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Monthly Archives: August 2020

Labor Novels Set in the Charlotte Region

August 31, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Given that Labor Day is nearly upon us, I have decided to focus this Storied Charlotte blog post on labor novels that take place in the Charlotte region.  Not that many decades ago, the Charlotte area was known not for its banks but rather for its textile mills.  I am reminded of this fact on a daily basis, for the house where I live started off as housing for the textile workers employed by Atherton Cotton Mills in what is now known as South End.  Working conditions in our region’s textile mills were often far from ideal, and some of the workers in these textile mills responded to these conditions by participating in labor unions.  These unions organized a number of strikes, the most famous of which was Gastonia’s Loray Mill Strike of 1929.

Over the years, numerous authors have written novels about the impact of the labor movement on the lives of textile workers in our region.  For the purposes of today’s Storied Charlotte blog post, I will focus on three of these novels:  Olive Tilford Dargan’s Call Home the Heart (1932), Doug Marlette’s The Bridge (2001), and Wiley Cash’s The Last Ballad (2017). 

Olive Tilford Dargan’s Call Home the Heart originally came out under her pen name of Fielding Burke.  The novel is largely set in Gastonia, and it deals with the Loray Mill Strike. The central character in the novel is a working-class woman named Ishma Waycaster.  She moves from the Great Smokey Mountains to Gastonia in order to find work in a textile mill. Partially inspired by the strike leader Ella May Wiggins, this character becomes involved in the efforts to improve working conditions at the Loray Mill. The strike figures prominently in the conclusion of the novel, but most of the story focuses on the central character’s personal conflicts and her growing sense of desperation. Sometimes compared to Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker, Dargan’s Call Home the Heart is now recognized as one of best novels to come out of the labor movement.  A writer for the Saturday Review described the book as “perhaps the best novel yet written of the industrial conflict in contemporary America.”  The Feminist Press republished Call Home the Heart in 1983.

Doug Marlette is best remembered as The Charlotte Observer’s Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist and creator of the Kudzu comic strip, but he also wrote two novels before his untimely death in a car accident in 2007.  His first novel, The Bridge, takes place in a small North Carolina town where the central character, a newspaper cartoonist named Pick Cantrell, grew up.  Pick returns to this town after his career takes a nose dive, and he reconnects with his grandmother, who is known as Mama Lucy.  As the story progresses, Pick learns that his grandmother played a key role in the General Textile Strike of 1934.  In many ways, The Bridge spans generations.  The grandmother’s story and Pick’s story interconnect in unexpected ways.   The Bridge was named best book of 2002 by the Southeastern Bookseller’s Association.

A native of Gastonia, Wiley Cash delves into the history of his boyhood hometown in The Last Ballad.  I heard Cash talk about the origins of The Last Ballad when he spoke at the Charlotte Library’s Verse & Vino event in 2017.  He mentioned that his parents and grandparents worked in the textile mills in the region, so he grew up having a general familiarity with the history of the textile industry.  However, he went on to say that it wasn’t until he was in graduate school that he learned much about the Loray Mill Strike.  He became fascinated with Ella May Wiggins, one of the leaders of the strike, and he decided to base The Last Ballad on her short but eventful life.  In addition to being a labor organizer, she was a talented singer, and Cash became particularly interested in this aspect of her life.  Cash tells the story of Ella May Wiggins through the voice of Ella May’s daughter Lilly, who shares the story of her mother’s life with her nephew some seventy-five years after the 1929 strike. The Last Ballad received the Southern Book Prize and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.

All three of these novels emphasize the roles that women played in the history of the labor movement in our region.  These novels bring to life the struggles of North Carolina’s textile workers and shed light of their efforts to improve their working conditions and provide a better future for their children.  As we celebrate Labor Day, I think we should take a moment to reflect on the stories of the textile workers who played such an important role in the history of Charlotte and the surrounding communities.  The stories of their lives and struggles are part of Storied Charlotte.

Tags: industrial conflictlabor novelslabor unionsLoray Mill Striketextile industrytextile millstextile strike

Gail Z. Martin and the Launching of ConTinual

August 24, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

As one of Charlotte’s most prominent writers of fantasy novels, Gail Z. Martin is a frequent guest/speaker at fantasy conventions.  This time of the year, Gail is usually making plans to attend Dragon Con, the giant fantasy convention that normally takes place in downtown Atlanta during the Labor Day weekend.  For Gail, participating in Dragon Con provides her with an opportunity to promote her latest fantasy novels, and she has several new novels to promote this year, including Sellsword’s Oath, the second volume of her new and critically acclaimed Assassins of Landria epic fantasy series.  This year, however, Dragon Con has been turned into a virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic.  In fact, all of the fantasy conventions in the region have been cancelled or converted into online events.  For Gail and all of the other fantasy writers and fans who normally flock to these conventions, the shuttering of these events has been a tremendous disappointment.

Anyone who knows Gail would not be surprised to learn that she quickly resolved not to let a measly global pandemic stop her from interacting with her fans and collaborating with her fellow authors.  As soon as she realized that Dragon Con and the other area fantasy conventions would have to cancel their in-person gatherings this year, Gail decided to launch ConTinual, an innovative, ongoing, online experience for fantasy writers and fans.  ConTinual has its roots in Charlotte,but it has already attracted attention in fandom circles from around the country.  I recently contacted Gail and asked her to provide me with an account of ConTinual’s origin story.  Here is what she sent to me:

Creating an online, ongoing event bridging a variety of fandoms isn’t a one-person task—it takes a village. Having the idea is the easy part—bringing all the pieces together requires the dedicated commitment of many people.

That’s important to keep front and center, because while I had the idea for ConTinual (the online, ongoing, multi-genre convention that never ends), and I’m its biggest cheerleader and its official ‘face’, I couldn’t do it without a fantastic operating committee of volunteers as well as all of the many, many authors, performers, musicians, vendors, readers, fans, and attendees who make it all happen.

I write epic fantasy, urban fantasy and more as Gail Z. Martin; and as Morgan Brice, I write urban fantasy MM paranormal romance. I’m based in Charlotte, where I live with my husband and frequent co-author Larry N. Martin and our two dogs. I’ve been very involved in NC-based fandom for more than a decade, and in normal years, I’m a guest author/panelist at sci-fi/fantasy and romance conventions up and down the East Coast (and sometimes even farther afield).

One thing I had noticed last year was that Romance authors had a more active and accessible online network of bloggers/reviewers than the science fiction/fantasy community. I’ve seen how valuable that active online network can be to readers and authors, and I had been musing about how we might create something like that to bring multiple fandoms/genres together online, since people read a variety of kinds of books and like a lot of the same movies/shows. (I’m also a huge fan of the TV show Supernatural).

Then I was at Disney World the week everything shut down. Book and fandom conventions both big and small were cancelled. And it hit me that there weren’t going to be conventions for a long while. I’d been talking with Charlotte-based authors John Hartness, Jim McArthur, Theresa Glover, and Nancy Northcott as well as VA/MD-based authors Jeanne Adams and Jean Marie Ward about how fantasy/SF needed to build the kind of online infrastructure that Romance had, and broaden it to include a larger range of fans. 

It seemed like the Great Pause would be a perfect time to build an online community, because authors/creators needed an outlet and were at loose end and thus available to do Zoom panels, online readings, performances and more. We also had a ready audience that was bored and looking for diversion. I didn’t just want to do something temporary. I wanted to build an ongoing platform/event/community to last long after the pandemic.

So before breakfast one day while I was still on vacation, I set up the ConTinual Facebook group, and asked one of my cover artists, Natania Barron, to create a logo. And then I messaged my friends and said, “Hey guys, I just did a thing….” 

They came in as the original operating committee. We started to plan discussion topics and reach out to our fairly extensive personal networks of authors, musicians, performers, and more to record panels, add programming, and think about how we could make ConTinual a great experience for everyone and keep it going long after the ‘current unpleasantness’ fades. We’re currently building out a website, as well as content on YouTube, Discord and Twitch. Right now, we’re focusing hard on holiday programming, to add some geeky good will to the upcoming season. We hope to be constantly evolving and growing, so that there’s always something new.  Anyone who wants to learn more about ConTinual should click on the following link:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ConTinual/?tn-str=*F

Launching ConTinual has been a challenging project for Gail, but it has not diverted her from her many writing projects.  One of Charlotte’s more prolific authors, Gail is especially well known for her fantasy adventure novels.  She has published more than 30 novels and short story collections, not counting the ten or so novels that she has co-written with her husband, Larry Martin. For more information about Gail’s many books, please click on the following link:  https://ascendantkingdoms.com/  As Gail sees it, launching ConTinual and writing her fantasy novels are not really separate activities—they are more like different sides of her role as a player in the larger drama that is Storied Charlotte. 

Tags: book and fandom conventionsepic fantasyfandomfantasy adventure novelsRomance authorsscience fiction/fantasy communityurban fantasy

Sandy Hill’s Charlotte Mysteries

August 17, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Since launching my Storied Charlotte blog in February of this year, I have become increasingly aware of the many Charlotte authors who once worked as reporters or editors for The Charlotte Observer.   I have featured a number of these former Observer employees on my blog, including Tommy Tomlinson, Dannye Romine Powell, Patricia Cornwell, Jodie Jaffe, and Kathleen Purvis.  With this week’s blog post, I am adding Sandy Hill to this list. 

Hill moved to Charlotte in the 1960s, and she worked as an editor for the Observer for many years.She also, however, has written historical novels and cozy mysteries, including the just-released Shadow Dance.  Like two of her other mysteries, Shadow Dance is set in Charlotte.  I recently contacted Hill and asked her about how living in Charlotte has influenced her career as a novelist.  Here is what she sent to me:

All but one of my novels are set in North Carolina.  Tangled Threads is set in a mythical Tar Heel cotton mill village in the late 1890s. A visit to the exhibit “From Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers” at the Levine Museum of the New South piqued my interest, and I ended up writing the story of two girls who grew up in a mill village, one leaving and the other staying and how their lives intertwined.  That called for a sequel, Kate & Delia, also set in a North Carolina mill village, about what happened later.

The Blue Car is a coming-of-age story set in the North Carolina foothills and deals with difficult choices and the courage to stand up for what is right. I wrote the opening sentence 20 years ago at a writing workshop in South Carolina.: “They came for her in a blue car.” That line stayed in my mind for years. Finally, I sat down with the opening line and let the novel unfold from there.

Three of my cozy mysteries are set in Charlotte: Deadline for Death, An Ice Day to Die, and Shadow Dance. All of them feature journalists. Deadline for Death, with my sleuth, Erin Markham, deals with murder at a fictional Charlotte newspaper. It gives a behind-the-scenes look at a big-city newsroom.  An Ice Day to Die takes my intrepid newspaper editor Erin to an ice-skating competition in Charlotte.  I’ve competed in skating competitions as an older adult and had one appearance in the chorus line of Ice Capades when it came to Charlotte some years ago. I drew on that background, plus more research for Ice Day to Die.  Shadow Dance is set in Charlotte but has a visiting journalist, not Erin. It draws on my brief foray into ballroom dancing and includes rock climbing at Crowders Mountain.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about writing is talking to Charlotte book clubs about my novels and the process of writing. It’s interesting as a writer to see what readers think of your darlings.  Readers who want to know more about me can visit my author page: amazon.com/author/sandyhillnovels. 

By setting several of her mystery novels in Charlotte, Sandy Hill is not just writing about what she knows; she is also providing Charlotte readers with the added pleasure that comes from recognizing the places that figure in Hill’s Storied Charlotte. 

Tags: books set in Charlottecozy mysterieshistorical novels

Charlotte’s Food Writers

August 10, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Earlier this month, Charlotte lost one of its leading food writers.  Helen Moore, The Charlotte Observer’s food writer from 1966 to 2007, died on August 3, 2020.  During her long career as a food journalist, Moore did much more than share recipes and cooking tips.  She wrote about food traditions in the South, interviewed prominent North Carolinians about the role that food played in their lives, and commented on the changing food scene in Charlotte.  Moore earned an honored place in the pantheon of Charlotte food writers. 

Like Moore, most of the prominent food writers from Charlotte have written about the food of the South, and this focus is reflected in the titles of some of their books.  Betty Feezor, the host of a popular cooking show that ran on WBTV from 1953 to 1977, published her most famous book, Betty Feezor’s Carolina Recipes, in 1964.  Eudora Garrison, the first food editor for The Charlotte Observer, published a cookbook titled Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes from Carolina Kitchens in 1967.  Amy Rogers, a food commentator on Charlotte’s NPR station WFAE, published Red Pepper Fudge and Blue-Ribbon Biscuits: Favorite Recipes & Stories from North Carolina State Fair Winners in 1995 and Hungry for Home:  Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas in 2004.  More recently, Charlotte writers Kathleen Purvis and Ashli Quesinberry Stokes have published noteworthy books about food in the South.

Kathleen Purvis is currently Charlotte’s best-known food writer.  From 1989 to 2019, she served as the food editor for The Charlotte Observer.  In this capacity, she wrote articles and regular columns about the food scene in Charlotte as well as articles about regional and national topics related to food.  She has also published numerous articles about food and drink in popular magazines, such as Southern Living, Garden & Gun, and Our State:  Celebrating North Carolina.  In addition to her countless articles and columns, Purvis has written three books, all of which have been published at UNC Press.  Her venture into book writing came about as a result of meeting Elaine Maisner, an editor at UNC Press, at a food-related event.  Maisner was about to launch a series of cookbooks under the heading of Savor the South.  Her idea was that each book in the series would feature one quintessential Southern ingredient.  Purvis liked the idea, and she ended up writing two books in the series:  Pecans: A Savor the South Cookbook (2012) and Bourbon:  A Savor the South Cookbook (2013).  She then went on to write her third book, Distilling the South:  A Guide to Southern Craft Liquors, which UNC Press published in 2018.  For more information about Purvis and her publications, please click on the following link:  https://kathleenpurvis.com/about/

Ashli Quesinberry Stokes is a Professor of Communication Studies and former Director of the Center for the Study of the New South at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  Stokes is a specialist in the field of food studies, writing about Southern food in academic journal articles and for popular outlets such as Zocalo Public Square, Academic Minute, Charleston Post & Courier, and The Counter.  She regularly teaches a course on Southern Foodways, is working with the UNCC Botanical Garden to create an interpretive garden based on North Carolina food, and will be engaging in a Fulbright comparing Scottish and Appalachian food traditions in Spring 2021 in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Her interest in Southern foodways is reflected in her book Consuming Identity: The Role of Food in Redefining the South, which she co-authored with Wendy Atkins-Sayre. The University Press of Mississippi published this book in 2016 as part of their Race, Rhetoric, and Media Series.  I recently contacted Stokes and asked her how her experiences in Charlotte have influenced her research in the area of Southern foodways.  Here is what she sent me:

Shortly after moving to Charlotte in 2006, I began working on a journal article about how food organizations use a variety of communication strategies to attract new members in order to help cultivate change in local food systems. I had no idea then that what started with researching the Charlotte chapter of Slow Food International would begin my own enthusiastic involvement in the city’s vibrant food culture and serve as a research “lab” for writing Consuming Identity.

Although our book is an exploration of the persuasive messages that Southern food sends and how they help shape people’s identities in the region overall, Charlotte’s restaurants, markets, food-based events, and food and drink related businesses sure have a lot to say. The city balances on the edge of newer and older forms of Southern food culture, and it is fascinating. For example, we went to the Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church Barbecue in north Charlotte, held since 1929. We watched in fascination as police kept the interstate exit traffic moving as thousands of people sought a plate and a handshake with a political candidate in the drive through line. We also went to the Poplar Tent Presbyterian Church Barbecue in Concord to learn about its own long-standing tradition; however, we ended up talking to the church matriarchs about their special desserts, people behind us waiting patiently to get a slice of Mrs. Margaret Ann’s chocolate pie or JoAnna Goff’s five flavor pound cake. Later, we sampled pad Thai made with zucchini and sweet potato noodles at a vegan cafe in South End, wandering happily through South End Market afterward to chat with local farmers selling everything from impressive mushrooms, goat cheese, hydroponic microgreens, and edible flowers. After sampling Price’s famous fried chicken, seated in the grass outside watching the Light Rail glide by, we headed Uptown to watch mixologists use rum and rye from Charlotte distilleries to craft the latest “it” cocktail.

Although the food and drink were delicious, people’s stories were better. We talked with women like Tori and Mia, the Cake Makin’ Sisters, trying to start a minority-owned business and land a spot on a food television program. We learned about a Chinese immigrant who stir-fried okra in his restaurant rather than deep frying it in the way some residents were used to. We met suburban moms who made amazing Southern cakes and used Instagram to sell them while their kids napped. Manolo Betancur told us about his bakery’s weekly deliveries up to the North Carolina state line, bringing a taste of churros and Latin American breads to the migrant workers.

We analyzed many food messages while writing the book, but one was clear: Charlotteans, like their foods, are many things. The changing South can be experienced (and appreciated) simply by taking a delicious bite. I plan on continuing my communication research in Charlotte’s food culture once the pandemic eases: attending a Soul Food Sessions dinner, designed to showcase the city’s African American chefs, going to a TasteMakers Meet Up, a food hobbyist club, and supporting the small restaurants that need our business. There’s so much to learn about the city’s people through its food, and I can’t wait to get out again.

Over the years, the food writers of Charlotte have helped define the nature of Southern foodways.  These writers have shown how Southern food and storytelling go together like shrimp and grits.   Here’s to Helen Moore, Betty Feezor, Eudora Garrison, Amy Rogers, Kathleen Purvis, Ashli Quesinberry Stokes, and all of the other food writers from Charlotte.  My appreciation goes to all of them for their contributions to Storied Charlotte.

Tags: cookbooksfood journalistfood traditionsfood writersfoodwayssouthern cookbookssouthern foodsouthern living

Theresa Payton: Charlotte’s Cybersecurity Expert and Author of Manipulated

August 04, 2020 by Angie Williams
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Theresa Payton, an expert in the field of cybersecurity and long-time resident of Charlotte, recently published Manipulated:  Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).  Payton is uniquely well qualified to write this book.  She served as the White House Chief Information Officer for President George W. Bush, after which she founded Fortalice Solutions, a leading cybersecurity consulting firm.  In Manipulated, she draws on her experience and expertise to explain how Russia and other foreign and domestic powers are using artificial intelligence and cyberattacks to influence American elections.  She goes into detail about what she calls “the manipulator’s playbook,” and she provides readers with practical advice on how to avoid being manipulated in this way. 

Payton’s book has been out for only a few months, but it is already drawing widespread attention and praise.  The reviewer for Booklist, for example, wrote “Payton, an expert in cybersecurity, sounds a clarion call that our political process is at risk and explains why and how it is being assailed by foreign and domestic enemies of democracy. Many conservatives may want to dismiss Payton’s arguments, since she places much of the blame for the situation at the feet of current Republican leadership. But Payton can’t be dismissed as a liberal Democratic cynic, since her credentials are firmly rooted in the work she did for the George W. Bush administration. Payton clearly knows her stuff, [and] she paints a timely, frightening picture.”

Payton is a well-known player in Charlotte’s cybersecurity circles.  Since the mid-1990s, she has helped Charlotte’s banking community improve the security of their banking technology and IT systems.  She has also shared her expertise with Charlotte’s general public by giving televised presentations on WBTV on “Protecting Your Cyberturf,” and by participating in UNC Charlotte’s Cybersecurity Symposium.   I recently reached out to Payton and asked her about her Charlotte connections.  Here is what she sent to me:

I had a unique opportunity due to the financial services industry to move to Charlotte, NC. I moved here in 1995 and in my mind, I thought it would be a great place to “stay for a couple of years.” It’s now 2020 and I never really left! Funny enough, when my husband first left the US Navy, we had said our goal was to move to Washington, DC; however, our jobs brought us to Charlotte. When offered a position to work for President George W. Bush at the White House, we debated on whether or not to make a move to Washington, DC. We decided the best place to live and raise our family would be Charlotte, so I made the commute each week for almost 2.5 years.

Living in Charlotte means I have easy access to incredibly smart and talented colleagues, a variety of parks and gardens and to direct flights to almost any place in the world. I do most of my idea generation with smart people all around Charlotte. I think through my book ideas while I am on my runs around our beautiful city. For my recent book, Manipulated, guess where my writing desk was? American Airlines planes going to and from Charlotte. I’ve logged over 1.5 million air miles! That’s a lot of time to dedicate to writing. I am proud to call Charlotte home and have been delighted to have the support of Charlotte citizens who have purchased and promoted my books, and from Park Road Books.  It’s one of the best indie bookstores in the nation, and it’s right here!

When I was talking with Sherri Smith from Park Road Books about Payton’s Manipulated, she referred to Payton as one of Charlotte’s most prominent writers of nonfiction. Sherri’s comment caused me to reflect a bit about Charlotte’s community of readers and writers.  Charlotte, of course, is home to many gifted fiction writers.  It is important to remember, however, that Storied Charlotte includes some very influential writers of nonfiction, including Theresa Payton. 

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