Book Signing – Coffee Buy the Book June 30, 2009

Saturday, July 4, 11 AM – 2 PM:

I’ll be signing books at Coffee Buy the Book in Pulaski, Virginia.

Autumn Sacrifice: a pantoum June 26, 2009

Mara mentioned villanelles at Spoken Word last weekend. Here’s a form I like: the pantoum.

It is a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next. This pattern continues until the final stanza, which differs in the repeating pattern.

AUTUMN SACRIFICE

Holy ghost mist
Walks on water
In morning’s sacred hour.
Autumn hovers above,

Walks on water
In reflections of the sky.
Autumn hovers above,
Mild, then meek, in wind.

In reflections of the sky
Leaves deny death.
Mild, then meek, in wind,
Branches scratch testaments.

Leaves deny death,
But frosty breath withers.
Branches scratch testaments.
Sun draws blood,

But frosty breath withers
Holy ghost mist.
Sun draws blood
In morning’s sacred hour.

“Autumn Sacrifice.” Poetry. 2006 Explorations, MECC, Third Place.

Cinquains June 17, 2009

Cinquains are five-line poems popularized by Adelaide Crapsey. She did not invent the five-line poem, but instead re-invented it based on the simplicity of the haiku. One of the most common Crapsey cinquains follows this pattern: the first line has 1 word, the second 3, the third 5, the fourth 4, and the fifth 2.

Because it is so restrictive — limiting the poet to few words — the cinquain can be challenging. While the form is not a favorite in American poetry, it is lovely when mastered.

I wrote this cinquain a few years ago. It utilizes the word pattern 1, 3, 5, 4, 2 and the syllable pattern 2, 4, 6, 8, 2.

“Sumac.” Clinch Mountain Review (2006). Author: Neva Bryan. Editor: Warren Harris.

SUMAC

Sumac,
Fuzzy head bent,
Reminds me where I am:
Appalachia, backbone worn down
With grief.

We All Live Downstream: Writings about Mountaintop Removal June 11, 2009

I’m excited to have my work appear in the book anthology We All Live Downstream alongside work by:

• Earl Hamner (creator of the Waltons)
• Ashley Judd
• Robert Kennedy Jr.
• Wendell Berry
• Bobbie Ann Mason
• Ann Pancake
• Jean Ritchie
• Silas House
• Hal Crowther
• Jeff Biggers
• Denise Giardina
• Pamela Duncan
• Many other fine writers and performers.

We All Live Downstream is a multi-genre anthology of noted authors and young writers speaking out against mountaintop removal coal mining. There is the fifth-grader who vows to fight the destruction until he’s “laid in the ground,” the college student who recalls her shock and heartbreak at first seeing a mountaintop removal site, the best-selling novelist who believes that “to destroy mountains is to spit in the face of God.” This startling collection includes writers from 17 states and features material from celebrated artists and activists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Wendell Berry, Earl Hamner, Ashley Judd, Silas House, Denise Giardina, Erik Reece, Bobbie Ann Mason, Bob Edwards, Penny Loeb, Hal Crowther, Jean Ritchie, Terry Tempest Williams, Jeff Biggers, Ann Pancake, George Ella Lyon, Ben Sollee and many more. Edited by journalist & activist Jason Howard (coauthor of Something’s Rising), this book presents a rallying chorus of dissent against a reckless industry and drives home the point that energy (particularly domestic coal) is everyone’s issue … not only at the source but all the way “downstream.”

New in Print: The Editorial Department June 10, 2009

Excerpt from The Editorial Department’s website regarding St. Peter’s Monsters:

“Neva worked with TED Managing Editor Jesse Steele to make her book ready for publication, and while editing Jesse absolutely fell in love with Neva’s evocative prose and powerful characters.”

“Jesse was thrilled to be working on such a gorgeous novel and found herself thinking about Wren and Peter long after the work was done.”

What Readers Say about St. Peter’s Monsters June 8, 2009

“It’s one of the best novels I’ve read that uses this area as the frame around the story. You captured the beauty of . . . Southwest Virginia in a love story filled with twists and turns, and an ending that, like a fine dessert, left the reader satisfied. Good work.” — M.A.

“The book was so well written! You are an excellent author and I hope you will continue to write and write and write some more. This was the first book I have read in a long time that kept my interest so well that I did not fall asleep after reading 4 paragraphs.” — C.R.

“It was wonderful! I couldn’t put it down. I was reading it every chance I got. The story left me with a great sense of hope. I missed reading it after I had finished.” — D.C.

“It was a delight to read this book. The characters are well-defined. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.” — P.B.

“I absolutely loved your book and I read at least four novels a week!” — G.F.

“It is awesome; it was hard to put down. You are a very gifted author. I love to read and I will be looking forward to your next novel.” — C.R.

“I am becoming so absorbed in your book. I’m loving it!” — A.P.

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I did not want it to end. Keep up the good writing, and I can’t wait until your next book will be published. Keep writing!!” — P.L.

“The book was very good. It read well. The best phrase: ‘Home is not a place, it’s people . . . people who love you.’” — B.D.

“I enjoyed your book very much. I worked faster because I could hardly wait to get back to Peter and Wren.” — M.B.

“I loved the flow of your book. You jumped around in time so seamlessly. I also loved the way you used newspaper clippings to cover a broad period of time. Again, congratulations on a job well done!” — C.O.

“I let a few of my friends read my copy and they are all CRAZY about it!! They loved it and wanted their own copy and some even said they wanted to order one for family/friends.” — K.G.

Excerpt from “Sawmill Boys.” Appalachian Heritage, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 2006). June 4, 2009

Excerpt from “Sawmill Boys.” Appalachian Heritage, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 2006).

For more information about Appalachian Heritage, Berea College’s literary journal, and to order back issues, visit http://community.berea.edu/appalachianheritage/

by Neva Bryan

“Where there’s loggers, there’s bound to be sawmill boys.”

Sawmill boys. I liken them to trees because they possess two kinds of beauty. The first kind is in their natural freedom, the beauty of a tree standing tall with its brothers. But when the sawmill gets a hold on them, they develop a second kind of beauty, the kind that comes from being cut down, sawed up, and spit out. Rough cut, splintered, shaped for utility.

A sawmill boy can take a 4X4 between the eyes that’ll lay him out flat on his ass and then get back up to finish his workday. They all wear a strange cologne of diesel fuel, hydraulic fluid, and cigarette smoke. Sawdust trails them like breadcrumbs for the lost. They’re lean, with knotty arms and hard faces, but their eyes are dreamy.

Wendell, my ex-husband, was a sawmill boy. I remember the first time I saw him, more than five years ago. He was coming out of the ABC store with a bottle of Jack Daniels tucked under his arm. He had that sawmill boy look – lean and hard – but he was dressed to party: Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt, faded jeans, black and silver biker boots.

His fair skin was ruddy from working outside all day. When I got close I saw that his knuckles were skinned, scabbed, and scarred . . . a perpetual state for sawmill boys, I learned later. At least he had all his fingers.

When he cocked his head at me and grinned, I saw a slight gap between his two front teeth. As he smiled, his eyes darkened from coffee-and-cream to pure black liquid. His hair was the color of my Granny’s apple butter; I thought how sweet it would be to free it from its tight ponytail and watch it tumble down around me. Just looking at him made me hungry.

Before I knew it, Wendell and I sat on the bank of the Clinch River sharing Jack and naming stars. By turns he was raunchy and sweet, sad and funny, goofy and sexy. I gave up to him with an immediacy – an urgency – that was quite foreign to me. It seems I had taken a 4X4 right between the eyes. Wendell Kennedy was a splinter who had worked his way straight into my heart.

Explain your book title June 3, 2009

The title came to me like phrases or entire lines of poetry sometimes come to me: it just popped into my head while I was driving. I get my best ideas at other inconvenient times, too, like when I’m in the shower, in a business meeting, or just at the edge of sleep.

I had played around with several other titles but none of them seemed to fit. I liked St. Peter’s Monsters immediately.

Peter, the title character, reminds me of the disciple we now name St. Peter. My character is a good person but all too human. He wants to do the right thing, wants to be the hero, and has good intentions, but he messes up often.

“Monsters” is fitting because Peter faces several kinds throughout the novel. He battles alcoholism and divorce. He fights homesickness for the Appalachian Mountains and the ugly stereotyping those of us from this region face. He encounters Wren’s monsters.

Some people have found the title confusing, supposing it means the book is a horror story. I guess that’s the downfall of letting my literary sense override my marketing skills.

So, writers, what’s your take on titles?

Nothing ever happens here June 1, 2009

My first book, St. Peter’s Monsters, is set in and around St. Paul and Castlewood, my home towns. When people from the area find out, they say “nothing ever happens here.”

I say, “Something is always happening.”

Your duty is to take the time to notice it.

Think about it. At any given moment, a woman is giving birth (or a man is working on the conception). Someone else is dying. Another person is lying or stealing or – not very often – killing. Down the street, couples are worrying about the kids and the bills. Families are enjoying dinner. Boyfriends and girlfriends are fighting. Businesses are making money . . . or losing it. A mother is crying. Teenagers are gossiping, texting, sexting. Children are playing. A wife has been hit. Another has been hugged. A man is praying. A baby is laughing. A young person is studying.

The very fact that we’re breathing means something is happening!

Yes, my book is fiction. The things that happen in it are not real. That doesn’t mean real life in my town is any less dramatic than the stories I’ve created.

It seems we believe that what happens to each of us every day is not noteworthy because it happens to US . . . EVERY DAY. We find our own lives boring.

I challenge you to take the time to notice what’s happening within you and outside you. Notice life!

My Town

This is my town. At St. Paul’s edge, ducks flank the downy banks of Oxbow Lake. Poplars, maples and cedars shade its mile-long trail. On this Friday evening, the sun touches only treetops. I find a rock outcrop and soak up its heat like a lizard. In late September, the mountains hunch down around us and spread their blue shadows until the air grows cold.

Summer’s weariness is apparent here. A drought has left foliage brown. A single withered leaf floats on the lake’s current, spinning in the wake of a line of ducks. They paddle by me, their tails jacked up in the air, their feet pumping the dark water. The leader quacks orders and the sound makes me think of old men laughing at a dirty joke.

The birds waddle toward a family perched on a bench. The man removes his baseball cap and shoos them away from his child. The little girl tosses a piece of bread to the ducks, screaming with delight when they gobble the treat. When her mother tries to pull her to the car, she cries.

“I’m going to drag you if you don’t come on!” the woman threatens. The father stumps up the wooden stairs swinging his arms slow and wide. For a moment, the scent of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, before a gentle wind whisks it into the mercury sky.

In the distance, a coal truck’s Jake brakes punctuate the air with a shrill ellipsis. The driver is shifting gears as he prepares to drop his last load. That coal will go out of Wise County’s hills on a train, the one I hear sounding its horn now. The clatter of its wheels drowns the chatter of a squirrel somewhere above me.

I cruise through St. Paul. Many of my town’s thousand residents appear outside. “Better enjoy these last warm days,” a heavyset woman calls out. I shiver at the thought of coal-blackened snow.

Three teenage boys rib each other as they walk toward the high school grounds. They look like a small army: black t-shirts, cargo pants and dog tags. The football field’s loudspeakers echo across town as the announcer prepares for the game.

Some of us forgo Friday night lights for other pleasures. An old man carries his guitar into a storefront church. Across the street, a woman sells apples from her truck bed. The golden fruit blushes, looking pretty in stiff white paper sacks. An old woman worries her collar as she negotiates price with the vendor. She rests her hand on her paunch as if she is pregnant.

I pass a clump of political signs posted in an empty lot. A discarded lottery ticket flutters in the street. On a backstreet, kids congregate in muscle cars. As I pass, I hear the low, lazy laugh of a young man. It’s a sound full of desire and life and audacity.

I wonder if he’s ever known defeat or the frailty of the soul at 2 a.m.