wonderful, wonderful venue.

[00:37:58] That's March 23rd from 12 to 2 at the Mountain Gateway Museum in Old Fort.

[00:38:03] Yes.

[00:38:04] And then you've got another one on April 6th, Saturday, the McDallow Arts Council Association's gift shop.

[00:38:10] Yes. Macca, we call it and it's the local arts hub, so to speak.

[00:38:17] And I'll be in the gift shop there.

[00:38:19] And again, come and see me or just look at Browse at some of the local arts and crafts there

[00:38:25] because they have a lovely little gift shop and it's conveniently located in downtown Marion.

[00:38:32] Oh nice.

[00:38:33] And then another Pioneer's Day, I've heard of that.

[00:38:35] Oh, that's a wonderful occasion.

[00:38:37] That's a big event.

[00:38:38] I mean, I've got to come out to that one.

[00:38:40] That was on April 27th, Saturday.

[00:38:42] Yes, I'll be there all day.

[00:38:43] My husband, Steven, I will be there together for that.

[00:38:46] And again, it's a wonderful experience for families.

[00:38:51] There's music, there's food, there's arts and crafts, there's blacksmithing.

[00:38:58] You know, it's just a wonderful day to spend there in Old Fort and...

[00:39:05] Julia, you're going to need more books.

[00:39:07] Thank you, Brian.

[00:39:10] I've been lining it up.

[00:39:12] I was thinking about that this morning, I thought you were right because I keep adding.

[00:39:18] I got to do an order.

[00:39:20] Well, they also knew you have another event that we just kind of squared away within the past week.

[00:39:24] Now, that's not until the summer, right?

[00:39:26] Is one that...

[00:39:27] At Bramblewood?

[00:39:28] Yes, at Bramblewood in Black Mountain.

[00:39:31] And so there's several there and there's one.

[00:39:35] I don't think I even put on all this but it's not until December.

[00:39:39] But I'm lining them up.

[00:39:41] Now, Patty can readers go to our website and find these dates or will they be able to?

[00:39:49] They will be soon.

[00:39:51] That's a good one.

[00:39:53] Actually, they are in the press releases that are getting out.

[00:39:56] Oh, there you go.

[00:39:57] But what we can do is we can also put it on your social media flyers so that folks know they're coming up.

[00:40:02] Right, and that may need to be updated just a bit because I think there's one that's been added.

[00:40:06] And I'm putting them on the North Carolina Riders Network calendar of literary events.

[00:40:13] I spent a couple of days working on that.

[00:40:16] So you can go there and check?

[00:40:18] You can to the Literary Calendar.

[00:40:20] And we'll try to stick them on the podcast.

[00:40:22] Yes, the YouTube version of the podcast.

[00:40:24] Absolutely, be in the description on YouTube as well as when it goes up on all the other platforms.

[00:40:29] Wonderful.

[00:40:30] Those dates will be in there.

[00:40:31] And to our other writers, this is the way to do it.

[00:40:34] Yes, I enjoy doing it.

[00:40:36] I really do.

[00:40:37] I enjoy doing book signings.

[00:40:39] You can tell when you meet people and they can tell you what they feel about your writing.

[00:40:44] And it's just great.

[00:40:46] And I have some repeat people who come to these events.

[00:40:50] So I also send out a lot of emails and letters and so on to say, you know...

[00:40:56] And I suppose there's ample opportunity for further stories.

[00:40:59] I mean, people take stories at these things.

[00:41:01] You know, you share them.

[00:41:02] Because you're sharing with us and they share back.

[00:41:05] They tell some very interesting stories too.

[00:41:07] They really do.

[00:41:09] My students did for years.

[00:41:10] I had students that I thought you've got the best stories, mountain stories.

[00:41:15] If they could just write them, you know...

[00:41:18] They had such wonderful stories to tell.

[00:41:21] Because there's so many stories in the hills of Western North Carolina.

[00:41:24] Absolutely.

[00:41:25] And the dialect, dialect to try to capture.

[00:41:28] Especially my essays, you know, the dialect to the people and customs and so on.

[00:41:32] And so you hear it...

[00:41:34] The very first poem in this collection talks about Panthers.

[00:41:37] Absolutely.

[00:41:38] Instead of Panther.

[00:41:39] Oh, absolutely.

[00:41:40] That was great grandma's way of talking, I'm sure.

[00:41:44] I didn't...

[00:41:45] Sadly didn't get to know her.

[00:41:47] I think she died in 1955.

[00:41:49] But I know her through my mother's stories.

[00:41:52] And the photographs too, which helps.

[00:41:55] And there's so many things you learn about a turn of phrase from an old person

[00:41:58] that tells you more than...

[00:42:01] You know, more than you could fathom by just the way they say what they say.

[00:42:05] Absolutely.

[00:42:06] The linguistics of it.

[00:42:07] I love it.

[00:42:08] I love studying the dialects.

[00:42:09] I love dialects in general.

[00:42:11] And it do.

[00:42:12] We've been really blessed to get quite the collection of folks writing about mountain life and mountain life.

[00:42:19] Yourself, Dr. C. Sowellis who came in and did a memoir.

[00:42:22] He was brought up in Canton.

[00:42:24] And then we have Les Brown who recently did short stories set in...

[00:42:29] I don't always say Loonville Gorge but it's a mountain area.

[00:42:33] It's not near the north of...

[00:42:35] It's in McDowell County but it's in the north east corner.

[00:42:39] And knowing this, it makes me think that we could put together a package or an event

[00:42:46] where we have maybe quite a few of our mountain oriented authors and do an event maybe in evening or something

[00:42:54] where we get one night off.

[00:42:57] So we'll keep in mind what you're saying.

[00:42:59] Kind of sharing thing.

[00:43:00] Yeah.

[00:43:01] So, how about ending the show by reading us that one poem that you had mentioned?

[00:43:07] Yes. And this is the one about my great Aunt Lola.

[00:43:11] And it's a World War I poem that had been mentioned before and it's called...

[00:43:15] And it's on page 69 and it's called If He Had Come Home.

[00:43:21] She was to marry him and while he was far away, she dreamed of the day they would wed but it was not to be.

[00:43:29] Killed in France, he lost his life and their joy over there.

[00:43:33] And she cared nothing for marriage anymore.

[00:43:36] In a portrait of my great Aunt Lola made a decade after the war,

[00:43:42] she's a stylish woman in a fur-trimmed coat and cloche hat.

[00:43:47] And her dark hair and large brown eyes revealed the beauty he must have seen.

[00:43:52] Yet the solemn expression on her face shows no trace of happiness.

[00:43:56] I wonder if when she heard the news, she imagined him entangled in barbed wire in no man's land

[00:44:04] or lying blood drained in the mud.

[00:44:08] Of course she couldn't have known the circumstances of that place and her ignorance was a blessing.

[00:44:14] She outlived the tragedy 70 years existing in a world without him.

[00:44:19] But I feel she still dreamed of how different her life could have been if he had come home from the war.

[00:44:27] Ladies and gentlemen out there in podcast land go to redhawkpublications.com right now.

[00:44:32] An order you copy of when time was suspended or go see Julia in person at one of her many many upcoming appearances

[00:44:42] because there's something about an author, a poet reading his or her own work that adds to the depth and the artistic aspect of that work.

[00:44:53] So Julia, I'm not only Duncan, thank you very much for coming to our push-wielded studios here at Katabha Valley Community College.

[00:45:03] I want to thank Richard Eller for running the boards and making us all sound good.

[00:45:07] And I want to thank Patty Thompson for all the work she does.

[00:45:11] And she's going to tell you how you need to like, share, follow and subscribe.

[00:45:15] Yep, all those things to make sure that the podcast continues to be popular.

[00:45:21] And we want to see hundreds and hundreds of people listening to our work.

[00:45:26] So I'm Robert Cunype and thank you very much for joining us here on Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:31] Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:33] Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:35] There you go.

[00:45:37] Thank you very much. We'll talk to you all later. Bye.

[00:45:41] This has been Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:44] Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:46] Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:48] Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:50] It's Red Pub Pod.

[00:45:55] Red Pub Pod.