“ Ask me about my childhood, and I will tell you to walk to the edge of the woods with a choir of crickets chirping from every direction, a hot, humid breeze brushing through your hair, your feet, bare… Brenda Sutton Rose
“ While writing the first draft is an exercise in shutting down all of the things we think we know so that the story features come tumbling out, the revision is the end of the joy ride. We pull on the g… Patricia Hickman
“ Humans need each other for equilibrium and support. But writers must pull aside to take a quiet walk alone, not just for the sake of serenity but to hear the Voice inside. That is how the storyteller… Patricia Hickman
“ Facing the sagging middle when writing a novel, while inevitable, may be overcome by pre-planning. I divide my collection of proposed scenes into three acts, each scene inciting tension that builds to… Patricia Hickman
“ I started out hoping to remind people at some point in the novel that we should be loving and kind. But then the theme usurped my life, spilling over into my novels until love was no longer a small vo… Patricia Hickman
“ Because of sorrow, my awareness of life's pulse is strongly detectable. It is syncopation while I journey, a lap of ocean in the eyes of every person I meet. This awareness informs the flesh of my sto… Patricia Hickman
“ The central character is an incomplete package of yearning that takes the length of the novel to complete. Completion, though, is not to be confused with perfection. Patricia Hickman
“ We are good at stories. We hoard them, like an old woman in a room full of boxes, but now and then we pull out our best, and spread them out. We talk of the bad years when the cotton didn't open, and… Rick Bragg
“ {Summertime she speaks of winter, she eats ham, but speaks of beef, got a good man but, flirts with another. She might as well go to hell, cause she ain't gonna be happy in heaven either!} Nancy B. Brewer
“ He takes a draw on a cigarette, blows out a smoky ghost. I reach to catch the phantom in my hands, but it eludes me. I've been trying to catch a ghost for as long as I can remember. Brenda Sutton Rose
“ The woods are full of regional writers, and it is the great horror of every serious Southern writer that he will become one of them. Flannery O'Connor
“ Kevin knew he had to always outrun the enemy inside him, and if that meant playing football, he'd do it. During puberty, he had taken off running and found too late that he couldn't stop. In dreams th… Brenda Sutton Rose
“ Songs. Books. Poetry. Paintings. These things reveal truth. I believe lies and truth are tangled together. Brenda Sutton Rose
“ I believe that the truth of any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together. Alice Walker
“ Flannery O'Connor, in a note to the editor of Wise Blood that pertained to changes he wanted to make, wrote Perhaps I am prematurely arrogant . . . Flannery O'Connor
“ If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a wate… Miranda Parker
“ Every town has ‘THAT house’: the one that once held dark secrets. You know the house… the one no one will purchase? The one whose walls have seen blood? The one that even birds avoid, and the darkened… James Caskey
“ I began to doubt that I would ever know the truth of what transpired, or who those people really were. But all that changed one rainy August afternoon, when I was surprised by a dead man who had answe… James Caskey
“ Many people, after spending a long weekend being stealthily seduced by this grand dame of the South, mistakenly think that they have gotten to know her: they believe (in error) that after a long strol… James Caskey
