Storied Charlotte
Storied Charlotte
  • Home
  • Storied Charlotte
  • Monday Missive

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 290D
Phone: 704-687-0618
Email: miwest@uncc.edu

Links

  • A Reader’s Guide to Fiction and Nonfiction books by Charlotte area authors
  • Charlotte book art
  • Charlotte Lit
  • Charlotte Readers Podcast
  • Charlotte Writers Club
  • Column on Reading Aloud
  • Department of English
  • JFK/Harry Golden column
  • Park Road Books
  • Storied Charlotte YouTube channel
  • The Charlotte History Tool Kit
  • The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013

Tags

African American folklore American Experience anthology Asian-Americans beach book Black History Charlotte Charlotte writers confederate monuments COVID19 fantasy adventure novels fantasy stories fiction genre fiction graphic novel Hiroshima historical fiction historical novels history books Independent films lesbian characters LGBTQ fiction writers literacy education Manor Theatre memoir mystery novel mystery novels mystery series New South novel novels Old South Oz pandemic PBS documentary picture book picture books poetry poetry collection Southern LGBTQ experience Theatre Charlotte The Independent Picture House tobacco culture urban fantasy Writers

memoir

Rebecca McClanahan Goes to New York City

December 21, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

My father grew up in New York City.  He spent most of his boyhood living in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, and that experience shaped his taste in movies.  He loved movies set in New York, and he especially loved the New York movies written by Neil Simon.  He felt a special bond with Simon in part because they shared a birthday.  My father was born on July 4, 1928, and Simon was born on July 4, 1927.  I remember going with my father to see Simon’s The Out-of-Towners as soon as it came out in 1970, and I have loved the movie ever since.  The movie stars Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, and it deals with a middle-aged couple (Gwen and George Kellerman) who leave their home in Ohio and go to New York so that George can interview for a new job.  What follows is a series of hilarious mishaps that tests the couple and changes their perspective. 

I thought about The Out-of-Towners when I discovered In the Key of New York City:  A Memoir in Essays by Charlotte writer Rebecca McClanahan.  Published by Red Hen Press in September 2020, this book is Rebecca’s eleventh book and her second memoir. Like Gwen and George Kellerman, Rebecca and her husband, Donald Devet, left the security of their comfortable home and headed off to New York City to explore new possibilities. Rebecca and Donald were about the same age as the Kellermans when they went to New York in 1998, but unlike the Kellermans, they ended up staying in the Big Apple for eleven years. Rebecca and Donald, like the Kellermans, approached New York from the perspective of outsiders, and this perspective helped them notice details that native New Yorkers often ignore as they bustle about their business.  Rather than provide a chronological record of her years in New York, Rebecca writes focused essays in which she delves into particular moments and events.  I recently contacted Rebecca and asked her for more information about In the Key of New York City.  Here is what she sent to me:

When my husband and I moved from Charlotte to New York in 1998, it was a midlife leap into the unknown. We’d talked for decades about living in the city someday and had visited New York whenever we could. Then one day, while we were walking on 8th Avenue celebrating Donald’s 50th birthday, I surprised myself by saying, “If we’re going to make the move, we better make it now.” That was in May, and by August we had put our house on the market, stored the possessions we had not given away, found a furnished sublet, left our jobs, and said goodbye to family and friends—and even to our cat! Neither of us is impulsive by nature, but I guess the urge was strong. We figured that with the sale of the house and our savings, we could make it for two years if we didn’t find jobs there. We ended up staying for eleven.

In the Key of New York Cityis a memoir-in-essays about the first several years of our time there. We were newcomers, outsiders, and, as is the case with most outsiders, our senses were heightened as we struggled to navigate an alien landscape. Despite my training as a military brat who moved often during childhood, I was extremely lonely at the beginning, or maybe homesick is a better word for it. We’d been comfortable in our North Carolina lives and I missed that easy comfort. I missed my home and garden, my friends and family, my students and colleagues in the writing community.

Making a community in New York was a tough learning experience, but little by little we made connections—through our new jobs, mostly, and by reconnecting with New York area friends we’d lost track of over the years. But much of the growing feeling of connection came from the constant interaction with strangers. This was due in part to street activity—with walking rather than driving, encountering diverse faces close-up and personal, hearing the broth of languages on our walks, sharing subway seats or park benches, and learning how to give each person we met their own valuable space. It may sound strange, but I discovered a new form of intimacy in those encounters. I felt part of a world much larger than myself, my neighborhood, or my circle of friends. I hadn’t expected the intensity of this feeling and it surprised and comforted me. So, sprinkled among the longer essays in the book are brief moments that suggest these connections: an encounter on the subway involving two sleeping children, the drunken young man on 8th avenue holding a dying pigeon out to me as if I might save it, the post 9/11 park scene where I see a Muslim woman in a headscarf running toward a child who is in danger. All of these encounters, and more, forced me to imagine what New York—or, indeed, our nation—might look like if we all, horror of horrors, went “back where we came from.”

The book opens and closes with scenes of Central Park. The park bench was such an important part of my experience of New York—not only as my own physical (if temporary) stake on the landscape and a place from which to view the scene, but also as an opportunity for conversations with strangers who were always eager to share their stories and their odd but intriguing wisdom. A park bench is where public and private meet, which echoes my experience of the city. The book moves between the public and the private, the joyous and the sorrowful (9/11, my cancer surgery and recovery, moments of loneliness and regret) and the present and the past.

The title (“In the Key…”) is of course related to music, and music weaves its way throughout the book: in sounds heard through apartment walls, the cacophony of the streets and subways, the music I hear during the 9/11 prayer service, and even in the hospital essay when I hear the dying man’s wife echoing his cries—an opera of shared pain. Music touches the deepest parts of our experience; it transcends language. Which is why music is such an important part of the book.

In another way, though, the “key” to New York could also be seen as an object, something that opens the door into a new experience. That is what I hope the book might do for readers, not only those readers with connections to New York. I hope that the book’s reach extends to anyone who has ever been uprooted or who has felt like a newcomer or outsider, who has longed for connection, and who has been lucky enough to experience a place that changed them in remarkable ways. Maybe that’s reaching too high, but that was my aim in writing the book. I am grateful to each and every reader. Readers make books possible. Thank you, Mark, for the opportunity to talk about my book.

Rebecca and Donald, like the Kellmans, have returned home.  Rebecca is maintaining her connections in Charlotte, including teaching in The Queens MFA program, and Donald is working as a video producer here in Charlotte.  Rebecca is having great success in her writing career, the details of which can be found on her website: http://www.rebeccamcclanahanwriter.com

Rebecca still sees herself as a Charlotte writer, but her experinces living in New York have rippled through her writing career in a variety of ways.  Her embrace of both Charlotte and New York is reflected in the fact that she is the recipent of fellowships from both the North Carolina Arts Council and the New York Foundation for the Arts.   As I see it, Rebecca’s new book adds an appealing New-York-City vibe to Storied Charlotte.

Tags: essaysmemoir

The Story of a Tall Girl Who Became an Investigative Journalist

November 02, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

For long-time readers of The Charlotte Observer, Nancy Stancill’s name might seem familiar, for she worked as an award-winning investigative reporter and editor for the Charlotte paper for fifteen years, beginning in 1993 and ending in 2009.  Although she retired from her career as a journalist, she has never stopped writing.  In 2013, she published the first of two mystery novels set in Texas, where she lived before moving to Charlotte.  This month, her publisher, Black Rose Writing, is releasing her memoir.  Titled Tall: Love and Journalism in a Six-foot World,  this fast-paced memoir explores how Nancy’s status as a six-foot tall woman has impacted her journalistic career, her relationships, and her sense of self.  For more information about Tall and Nancy’s other books, please click on the following link:  http://www.nancystancill.com/

One might assume that the process of writing a memoir would be a solitary endeavor, but not for Nancy.  While writing Tall, she found support from former colleagues who worked with her at The Charlotte Observer, various writing teachers and mentors, and fellow writers she has met in classes and workshops.  Nancy sees herself as a member of a community of writers.  I recently contacted Nancy and asked her how this community of writers contributed to the writing of her memoir.  Here is what she sent to me:

My biggest help in getting Tall done was a weekly class I took several times called “Under Construction.” The class is offered by Maureen Ryan Griffin each fall and spring with a few sessions in the summer. Maureen is a longtime prize-winning writing teacher who is also a gifted poet and writer. The classes usually consist of 6-8 advanced writers who are working on long-term projects. What Maureen’s class did for me was to give me deadlines. I knew that once a week I had to present a new or revised chapter to the class. My fellow classmates would offer valuable, gentle feedback. That was enormously helpful.

Since I’m a former Charlotte Observer investigative reporter and assigning editor, I use my former colleagues to get good feedback as well. I normally meet with two writers every week where we do parallel writing. That means essentially that we sit at a table and work on our own projects, stopping to talk occasionally.

I also have several excellent mentors. Poet Dannye Romine Powell has been an invaluable help on my two published novels set in Texas as well as my memoir. She has read all of them and given generous feedback. Another wonderful source has been former Observer copy editor Steve Johnston. Steve copyedited Tall and also takes care of my website. I don’t know what I would do without him. 

There is plenty of help available to writers in Charlotte. I took a poetry class offered last spring by Charlotte Lit. Dannye Powell was teaching it. Charlotte Lit is also a great source for daylong seminars and for long-term programs for writers looking to start or finish novels or memoirs. The writers’ organization offers high-quality programs and will send out notices to members. Membership is low-cost and well worth it.

Tall tells the story of my life, but many people played a role in the writing of my memoir.

With the publication of Tall:  Love and Journalism in a Six-foot World, Nancy joins several other Charlotte writers who have recently published memoirs.  This group includes Judy Goldman, the author of Together:  A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap; Patrice Gopo, the author of All the Colors We Will See:  Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way; Molly Grantham, the author of The Juggle Is Real:  The Off-Camera Life of an On-Camera Mom; and Tommy Tomlinson, the author of The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America.  Like these other Charlotte memoirists, Nancy shares a personal story, but in the process, she and her fellow memoirists contribute to the varied narratives that make up Storied Charlotte. 

Tags: investigative reportermemoirmystery novels
Skip to toolbar
  • Log In