Alabama Phoenix Festival 2013

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Alabama Phoenix Festival this year, and for whatever reason, I never followed up with what an amazing experience it was participating alongside so many unbelievably talented and creative people. So, instead enduring the inadequacy of me trying to capture The Awesome that was that weekend, why don't you just watch the following video instead?




Credit: https://www.youtube.com/user/InfectiousDesigner 

The Story Behind the Story

Premiere Week!  The Story Behind the Story is a regularly-run segment in memoir form telling the story of the places and experiences that inspired The Revelation Saga.  It is taken, in part, from an email journal made during the adventure.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
_______________________

Chapter 1
Turbulence

The flight from Birmingham to Atlanta?  Seems simple.  Easy.  A softball on the Final Exam of How to be a Pilot.  Ah, but add an outlying element.  Say, a thunderstorm.  Make that a Capital-T Thunderstorm.  Now the scenario changes.  Evolves.  Becomes something entirely different.  What was once elementary is now String Theory Physics.

            The thing about this short, pit-stop of a flight is that it is too short.  Not even worthy of offering a bag of peanuts.  Apparently, and I’m not a pilot so I make no warranty to the accuracy of this, but apparently BHM to ATL is not enough of a distance to gather altitude and fly around, or over, anything.  By the time the plane has a chance to reach cruising altitude, it’s already making preparations for decent and landing.

            I’ll say this – it’s difficult to keep perspective on the hopeful things to come – things like moving to England for a semester and girls with sexy accents, when things are, if you’ll pardon the expression, going south on a plane.  My seat smells like B.O., which I’m pretty sure isn’t mine, and the constant flash of lightning outside leaves me less than confident about my future.  Images of John Lithgow’s scene in The Twilight Zone Movie come to mind.  Again, I check the wing for homicidal gremlins. 

            The plane seems like overkill for a thirty minute flight.  It’s one of the bigger ones.  Don’t know the make or model, if that's even the right way to refer to a plane, though I’m sure this is some sort of D-C3PO something or other.  The aisles are mostly empty, which is fortunate.  No babies, either, thank god.  Just business types, doing their best to keep their dignity as the plane shakes us all like James Bond's favorite martini.

  

            We hit an air pocket and the plane drops what feels like a mile.  The whole fuselage shakes like hell.  An overhead compartment bursts open and a blue blanket falls on my head. 

My death shroud, no doubt.

Someone groans behind me.  It’s a horrible sound to hear on a plane, much crueler than a scream.  A scream can mean many things and we’re accustomed to hearing them made in surprise, fright, or when seeing Justin Timberlake.  With so many meanings, we’ve become sort of numb to their sound.  Basically, they’re the human equivalent to car alarms.  But a groan – that guttural, almost involuntary sound made in futility, when the inevitable is upon someone.  A lovely soundtrack to the situation, to be sure.

The plane steadies and a short while later we’re in Atlanta, no worse for wear.  Ever seen a grandparent after they've been talked into riding a roller coster by their grandchild?  That's the look on everyone's face as they deboard.  I run through the airport, ride the airport subway, and eventually arrive at my gate to descover that the plane is late. Wonderful.  In New York, there is a plane waiting to take me to London.  I have a layover there built into my itenerary to ensure I make the flight, but if this delay in Atlanta lasts too long, my careful plans will fall apart.  So I sit and wait.  Time ticks away on my wrist watch.

“Whatever you do,” my dad had said at the airport just before I left, “make sure you never miss your flight.”

Parental Guidance Suggested

Over at Dystel & Goderich’s website, my agent John Rudolph ran a post about the WSJ fallout over an article that attacked YA fiction as being too dark, too depraved.  John posed an interesting question as to whom amongst the gatekeepers bear the responsibility for disseminating such material to the children and young adults – the publishers or the bookstores?

Personally, I sort of have a stake in this discussion as I expect my series, The Revelation Saga, to garner a certain amount of attention for being controversial on its take on certain religious subjects. 

I remember the late 80s when some pop groups began to surface that used explicit lyrics in their songs.  There was the inevitable, and perhaps even justified, response from parental groups that objected to the sale of these records to children under a certain age.  They demanded labels be placed on packaging and that selling the explicit material to a minor become a criminal offense.  In fact, I believe here in Alabama a sales clerk was actually charged for selling one of these records to a minor.

Is this where we’re heading with YA books?  Admittedly, even experts remain muddled on the definition on what is YA and what isn’t.  Heck, you’re lucky if YA gets separated from other children’s books in certain bookstores.  Truthfully, I’m of two minds on ratings.  On one hand, I want to help parents know what they are putting in their kid’s hands when they buy my book. But this concern assumes that the parent is still the gatekeeper on what their children read.  With digital access and every kid with a smart phone in their pocket, is this even possible? 

On the other hand, and I’m almost hesitant to admit this, but getting a Parental Advisory label slapped on my book practically ensures a greater interest from some consumers.  Going back to the 80s, my friends and I, teenagers at the time, flocked to the record store to grab 2 Live Crew’s album the minute it became parental contraband.  And yet, having my work reduced to a short list of warning descriptors on a label gives me a very uneasy feeling and no doubt diminishes the value of the work as a whole.

To see the possible future of book ratings, one only has to look at the video game market.  Mass Effect, a wildly successful game, fell into the crosshairs of parental groups when it was labeled as having sexual content.  Examination of the content in question would reveal that it was arguably no worse than situations found in many primetime network television programs, and hardly even rose to the level of soft core, yet outrage ensued.  But the game sold millions.  Did the outrage hurt sales?  Not likely.  It seems to have perhaps enhanced them.

So, what is the answer when it comes to adult content in YA books?  Publishers I believe should be free to publish, without the oversight of censorship shadowing their efforts.  And shelf space is a finite resource in bookstores.  It may not be feasible to categorize for content. 

Is a rating system the answer?  What are your thoughts?

Lessons from the Hot & Hot

Today I’m having Shrimp and Grits for lunch.  Sometimes, being from Alabama can be a frustrating existence, with its corrupt, Third World government and underfunded, Third World education, but this is not one of those days.  Not when I’ve got a pile of fresh-caught gulf shrimp from Sexton’s Seafood Market sitting on a bed of McEwen & Sons organic white grits smothered in an acidic, creamy recipe written by Chef Chris Hastings of a local top restaurant, The Hot & Hot Fish Club.  Great name, isn’t it?  That man knows his groceries. 

For whatever reason, Birmingham, Alabama ranks with Paris, France for restaurants per capita, and many of ours are, quite simply, amazing (Hot & Hot, Highlands Bar & Grill, Little Savannah). In fact, many of these chefs have released wonderful cookbooks including Southern Table, Bottega, and Hastings’ effort, The Hot & Hot Fish Club Cookbook, which brilliantly divides the book in to seasonally available offerings to encourage the reader to purchase local, fresh, in-season ingredients. 

The funny thing is, Chef Hastings once fired me.  And deservedly so.  I worked as a bartender for him while trying to finish up college, but even when there, I wasn’t always there.  Distractions and stresses of dreaming up and preparing for the next steps of my life blinded me to where I was standing.  With the real world closing in and only holding a fairly useless degree in communications and film productions – in Alabama, for god’s sake – I was blowing in the wind. 

Now look, I wasn’t the best mixologist, but I wasn’t the worst either.  Though, I think I did once, during the blur of finals week, serve room-temperature white wine to a customer. Routinely, we wound up in the local hipster rag, praised with accolades of having one of the best martinis in town.  Infused vodkas, fresh squeezed fruits – we used only the finest ingredients.  My problem was, there were better and far more professional men and women out there, gagging for the job.  Sadly, I saw the position as only a temporary stepping stone to something else, and not as chance to enrich my life experience.  Since I had no intention of bartending for a career in a restaurant where the wait staff was, and still are, career professionals making a fine living for themselves, I got the axe.

Nearly twelve years later, I wish I could go back in time and kick my own ass for not taking advantage of such a rich learning environment.  As it turns out, I love to cook.  But in college, I couldn’t see the big picture.  When you can’t see the big picture, you can’t appreciate where you are.  Things get missed.  Though I still never had aspirations of working in the restaurant business after college, I regret the opportunities missed from learning from one of the best places I’ve ever eaten in all my world travels. 

I think about my experience at the Hot & Hot whenever I catch myself looking forward to the future.  I’m not saying it isn’t okay to dream – of course it is.  But my failure at that restaurant was a product of focusing on the future at the expense of the present.  In the publishing industry, it’s prevalent.  Fueled by dreams of publication, would-be authors often shoot off unedited manuscripts not ready for the light of day.  Agents and editors are buried in these submissions.  Instead, I learned to take my time.  Take a breath.  In whatever I do, I try to be there and give my all to the moment.  You never know when you just might need what that moment can teach you.

Like lunchtime, for instance.

A Note on Alabama

Since INK ROCK explores the narrative in connection to the world, I think it would be remiss for me not to say a few words about the tragedy that continues to unfold in my state. 

Two weeks ago on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, I awoke at dawn to the sound of an F1 tornado passing over my house.  Hours later, seeing only very minimal damage to our home (some siding torn away) and hearing of some more serious damage nearby, we watched the news and heard the meteorologist warning that the worst was yet to come. 

And then it happened.

That afternoon, an outbreak of F4 and F5 mile-long tornadoes traveled across Alabama, some of them at sixty miles per hour.  Nearly two hundred and forty lives were lost.  Entire towns removed from the map.  Entire towns.  In my yard, debris rained down, including a receipt from a store seventy miles away.  Thankfully, the south side of Birmingham – where I live – was spared.  But others were not.

There will be stories told of that day for a long time.  While on a chainsaw crew my friends and I heard one of them.  We had joined up with a random small town church group from Empire Church of God in Argo, Alabama – one of the overlooked areas - and visited a man to clear trees from his property.  He had terminal cancer and was six months overdue for a grave.  Before he passed on, he wanted to do something for his wife; give her a special place to remember the happy times in their life and so in his yard he built her a fine gazebo.  Sadly, it all was taken away by a tornado only days after completion.  Though his wife no longer has his gift to remember him by, I suspect she will always recall what a good man her husband was after witnessing sixty or so members of his church swarm to his side to assist him in clearing the devestation.

Alabama will be recovering from this event for a long time.  Supplies, able bodies, and money are needed desperately.  I encourage you to participate if you can.  Or donate.  Visit Help Write Now, or text “Tornadoes” to 50555 to donate ten dollars to the United Way of Alabama.  During a book signing, author Lindsey Leavitt had Barnes & Noble create a code (#10486058) that if given at checkout will donate ten percent of sales to victims.  Every little bit helps.