Good Writing Is The Hardest

I Prayed Hard And Only Gradually Became Aware That This Fierce Praying Was A Way Of Finding Prologue And Entrance Into My Own Writing. This Came As Both Astonishment And Relief. When I Thought God Had Abandoned Me, I Discovered That He Had Simply Given Me A Different Voice To Praise The Inexhaustible Beauty Of The Made World.

My Mother Raised Me To Be A Writer.

I Only Hope To Do Well Enough Before I Die To Have A House As Big As My Rich Uncle Ed And Aunt Carole.

My Mother, Southern To The Bone, Once Told Me, “all Southern Literature Can Be Summed Up In These Words: ‘on The Night The Hogs Ate Willie, Mama Died When She Heard What Daddy Did To Sister.’” She Raised Me Up To Be A Southern Writer, But It Wasn’t Easy.

Comely Was The Town By The Curving River That They Dismantled In A Year's Time. Beautiful Was Colleton In Her Last Spring As She Flung Azaleas Like A Girl Throwing Rice At A Desperate Wedding. In Dazzling Profusion, Colleton Ripened In A Gauze Of Sweet Gardens And The Town Ached Beneath A Canopy Of Promissory Fragrance.