Patsy Terrell

Lived fully, laughed loudly, gave generously

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May 15, 2015 by Patsy

Sue Monk Kidd at Watermark Books

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Sue Monk Kidd spoke in Wichita Thursday night. She was at Watermark to promote her new book, “The Invention of Wings.” It is a story of the “Struggle in the human spirit for freedom,” she says. It is historical fiction based on Sarah Grimké, an abolitionist who was born into a slave-owning family in the 1830s.

Kidd says she has always been interested in these topics. “Gender and race matter deeply to me,” she says. She is a product of the south of the 1950s and 60s and says she graduated in the first integrated class at her high school. “I feel a responsibility to be a witness to it,” she said.

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She said her hope is that the reader will feel this story, to feel enslaved and to feel women with very few rights. Her favorite line in the novel is, “Press on, my sisters.” She said she was reminded of the Julius Lester quote, “History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”

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Asked about the conversation she has had about slavery while on tour, she said it was still a very difficult topic. “Slavery is ground zero for racism,” she says. And it’s hard for people to discuss it, to accept what it means in our history. “Slavery is America’s original sin,” she said. “It is an American wound.”

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February 27, 2015 by Patsy

Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley Spoke at the Hutchinson Public Library

20150227 091wKansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley spoke at the Hutchinson Public Library Friday, February 27.  Townley’s theme was “Coming Home” to poetry. Her presentation weaved together the words of many poets, including Langston Hughes, William Stafford, Emily Dickinson, Tess Gallager, Billy Collins and others.

She encouraged people to memorize poetry. She said when she started her journey as poet laureate she realized she knew everyone’s poems except her own. She says she is always working on memorizing something these days.

“You will always have it. It will house and shelter you,” she says about poems you carry in your memory. “Come home to poetry,” she said. “Let poetry come home to you. Poetry’s porch light is always on.”

Townley said people often get bogged down in wondering what a poem means and she says that’s not the way to approach it. She says no one knows what poems mean, including the poets.

She said her favorite explanation of what poetry is comes from Emily Dickinson. “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” She says poetry is nothing to solve, but something to experience. Townley says one of poetry’s greatest gifts is consolation. “Poetry renders our solitude communal,” she says..

One of the parts of her presentation that spoke most directly to me was about finding beauty in life. She related a story Kim Stafford had told her about his maternal grandmother. She was having a very difficult pregnancy and the doctor prescribed an hour of beauty a day. Townley said she thought that was brilliant and encouraged those gathered to devote at least a few minutes every day to beauty – that it would be life-changing. Stafford’s grandmother, of course, was able to bring that baby into the world and the baby eventually became the wife of poet William Stafford and the mother of Kim Stafford.

Wyatt Townley is a widely published, nationally known poet and a fourth-generation Kansan. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio’s “The Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor, in US Poet Laureate Emeritus Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” column, and published in journals ranging from “The Paris Review” to “Newsweek.” She has published three collections of poetry: “The Breathing Field” (Little Brown), “Perfectly Normal” (The Smith), and “The Afterlives of Trees” (Woodley Press), a Kansas Notable Book and winner of the Nelson Poetry Book Award.

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September 18, 2013 by Patsy

Susan Branch at Watermark Books in Wichita

20130918 147147Susan Branch visited Watermark Books in Wichita this evening to promote her new book, “A Fine Romance.” I have been a fan of hers for many years, at least a couple of decades. When I knew she was coming I started gathering up my books to have her sign them.

Let me just skip ahead to what you probably want to know – yes, she is perfectly lovely in person! She’s just as charming and delightful as you would hope. She signed books afterwards, taking time with each person and posing for photos when asked. I didn’t get a photo with her, but we had a nice chat about vintage linens, costume jewelry pins, and other charming things. I recommended an antique store for her to visit before leaving town in the morning.

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Lest you have any doubt about her popularity, let me point out there were people in attendance from Texas, Nebraska, Colorado and Nevada to see her. She has a wonderful website and has made it a point to stay connected with her readers. Honestly, I try to keep myself away from it, because I can spend many happy hours reading her blog and looking at the beautiful artwork. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t provide the address here, so I had to go look at it. I had to. http://www.susanbranch.com/

As you know if you’ve read here for any amount of time, I am a devotee of doing what makes you happy, and using the “pretty things” so many people put aside. Susan encourages these very things, so naturally I feel an affinity for her from the outset. And you know how much I love beautiful things. So… how could I not love a Susan Branch book? Exactly!

Over the years I’ve reviewed more than one of her cookbooks for various publications, and all of those reviews have been glowing. Her books are ones you want to enjoy again and again.

20130918 136136“A Fine Romance” is a departure from the watercolor, handwritten cookbooks she is known for, but completely delightful nonetheless. It is like getting a peek into her personal journal of a two-month long trip to England, with the handwriting and art you expect when you see the name, “Susan Branch.” If you are a Susan Branch fan, you will want your own copy.

At the moment, the way to get a copy is from your local, independent bookstore. Susan and her husband, Joe, have been on a dot-to-dot trip across the country, with the dots being bookstores. They’re traveling in this amazing van.

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Her other books were all published with Little/Brown, a large, traditional publisher. With this one she used a local publisher at Martha’s Vineyard, but made all the decisions herself about what the book would look like and what it would include. She has nothing but good things to say about the traditional publisher she has worked with for a long time, but the publishing world has changed dramatically since she started. She wanted to do something different and this is it.

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I can assure you you’ll love going along on this journey with her. And if you get a chance to meet her, do! She is just as lovely as the pages of her books would make you believe!

I have posted more photos on my Facebook page. Please enjoy them at your leisure.

April 24, 2013 by Patsy

Mama’s Birthday

It is my mother’s birthday – at least for a few more minutes here on this April 24th. She died in 2001, at the age of 82, and there hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t missed her

Mama was a force to be reckoned with. I was fortunate to have her as a mother. She taught me many things. Our relationship wasn’t perfect – what mother/daughter one is? I know I was a disappointment to her in many ways, and I’m sure I know only a small fraction of them. Hopefully I was also a joy to her in at least a few.

Her birthday is always bittersweet for me. We were never a big birthday family, but on her birthday that year I made a call to the local nursing home to see if they had a place for her. We thought she was having a medication reaction and we were way beyond our medical knowledge. Little did we know she had had a series of small strokes and would have a more major one in a few days, and that she would die on May 11.

This is always a difficult time of year for me. From her birthday through Mother’s Day or May 13 – depending on how the dates fall. She died on Friday, May 11 and we buried her on Sunday, May 13 – Mother’s Day.

Grieving is a process for everyone, and it has been a very long one for me. It was probably about five years afterward when I felt like I “came out of a fog.” Then it was a few more years before I felt like I could let the days pass without marking them in some special way.

The first year I made it a point to be in Paris. At the moment one of my dear friends is there and I’m loving seeing her photos and remembering that time.

On mama’s birthday the first year after she died, I had the lowest point during the grieving process, I think. I was laying in bed that night alone just sobbing uncontrollably. I felt as though every cell in my body was crying its pain into my bloodstream and that it would never cease.

After an hour or two of this I remember thinking, “I just can’t go on like this. I just can’t.” It was too much pain, too much grief, too much loss, too much. There was still some part of me that was functioning because I considered my choices.

I could only come up with two – I either had to kill myself or I had to deal with it and go on. I knew I wasn’t going to kill myself. That was not an option. Never was an option. So, I was just going to have to go on. And I was just going to have to feel that way as long as I felt that way. So, I did.

Fortunately, that seemed to be a bit of a turning point. Although it was years before I was out of the fog, I realized there was no point in being overly dramatic about not being able to go on. That was just silliness (something my mother abhorred). Obviously, I could go on and I did.

I’ve remembered that night many times. I have rarely felt so alone, so forlorn, so lost, so forsaken, as I did that night. But, like millions before me, I survived. And so will millions more after me.

Recently I went to see Cheryl Strayed, whose book, “Wild,” chronicles her thousand mile plus hike where she came to terms with her mother’s death. I completely understood everything she experienced after her mother’s death when she was searching to find who she was without her mother. If you’ve read the book, you know she had some very dark times and coped however she could. I understood. I understand.

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Other things I’ve written about Mama’s passing…

http://patsysponderings.com/2005/04/i-am-no-ones-daughter.html

http://patsysponderings.com/2005/05/remembering-mama.html

http://patsysponderings.com/2007/05/may-11-2.html

http://patsysponderings.com/2010/05/white-roses-and-remembrances.html

http://patsysponderings.com/2011/05/a-corsage-of-white-roses.html

http://patsysponderings.com/2012/05/blackberries-signs-decisions-and-mysteries.html

March 4, 2013 by Patsy

Artist Reception for Jocelyn Woodson at Bluebird Books

Bluebird Books hosted an artist’s reception for my friend, Jocelyn Woodson, Friday evening. Jocelyn does amazing artwork and she is the featured artist in the bookstore this month.

 

Jocelyn and Melanie, the owner, were discussing the finer points of art display in cool bookstores, or something else. I don’t know. I wasn’t really eavesdropping (for a change!).

All of this was accompanied by music!

Bluebird Books is a new addition to Hutchinson’s Downtown, and it’s marvelous. Not that I want to make you jealous of our bookstore, but just look at it.

I suppose I could love this red chair more, but I’m not sure how. It’s just lovely and perfect in every conceivable way.

And check this out. You can sit in a comfy chair up front and occasionally glance around and check out what’s happening on Main Street.

You’ll also be able to see the book tree to your left, right by the front door. It was a Christmas tree, now it’s a spring tree, complete with chia bunny. I’m kinda in love with chia bunny, for reasons I can’t explain.

 

This is over near the cookbook sections. Swoon!

 

The wall beside the cash register has a collection of bluebird art. You’ll also find bluebirds all around the store.

 

The wall behind the cash register is this wonderful collection of doors – so cool.

 

At the end of the night, Jocelyn and I took a moment to sit in those comfy chairs up front and soak it all in. Of course, Jocelyn has on the stylish boots, and I have on the wrinkly socks. Why do I post things like that, anyway? There’s probably a psychological dissertation in there somewhere.

February 10, 2013 by Patsy

StoryCorps Creator David Isay at Watermark Books in Wichita

“The soul is contained in the human voice,” says David Isay, creator of StoryCorps.

For nearly a decade, StoryCorps has been recording people’s lives. They have permanent booths in various locations, and traveling ones that stop around the country, where people can interview someone they love for 40 minutes. The mission is, “to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.” Isay spoke at Watermark Books in Wichita this week.

Isay explained the booths are designed to create an intimate space. The lighting is low, the interview participants are alone with just a facilitator who keeps notes on the interview as it progresses. “We see every interview as valuable and potentially sacred in people’s lives,” Isay says. “It’s an act of generosity when people come to the booth.”

They do take photographs of the participants, but Isay says, “We will never have cameras in the StoryCorps booth.” He loves the intimacy and power of the human voice, and said even if they were video interviews he would probably close his eyes to listen to them.

In the reception before the event, Isay mentioned that people are always surprised by something that comes out in the interview, even if it’s with someone the person has known all their lives. “The reason people get emotional is that listening is authentic and genuine,” said Isay. “Listening to a loved one tells them how much they matter.” And it reminds them their stories are important.

The StoryCorps website has a list of questions people can use to do their own interviews with people in their lives, without coming to a booth. They’ve been gathered over the years as ways to get people to talk about, “the great themes of human existence,” says Isay. As you might expect those are love and death, and not career paths.

“The trick is not to wait,” he says. StoryCorps has a “National Day of Listening” the day after Thanksgiving, when they encourage people to have these conversations. Of course, it can be done anytime. “It’s always an amazing experience to have these conversations,” he says. He knows of what he speaks. He says he recorded an interview with his father, and listened to it the first time at 3 a.m. the night his father died.

In the last decade, they’ve recorded about 50,000 interviews. Each conversation is recorded and the participants walk away with a CD. A second CD is made that goes to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, if the interview participants agree. Isay said more than 99% of people do agree.

I was first introduced to StoryCorps when I worked in public radio. Each week there’s a segment on Morning Edition. Now I listen to the podcasts regularly. However, that is not what StoryCorps was designed for. Isay explained that was merely a byproduct. “The real purpose is giving people a chance to have these conversations, to know their stories matter,” he says.

They are thrilled to have the Morning Edition segment, but only 1 of every few hundred interviews is edited down to a short segment for the radio. Recently they started doing animations of a few of the stories to appeal to a younger audience. Those are done for about 1 out of every 200 radio segments.

The series has also produced some books, including the latest, “All There Is,” which was just released in paperback. This particular one focuses on love stories. All of these things grew out of Isay’s passion to get people to record and preserve their stories.

StoryCorps works with about 500 non-profits every year to seek different voices who might not otherwise have an opportunity to record their stories. “For people who feel most silenced … this is a profound experience,” says Isay.

When producing documentaries earlier in his career, Isay gave equipment to teenagers to capture their personal stories. He says he learned as he heard them interview their grandmothers, great aunts and other people in their lives, “the microphone gave a license to have conversations they’d never had before.” StoryCorps was an outgrowth of that experience. He now spends most of his time raising money for StoryCorps. “I will devote the rest of my life into growing this, I hope, into a national institution,” he says.

He said StoryCorps is about celebrating the American story and being reminded to pay attention. “It’s amazing the poetry, the grace, the beauty you can find in people walking down the street if you just take time to listen,” he says.

“We’re seeing humanity at its best,” Isay says about the interviews. “When we do that we’re on holy ground,” he says. StoryCorps teaches us about humanity and the importance of listening. “One of the lessons of StoryCorps is to be in the present and take time to say things to people we love,” he says.



Greg was kind enough to take this photo of me with Dave Isay, who was incredibly personable and pleasant.

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November 20, 2012 by Patsy

Getting Your Book into Bookstores

Authors are obsessed with getting their books into bookstores. They believe this will be the key to making sales. After all, bookstores are in the business of selling books. Makes perfect sense.

Except it doesn’t.

Instead of being focused on getting your book into bookstores, start thinking about getting your book into the hands of readers.

People in all kinds of businesses don’t really understand who their customer is. If you’re an author, your customer is the reader, not the bookstore. The bookstore is the middle-man. They may be an incredibly pleasant middle-man, and middle-men have their places, but they are not your customer. That is the reader. The reader is also their customer. As you can see, readers are really powerful entities in this equation.

I work with a number of authors, handling various public relations tasks for them from helping build a social media platform to generating their newsletters, blog posts, mailers, and other assorted chores. Many authors just want to write, and not spend time marketing. Unfortunately, that’s not really very feasible these days.

You will either spend a lot of your time marketing, or hire someone else to do it, and even then it will require your attention. It’s just the ugly truth of business today – any kind of business. This is acutely felt in the book industry. Unless you are a proven author with a stellar track record at a big publishing house, you are likely to be spending a lot of what used to be your writing time on marketing.

If you are an author who has decided to self publish, or work with a publishing house outside the major ones, you’d better decide marketing is your second favorite thing – right below writing. Frankly, it probably is far higher on the list than re-writing, and we all have to do that, so just dig in and enjoy.

But, I guarantee, if you create a demand for your book, bookstores will become very interested in carrying it. Despite the obstacles, if they’re having potential customers walk in every day and ask about buying a copy of “Polly’s Last Chance for Pomegranates,” they’ll beat a path to your door, or at least your inbox.

However, don’t hold your breath on that one. Because those customers are likely to just order the book and have it shipped directly to them, never interacting with a bookstore. In fact, for many people, it’s nearly impossible to shop at a local bookstore because there no longer is one. That’s a pity, but it’s the reality.

For those lucky enough to still have bookstores, please support them in any way you can. Buy books there, suggest others do the same, and give them some love. Understand that rent is high and shelf space is limited and manpower is scarce. Just having the energy to order, rotate stock, and handle business is overwhelming for many bookstores. The people who work in bookstores tend to be readers, and they can offer great suggestions for books. Maybe you want to give them a copy of your book so they’re familiar with it.

I wish I had a better answer. I adore bookstores, but this post is about authors and how to get your book out into the world. Bookstores would be a wonderful, logical option except their business model is not geared to today’s publishing market. So, consider how much time it will take you to swim upstream on that. And realize that while you’re doing that, you’re wasting energy you could be devoting to reaching your real customer, the reader.

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March 18, 2012 by Patsy

William Bernhardt Speaks about the Power of Books at the Kansas Writer’s Association Scene Conference

I spent part of Friday and all day Saturday at the KWA Writer’s Conference in Wichita. It was wonderful to be with other writers and to pick up some tips on structure.

Saturday evening’s ending presentation was one of the most beautiful speeches I’ve ever heard about books. It was by William Bernhardt who is funny, as well as apparently brilliant. (I met him for the first time this weekend, so I’m not really qualified to make that determination, but all indicators would say “brilliant” is accurate.)

I can’t possibly do it justice. He is obviously far better-read than I am, and I was so swept away listening to him that I didn’t take any notes. Trust me, this does not happen often.

One story I do remember is him talking about Harriett Beecher Stowe’s book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and its impact on the civil war. He told the story of Lincoln meeting her in 1862 and saying, “So, this is the little lady that started the big war.” Bernhardt pointed out that the power of those words had such an impact on the world that we elected an African-American president less than 150 years later. As he said, whether you voted for Obama or not, you cannot deny that is an amazing change in attitude.

Speaking to a room full of writers, he encouraged us all to go write, because the words we put on the page do matter.

Many people encouraged him to print his speech, and I will be one of the first people buying it if he does. I wish I could share more of it with you, but I was so caught up in the experience I didn’t capture the details sufficiently. In fact, I know I’m only giving you the scarcest hint at how magnificent it was.

Just trust me when I say it was incredible. And go read something!
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March 15, 2012 by Patsy

Book Club – Swamplandia

My book club recently discussed the book, “Swamplandia,” by Karen Russell. I really enjoyed this book. It’s about a family who runs an alligator/swamp tourist attraction and their trials and tribulations after the mother’s death.

I could relate to some of it from my own childhood – being somewhat isolated from the world at large – because I grew up in a very rural area. They were separated because they were surrounded by water on all sides.

Although the reader’s guide didn’t mention it, the water seemed another character in the novel to me. So many of the central themes of the book related to water in one way or another.

Regardless, I recommend the book. I found it to be a quick read that really kept my interest.

This was our second book. The first was, “The Crimson Petal and the White.”

I also just finished, “Man Seeks God,” which was fabulous. I’m also currently reading, “Unorthodox” and “Of Bees and Mist.”

This book club is great for multiple reasons:
1. I didn’t start it – someone else did and invited me. A wonderful change of pace!
2. The other women in it are better read than I am and smarter. I love being around smart people!
3. It’s causing me to discover and read books I might not otherwise have found.

It has been a long time since I’ve been a in a book club, and I’m hoping I can keep up. I have a tendency to not read the book on occasion, for one reason or another. But, so far, I’m ahead this time. Our next book is “Man Seeks God,” which is my favorite of the ones we’ve read so far.

I am going to try and keep a list of the books on the blog, so I’ll have it for reference. A few years ago I started a book club with a friend and we read a number of books over the time we met. I am sure I have that list somewhere in a computer file. Maybe I’ll run across it one day and can share it, too.

But, while this is fresh, I need to start the list:

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber – 2/2012
Swamplandia by Karen Russell – 3/2012
Man Seeks God by Eric Weiner – 4/2012
Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan – 5/2012

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November 27, 2011 by Patsy

Love it – a tree of books

Go here and see something fun!

http://bookshelfporn.com/post/2323500590.

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Epitaphs for Patsy

In a document she left behind for a good friend, Patsy listed five possible epitaphs that could be used at the time of her passing.

  • ‘Lived Fully. Laughed Loudly. Gave generously. Gone.’
  • ‘Lived, Laughed and Loved. Continuing that elsewhere.’
  • ‘Lived fully every day. No regrets now.’
  • ‘The journey continues It has been magical.’
  • ‘A magical journey so far no regrets.’

An Editorial Tribute

An Editorial Tribute

Image courtesy of Richard Crowson

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In memory of Patsy Terrell • Curated by Greg Holmes • Website by Rosemary Miller

 

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