Something Annoying about the South

I opened up Tom Franklin's Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter just now. I've been looking forward to reading it. I enjoyed Poachers, his short story collection, and I'd heard this book was better.

But I was stopped cold before I even began, reminded of Something Annoying about the South, by Franklin's epigraph, which was this:

M-I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, crooked letter, crooked letter, I, humpback, humpback I.
--How southern children are taught to spell Mississippi. (emphasis mine)

I grew up in northeast New Jersey, Bergen County to be exact, and my father taught me that ditty (except it was hunchback, not humpback). And he was born in a house just a few blocks from the house I grew up in and his parents were German. So no southern influence there.

It's like the woman I met at a party when I first moved down here who said, "That just gets me so riled up." What she was riled up about I don't remember, but I do remember that she looked at me and said, "You probably don't even know what 'riled up' means, being from up north." She followed this with a pitying look, sorry that I didn't come from such a rich oral tradition.

That got me riled up! We speak the same language, north and south, share an American culture. The south isn't some rarefied bastion of unique and folksy phrases that don't exist "up north." I can understand you. We have the same vocabulary. It's the same shit, just with different vowel sounds.

Get over yourselves already and have a glass of sweet tea. Bless your hearts.

PS Still looking forward to the novel.

Arkansas Literary Fest? Yes!

This weekend is the Arkansas Literary Fest. When I saw this photo in the newspaper, I about milked my cow. And I don't even have a cow. Or drink milk. There's Kevin Brockmeier, David Sedaris, Charlaine Harris--and Mark and me! Meep!

If you're in the Little Rock area, come on out and say hi. I'll be reading Saturday night at the Publish or Perish event--it's at Big Whiskey's American Bar & Grill at 8. And then Sunday, I'm on a panel at 3 at the Ottenheimer Theatre, if I'm not too hungover. But wait, Mark's reading at the same time at the Historic Arkansas Museum! What to do! You could clone yourself. That's a start. Or split yourself in two.

Here's the full schedule of panels. If you can't make it to see Mark or me, support the literary arts in central Arkansas by going to one of the other events or panels. It's just plain old good family fun.

Snow Cream

There's been a revolution in Egypt, but I don't have anything new and insightful to say about it. Except it's awesome. Power to the people!

I do have something to say about Snow Cream, however.

First off, Southerners freak out when it snows. A "blizzard" came in Wednesday morning and we got about six inches. Everything closed. In fact, it's Friday and the university where I teach is still closed. Seriously. It's gonna hit 45 degrees today and the roads are, by and large, clear, but I'm not complaining. Five-day weekend!

But there's this delicacy called Snow Cream.

Mark and I went for a walk yesterday and when we came home, our neighbor, Monroe, was gathering snow in a pitcher. We made small talk for a while and then I asked Monroe why he was gathering snow in a pitcher.

"Snow Cream," he said, as if it were self-evident. "You never heard of it?"

I'm from New Jersey and Mark's from Minnesota. Both places have a fair amount of snow, but neither one of us had ever heard of or made Snow Cream. I assumed it was a Southern treat like fried pickles until I looked it up on Wikipedia. They date it to 15th century England.

Here's how you make it: Gather clean snow. Make sure it's been on the ground a few hours. Somehow that makes it purer. Put it in a big bowl and mix it up with a can of sweetened condensed milk and a teaspoon vanilla. Or you can use whole milk, sugar and vanilla. Stir it up real good and serve immediately.

It's supposed to have the consistency of ice cream. Mine didn't. It was like cold sweet milk. It melted as soon as I stirred it. I followed Paula Deen's recipe to the letter. Maybe I didn't add enough snow. I think you need a wheelbarrow of snow.

And now most of the white stuff has melted and what's left is old and dirty. The Snow Cream's moment has passed.

I wonder if they've ever heard of Snow Cream in Egypt?

The Future of the American Family

I have seen the future and it's this adorable family.


Last night was Toad Suck's first annual zombie walk. It was a beautiful event. There was unity and peace. Everything I wrote about zombies in Brains is true. I thought I was making shit up, but I wasn't. The horde was calm, walking the streets in an orderly fashion. Admittedly we were slow and awkward, but the mood was gentle. I felt a kinship with my fellow zombies. I felt like I belonged.

Here is but one example of the tolerance of zombies:

Mark went as a Sleestak. At first I thought he would be ostracized, made fun of, cast out for being alive. Not so. The zombies loved him. In fact, so much that those with the ability took his photo. And that's the kind of tolerance America needs.

Zombies are dead. Long live zombies. I love my undead friends.

Another Totally Obvious Thing I Learned

I was in New York over the weekend for Comic Con. The stereotypes are true; there really were tons of geeks in fantastic outfits.

This is a picture of my panel's standing room only crowd.

It's clear people love their zombies.

But that's not what I learned. I already knew zombies are the future. No, I learned something so basic I once again feel like a fool.

This is it: Writing is a business.

This came home to me when I had lunch with Janet Reid and her fabulous client, Sean Ferrell, and my editor at Eos. The talk was about deals and contracts and what's selling, what genres are hot and if they might be cooling. And then the next night at the panel I met a bunch of other writers and some very nice people from Wiley and again the talk was business, but this time over dinner and I had a mojito too.

I suppose I always knew it, somewhere in my reptilian brain, but I didn't really know it. This weekend the fact hit me like that moment you realize you're going to die, really going to cease to exist, and it makes your stomach ache, because the realization is so visceral and pure and unavoidable. Sometimes it keeps you up at night. The fear of not-existing, I mean. The terror of your own impending non-consciousness.

Of course, the realization that writing is a business wasn't nearly as shocking as the existential knowledge of death. But it was important nonetheless. I live far away from the publishing industry in Toad Suck, Arkansas, where the pace is slower and the okra is plentiful. Heck, I even live in a dry county! And as for writing, I toil away upstairs in my nook, alone, thinking only about the next word, not the business side of things. I have friends who are writers, but we mostly talk about the process of writing, or go into long (and sometimes boring but never when I do it!) discussions of our works in progress. Not marketing. Not money. Not business.

But there are people thinking about the business end. Smart people. Charming people who love books and want the world to have more of them. Oddly enough, I found this inspirational. Comforting. Liberating even. Because if writing's a business, then they need products to sell. That's where writers come in, even ones who live in central Arkansas. Or the Upper Peninsula. Or Baltimore. Or wherever.

The fact that writing is a business is a good thing. Without the commerce side, writing would be ephemeral, fleeting, maybe even pointless. And that would make my stomach hurt.

Oooh Cher, Dat's Some Good Cookin

I'm here in the Bayou for a gar conference in Thibodaux. First order of business was to visit one of my dearest friends, Sharon.


Sharon and I have been in a few bands together: InstruKtor, Humpback Guardian Angel and Imminent Victorians. They were all sort of the same band, though, with different names. She's so cool.

My husband was the keynote speaker for the conference and I went to his reading. He rocked, of course, and the scientists love him. They're glad to have a non-biologist spreading the gar gospel.

Today we went fishing. I was expecting to see damage from Katrina and maybe from the oil spill, but Bayou Beouf was spared. Apparently Thibodaux and Houma were too. I lived in Louisiana from 1997-2002, and the swamp was as magical and surreal as ever.


It looked untouched by those disasters--but I knew that it wasn't in some areas. New Orleans is still recovering from the hurricanes, Grand Isle and many other places from the oil. It's a region that's seen more than its share of heartache in the past five years--it's doubly heartbreaking that they could have been avoided. And we just learned, the gar population is in danger from the oil spill.

But let's end on a happy note: Cher, the food is to die for! Here's Mark eating fried alligator.

Garfish, zombies and me

Those of you who know me or who've read this blog before know that my husband, Mark Spitzer, is a gar expert. Mark has fished on television with Jeremy Wade and his book, Season of the Gar, just came out.

I'm a good wife. Supportive, even enthusiastic about Mark's obsessions. That's how I find myself going to this next week: International Network for Lepisosteid Fish Research and Management

That's right. A gar conference deep in Louisiana. Mark is the keynote speaker. And I just can't decide if I'm going to attend the 6-hour gar aging workshop or the panel on Feed Rates for Juvenile Alligator Gar! I mean, what would you do? It's a tough call.

Brains comes out on Tuesday. It's my first book. And I'll be surrounded by scientists who love and write about gar fish. But they're zombies of a sort, aren't they? Maybe I can sell a few books. At the very least, I'll get some marriage points.

How do you say wine?

Toad Suck Buck's is on the Arkansas River--the view on the top of the hill is lovely and there are old graves with Bucks buried in them (according to the tombstones). The restaurant itself, however, is a bit of a shack with a concrete floor, pool tables, shuffleboard and delicious salty steaks.



I went there last night and had a real lesson in Southese. I'm from New Jersey, so there are quite a few things I don't understand about the local dialect, as the following conversation demonstrates.

Me: I'll have the house cabernet.

Waitress brings me a chardonnay.

Me: Oh, I'm sorry, I said cabernet.

Waitress: I know, honey. This is it. Chardonnay. It's white.

Me: !

Waitress: The red we have is the mar-lay.

My friend (a champion white wine drinker): No problem. I'll take the white.

Me: Well, if you don't have any cabernet, I guess I'll take the merlot.

Waitress, with hand on hip: We only have mar-lay. You want that?

Me: Yes, please.

After dinner we played shuffleboard and I ordered a PBR, because it's pronounced the same in any region. P-B-R!

Toad Suck's Stuck on a Truck

It's come and gone once again, as reliable as the azaleas and right around the time the honeysuckle starts to perfume the air.

Toad Suck's Stuck on a Truck contest. Twenty contestants, forty hands, one truck. Last person standing wins.

This is not a new event. It was immortalized in Hands on a Hard Body, the great documentary about a similar contest in Texas.

But we've got our own right here in Arkansas. It's held during our annual Toad Suck Daze festival. I went Saturday night. I'll admit: I was a little tipsy. I'd been to a Kentucky Derby party, watched a line of storms descend on Central Arkansas, felt fear when the tornado sirens went off, contemplated hiding in the shower, but then realized the party was in a converted concrete factory, so was secure. During a break in the torrential rain, I headed downtown. It was my only chance to eat a corn dog, a fried Oreo, alligator on a stick and funnel cake.

Despite the weather, the Stuck on a Truck pavilion was packed. It was at 58 hours and the contestants were getting loopy, but no one was hallucinating yet. It was tense, humid, thick with rain and the pressure from the storms. There were still a lot of contestants on that truck.



Stuck on a Truck is either about great athletic endurance or tremendous stupidity. It's either about materialism or asceticism. There's denial involved--this year's winner went 91 hours without sleep--but it's all to win a Ford F150, which negates the spiritual transcendence. I'm not sure anyone got any closer to the divine over the weekend. But they sure do look like they're praying.

Make Faulkner County Wet

I live in Faulkner County, Arkansas. And it's dry here. Not dry as in it doesn't rain. It rains plenty. It's dry as in no alcohol. It's a Baptist-stronghold, Bible-belt, alcohol-free zone. You'd think with the name Faulkner--great southern writer who loved his booze--we'd be swimming in bourbon. Not so.

Because Faulkner county isn't named after William Faulkner. And it's not entirely dry either. It's moist. And that's a lot less sexy than it sounds. Moist means you can buy booze at restaurants that call themselves "private clubs," but you can't go to a flat-out bar and you can't buy any package alcohol at the supermarket or convenience store. To buy a six pack or a bottle of wine for at-home consumption, we have to drive to the next county.

And that's just wrong, not to mention un-American. So I am on a mission to make Faulkner County wet! And the first step in any political fight is a folk song. A protest folk song that galvanizes the movement.

Lucky for me, I didn't have to write one. My bandmate Julee did. We're going to start the revolution, one cocktail at a time. Get wet, Faulkner County. Get wet.