Introduction:
A year ago, on the weekend before Thanksgiving I travelled from Atlanta to Fairhope with a fellow author and friend, John Williams, to attend the first (and as I’ve been told) the last Southern Writers Reading Reunion. The Best of the Shortest: a Southern Writers Reading Reunion anthology was going to be introduced and there were panels and readings arranged at the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts. The town of Fairhope had opened their homes and hearts to the contributors and visitors like John and I who stayed with incredible hosts we didn’t know from Adam but felt immediately welcomed by. Here was my bucket-list of Southern writers all in one place; I was equally nervous and thrilled to meet them. In addition, the anthology was dedicated to the memory of the late William Gay, who originally inspired SWR, and who was also on this journey with me. If you read on, you will find out what I’m talking about. This is an account of my time in Fairhope, Alabama, between November 18-19, 2023.
Essay:
“Finding William Gay in Fairhope, Alabama” by Dawn Major
The quest to find out who the late author, William Gay (2012), began when I was in graduate school. I had already read Little Sister Death and Twilight and was blown away by William Gay’s genre-blending. Here was someone writing speculative fiction along with gritty realism, hybrid of magical realism. Who is capable of writing like that? You could read his books as inhabitants of multiple genres.
Dawn Major
For my master’s thesis I only had to write forty pages about one of his novels; I wrote about his entire oeuvre to that date (2017) and over a hundred pages. I could have written much more, and I did after graduation. I also discovered the William Gay Archive, a small group of William’s friends who were dedicated to keeping his legacy alive; sorting through, editing, and publishing the enormous amount of work he left behind. I joined “Team Gay” and remain with them today. I also learned that as well as being an entirely self-taught writer, he was a self-taught artist. His paintings, like his prose, depict a haunted and decaying Southern landscape.
This quest has led me to his hometown of Hohenwald, Tennessee, where I met his family and documented the places that made up his real and fictional worlds, which were sort of the same. More recently, it led to me Fairhope, Alabama, last November to the Southern Writers Reading reunion, a much talked-about event.
In the summer of 2023, Mandy Haynes, the editor of WELL READ Magazine, introduced me to Suzanne Hudson. Haynes, Michael White, William’s biographer and lead archivist, and I had collaborated on a series of pieces about William’s life, his writing, his artwork, and WELL READ became the space that I wasn’t allowed with my thesis. God bless Mandy, for letting me go wild with word count. Along with Hudson, Mandy and Joe Formichella, Suzanne’s husband, were co-editing the anthology The Best of the Shortest: a Southern Writers Reading reunion. They were interested in using one of William’s images on the back of the book. Michael offered up an image we had titled “The Harrikin” (William never titled his paintings), and I wrote an essay about the painting—but really it was all Willliam. I simply found one of my favorite passages about his infamous haunted forest and it wrote itself. But this got me thinking about how I was going to approach writing a review of The Best of the Shortest (more on that later).
Editors (L-R) Suzanne Hudson, Joe Formichella, and Mandy Haynes
I hadheard of Suzanne and Joe, and yes, in connection to William, but they’re also incredible authors themselves. They’re part of the vibrant writing community that is still alive and kicking in Fairhope today. And you can’t talk about Fairhope without Sonny Brewer’s name rising to the surface—who I’d heard referred to as the “King Daddy” of Fairhope’s literary scene. Much is owed to Sonny as the Over the Transom bookstore owner, Southern Writers Reading event founder, and a great writer/editor to boot.
Sonny was good friend of Tommy Franklin, and the story goes that Tommy Franklin introduced William Gay to Sonny Brewer. When these three met, the earth’s axis titled a couple more degrees, which allowed for the naissance of Southern Writers Reading and later the convergence of authors, musicians, editors, and readers during a certain weekend in November between the years of 1998 and 2008. Or as Hudson explained to me, those three had an instant bond that resulted in SWR along with a bunch of great things in Southern literature that came from that concord of minds. Something big must have been brewing to plan an author event during the Iron Bowl a/k/a/ the Auburn vs. Alabama game, or if you like, the Alabama vs. Auburn game. As Hudson put it, “It was a middle finger to the SEC—to show that literature could compete with sports.” Read the afterword, “The Café Under the Transom,” by Jim Gilbert along with Hudson’s introduction for the full flavor of how Southern Writers Reading was born.
What started out as an idea and word of mouth gained attention and notoriety and eventually publishers like MacAdam/Cage from San Francisco, California, were visiting Fairhope and publishing one of the panelist’s first novels annually. The first three were Suzanne Hudson’s In a Temple of Trees, Joe Formichella’s The Wreck of the Twilight Limited, and Jack Pendarvis’s The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure.
McAdam/Cage would also publish the Blue Moon Café series, an anthology edited by Brewer which features the best of the best in Southern writing with a lot of overlap from SWR. Though the Blue Moon Cafe anthology was not part of the SWR, it was a similar lovechild and born from two full moons in the month of November and Brewer’s desire for a unique and “organic” literary experience. If you’ve yet to read any of these anthologies, I promise you it’s bookended with a cast of our finest southern writers, some still with us, some who have moved on, like William. And are you picking up on something here? Strange and fantastic things happen in
Fairhope in the month of November.
Yet another valuable byproduct of SWR was the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, which hosts a monthly writer in residence—and not to drop names, but Rick Bragg was the first—and also the keynote speaker at the 2023 reunion. This was a big deal!
There are special places in this world that attract artists, and the town of Fairhope is one of them, a natural host for SWR. Some other artistic and literary towns that also hosted SWR during its heyday were Oxford, Mississippi, made famous by another William, and Jackson, Mississippi. Hand in hand with worthwhile literary destinations are terrific bookstores like Page & Palette in Fairhope, Square Books in Oxford, and Lemuria Books in Jackson. Sadly, Over the Transom is no more, but I assure you the soul of the that bookstore lingers on.
Literary meccas don’t happen in a vacuum. “Herding cats” is the expression often used in reference to writing conferences and festivals or anywhere where more than one writer may be found congregating. I’ve never edited an anthology, but as a congregation of stories, such editing is a kind of cat-herding. I once interviewed the editor, the cover artist, the publisher, and the marketing person of one anthology. All those working parts should tell you how much work is involved in putting together an anthology.
First there’s compiling all the pieces from living SWR authors into one place to be edited and published. I imagine just hunting them down was an effort. Email addresses and phone numbers change and people lose touch. Then you need to find a publisher. I’m betting this was the easiest decision for Hudson. The Best of the Shortest was in good hands with Joe Taylor of Livingston Press, Hudson’s longtime editor and publisher, who, like me, was hesitant about joining the stage of SWR writers for a group picture. I mean, we weren’t part of the original group, but when I said, “You’re the goddam publisher,” he chuckled and dragged me along for the photo. My point is anthologies are no small feat.
Arranging panels and parties and getting a bunch of writers (not all spring chickens) to come down to an out-of-the-way place like Fairhope was no small feat, either. Sonny’s days of organizing SWR were past; he handed the torch over to Hudson, who I herald for her dedication. The stress of that feat might have knocked off a few years of her life. But the biggest feat of all was recreating something extraordinary so many years later. The energy was epic. I only wish it lasted longer.
Rick Bragg and Kim Cross
Was it an act of love that inspired Hudson to recreate what they once had so many years ago with SWR, or did she also want to toy with the earth’s axis and see what magical chaos she could conjure up? Whatever her reasoning, I’m glad something sparked her to do this, because the weekend before Thanksgiving I headed to Fairhope with my travelling partner, John Williams—the author of End Times, and who, I should add, was my critical thesis advisor and mentored me with my first book, The Bystanders (it takes an army to raise a baby author) —and six pieces of William’s original artwork in my trunk.
On top of everything else, Hudson had found us super cool hosts to keep us for the weekend, a venue at which to discuss our books on Friday, and another venue on Sunday where I presented William’s artwork to the good Unitarians of Fairhope. You see, my quest also involves spreading the word about William.
I was getting pretty nervous and antsy about all of this. Prior to the reunion, I kept getting emails from Mandy and Suzanne suggesting I tap into William mode, roll with it, chill out—just enjoy the weekend. It took me a moment to get what they were telling me, and then it was over in a snap. I get it more now even as I write these words and wish I could transport myself back to Fairhope circa November 17-19, 2023, to soak it in one last time.
Dawn Major, Joe Taylor, Joe Formichella, Marlin Barton, Dayne Sherman, Janet Nodar, Karen Spears Zacharias, Bev Marshall (seated), Suzanne Hudson, Beth Ann Fennelly, Tom Franklin, Mac Walcott, James Whorton, Jr., Doug Kelley, and Sonny Brewer. Photo by Taylor D’Amico and Lynn Oldshue
That weekend was a blur—frantic, really—because John and I were committed to author events ourselves, all generously arranged by Hudson. It was simply incredible. Everyone opened their homes, fed us—and fed us well, too. Southern hospitality is unmatched.
Now, several months later, I’ve had time to reflect on the event and that crazy quest of mine, and I know that I did find William in Fairhope or at least he was a passenger on that trip as William never drove. Just like I’d found him in Hohenwald, and in his paintings and his prose, and in the authors he loved—friends that were his and are now mine. I had now found him in the landscape spurred by Southern Writers Reading, and I found him in this brutally honest and beautifully crafted anthology, The Best of the Shortest, because he survives in the voices of those who contributed their words.
How can I honestly do it justice? I mean just look at the names! The anthology spans centuries, from today to the 1960s to the Civil War. It captures racial injustice and the violence of war during the Vietnam Era and the Civil Rights Movement—periods of time long gone but still hitting hard, still sadly relevant. It captures the people, the settings, and the colloquialisms unique only to the South and its spirit. And so, what I figured what made the most sense to do here is to do what I did with the introduction to William’s “The Harrikin.” I’ll use the authors’ words. No analysis necessary, just great Southern writing.
Enough said:
“ ‘Liked to have died’ is Mama’s favorite phrase. She says it all the time. When she goes to Wal-Mart and can’t find the milk aisle she says, ‘I liked to have died before I found that cooler.’ When she goes to Les Schwab to get her tires rotated for spring, she says, ‘The line was so long I liked to have died’.” –from “Star Captain and the End Times” by Karen Spears Zacharias, p.109
“That poor, horny halfback from my eleventh grade government class, a Testosterone Drone who passed me notes during the anti-communism reel-to-reels. I played it coy for a while, then the Cold War escalated as we began to date, building to a summit of heat, when, at last, I shed the Bobbie Brooks dress, and the heels of my Weejuns pounded the Ford tailgate like an angry Khrushchev. We were hooked on lust.” –-from “Second Sluthood” by R.P. Saffire, p.100
“Most things that cause us so much to worry do not matter, do not matter, do not matter. Repeat as often as needed.”—from “What I Know Now That I Wish I’d Known Then” by Cassandra King, p. 174
“ ‘You’ll never make it out of there,’ she [Mom] told me like a broken record player before I left, ‘those boys are getting paralyzed from their eyebrows to their toes, napalmed, brain dead, burned alive’.’” –from “What War Will Do, 1968” by Suzanne Kingbury, p. 83
“And yet, even as we curl and spray our hair, the Civil Rights Movement is blazing through the once slumbering cities and towns of Alabama, marchers and activists demanding racial justice, planning sit-ins, teach-ins, giving speeches, registering voters, and even going to jail. Though the violence against them is brutal and televised, its reality doesn’t penetrate our lives as if we’re enveloped in a fog of whiteness, a hush of silence, a cocoon of ignorance” –from “Silence” by Patricia Foster, p. 59
“Was the travesty of the killing of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice, shot while playing in a city park by an officer who’d already been fired by one police department before being hired by Cleveland’s, just a one-off? The answer, of course, is no. Because George Floyd in Minneapolis, and because Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and because Elijah McCain in Aurora, because, because, because…” –from “Teach Me” by David Wright Falade, p. 61
“If dogs didn’t live so long, I’d have another. There’s dog-love left in me, unspent. Is there unspent man-love left in me?”—from “Its Been Six Months” by Pia Z. Ehrhardt, p.66
“It’s funny how when people talk about when they were kids and they can only go back so far. Anything that happens to a baby gets eat up by things that happen after. Except it seems like whatever happened can still bother you later, and you won’t know what’s making you so crazy because it’s lost. Maybe those kinds of things are what made my sister Crissy get divorced and become a whore.”—from “Pageant” by Joshilyn Jackson, p. 65
“ . . . when Pabst Blue Ribbon tastes better than Guiness and I want to drink it in cinderblock death-traps with names like Betty’s Lounge and The Last Chance; when I hanker for pork rinds and those deviled eggs you barehand out of a gallon jar . . .”—from “White Trash Fishing” by Ron Rash, p. 123
“His eyes were dull, and his beard soiled. He breathed through his mouth, showing small teeth and red, sore-looking gums. All over him the man had a hurt look, like his body hurt but also his brain, like he was irritated and generally bad off. Like someone had injured him a long time ago, and he’d been injured often since, too many times.”—from “Creative Writing” by James Whorton, Jr., pp. 93-94
“He drank beer most of the time—like water, her mama said, and whiskey of an evening, and if the child was up too late she would sometimes see the other man emerge, the one who was much more unpredictable, the stumbling one, who mumbled curses and kicked her mother’s bedroom door when she shut him out.”—from “The Thing With Feathers” by Suzanne Hudson, p. 184
“The year before Hurricane Frederic, our father took Darlene and Celia and me to the Crewe of Columbus parade. We clambered to catch plastic necklaces and chocolate doubloons, felt the crowd crushing forward as we sang the Moon Pie chant. A big man in overalls nearly knocked me over when he reached out to catch a shower of Jolly Ranchers. He stepped on my foot and sloshed beer on my shirt. On the way home I ate twenty-six Now & Laters and vomited out the window of our Galaxy 500.”—from “Slacabamorinico” by Michelle Richmond, p. 52
“My first lesson on brown whiskey came forty years ago in a time of bad sideburns and slick leisure suits and eight track troubadours. I seem to remember Tanya Tucker calling to me from the dashboard, and the Alabama sun burning through the open window of my metalflake-brown Pontiac Grand Prix.”—from “Whiskey Blues” by Rick Bragg, p. 113
“While eating catfish at Rayner’s, I noticed a sign that read:
Chitlins Tuesday Only
Fried or boiled—all you can eat $12.95
Half & Half—all you can eat $14.95
Dasani Water $1.00”—from “Chitlins” by, p. 42 by Robert St. John
“I prefer my wife’s ugly friends. They’re from a different period of her life, rehab or grad school . . . The men are balding and red in the face and sometimes the women’s feet swell and they can’t wear shoes. When I visit I stand outside by the giant grill holding my Bud Light and I feel like the skinniest, best-looking motherfucker in the city, still got all my teeth and a head of fulsome hair stirring in the beefy smoke.”—from “My Wife’s Good-looking Friends” by Tom Franklin, p. 28
“I am haunted and enthralled by ruins, both made and imagined, and look for the day when our ruins can make us whole—a day when the duels between our entropy and our hubris will be melded back into the ruins of Eden, where they belong.”—from “Making Ruins: Are we what we make?” by Mac Walcott, p. 99
These are just a few of the wonderful passages I collected from The Best of the Shortest. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. To PURCHASE copy of The Best of the Shortest: a Southern Writers Reading Reunion, click HERE.
Fine review of an important book!