RedStickWriter

Member since July, 2010

Web site

http://tinyurl.com/bythelight
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About me

If I could have one person read my writing on SMITH it would be?
I'll take this one step beyond the question at hand. I'd like YOU to be the reader of things I write here at SMITH, as well as of my suspense novel, By the Light: A Novel of Serial Homicide.

What six words would I tell my teen self if I could go back in time?
Follow your heart. Write it down.

The song that encapsulates the soundtrack of my life is?
Like a Rock (Bob Seger)

Besides SMITH, I read stories at:
I read the graffiti written on the walls of my brain. Then I use my writing to give it voice so it won't simply be "whispered in the sounds of silence." (Apologies to Paul Simon)

In bed I like to read:
I generally don't read or watch TV in bed. It is a place I reserve for other activities. (What I'd really like to say is, "In bed I like to read my wife in Braille," but she'd spank me for saying that, so I won't.)

My favorite story of all time is:
Choosing one is really hard for me. Just a few years ago South of Broad (Pat Conroy) knocked To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) from its decades-long perch atop my heap of favorites.

That said, I have to mention these much loved books that make up that part of the heap just below the summit: The Help (Kathryn Stockett), The Poet (Michael Connelly), The Last Juror (John Grisham), The Quiet Game (Greg Iles), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt), and The Stand and 11/22/63 (Stephen King). Most of them are very Southern. Many are abundantly populated by characters rich in Southern eccentricity. These quotes from wonderful literary ladies of the South speak to that.

Whenever I am asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. - Flannery O'Connor

I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it. - Kathryn Stockett

Right now, I'm reading:
Borrowing Brilliance by David Kord Murray (Audible, non-fiction)
Calico Joe by John Grisham (Kindle, fiction)

If you were to throw up your hands in exasperation and yell "it's the story of my life," what would you be talking about?
I am a Kansan by residence, a Missourian by employment, a Louisianan by birth, a Southerner by the grace of God, and a Tybee Islander at heart. The exasperation ... not enough hours livin' on Tybee time.