Radio Interview with Aaron Henkin of The Signal on Baltimore's WYPR

I talked with Aaron Henkin-- the radio host and producer of the Signal-- last week about Coffin Point. Aaron is a great interviewer and a close reader. Thanks Aaron!

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wypr/arts.artsmain?action=viewArticle&id=1748512&pid=347&sid=14

Coffin Point Goes Home

I spent the last few days bringing the book back to Beaufort, its setting and home. There was a big buzz building around it and I was worried there wouldn’t be enough books so I loaded a box of 24 into the big suitcase that I normally use to haul our dirty clothes to the Laundromat and paid the fee at the airport and got on a plane.

I stayed on Hilton Head with my aunt and uncle Susan and Richard Woods (who are also great friends) but I must have brought the cold—the first morning I woke up it was in the twenties—even though we were eating a fresh fall crop of tomatoes and grapefruits they grew in the yard.

It wasn’t only cold; it was windy. That mattered because it caused them to cancel the ferry that Burton Sauls—of a great new company CityTrex— and I were going to take over the Daufuskie to hang out with the great Roger Pinckney. Roger decided to bring his boat over and pick us up at Harbor Town for the crossing.

Burton, a Beaufort native who recently returned from San Francisco, picked me up and we drove over to Harbor Town. We walked around a corner looking for the café at the base of the lighthouse where Roger told us to wait for him. There he was, looking a bit pale.



Now Roger is one hell of a hearty fellow. He’s hunted about everything that moves—including a stint professionally hunting bears in Minnesota—so he could handle cold and danger. And he is at home on the water. His father was the “capum” who built most of the county’s docks. Roger was a born skipper and when he said:

“That was rough. I’m worried about going back. Let’s get a drink first,” neither Burton nor I argued a damn bit. In fact, it made me nervous as hell to see him a bit shaken. I looked out at the white caps behind him and felt worse.

Turned out, after our drink, it was a cold ride but as long as we kept it slow, it wasn’t so rough. We made it over and spent the day with a jug of brown liquor sitting at Roger’s dining room table recording conversations that Burton will turn into Radio Free Daufuskie podcasts—and I hope we weren’t too loud and annoying to Roger’s wonderful new bride Amy. We had a blast—and the ferry took us back a bit more warmly than we came.

Burton was the new media end of things—but there were several older media venues as well. I was interviewed on WHHI and later on Beaufort’s Gospel radio channel.

But it was the reading of the book—set up by Grace Cordial (who is both) at the Beaufort County Library—at the County Council Chambers. It was an ironic choice of venue because if there is a villain in the early part of the book, it is the County Council, from whom McTeer wanted to wrest all authority to police the county.


The room was packed. It was amazing to see so many faces that were in the book together in the same room. It was so moving. My parents and even my dad’s old Coast guard buddy were there. Mostly, however, the McTeer family impressed me. Thomas is a major character in the book and he was there with his daughter and one of his grandchildren. It meant so much that he, in particular, liked the book. I did not use the banjo for this reading—I didn’t need anything to help hold their attention. Afterwards, there was a line farther than I could see to sign books. It was unbelievable. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Grace, the Beaufort County Library, Richard and Susan, and the whole town of Beaufort.

The next morning, I had a little time before returning to the airport, and I stopped by the cemetery to talk to the old man himself.

I’ll follow this up with a slew of links to Burton’s podcasts, the television interview and the reading (which was also televised). Here's the link to CityTrex with a one podcast where I talk about the book-- and a ton of great stories that Roger told Burton.

http://www.citytrex.com/blog/

And you can buy Roger's books here

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ARoger+Pinckney&keywords=Roger+Pinckney&ie=UTF8&qid=1292517518&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B001K8FLQ4

Alabama book launch-- Montgomery and Fairhope

When I arrived in Montgomery last week, my great editor Jim Gilbert was there to pick me up. We met the inimitable publisher Carolyn Newman. I got to see the offices of River City Publishing (with some incredible art) and 1500 copies of Coffin Point in the Warehouse.

After lunch, I got to kill some time at the Hank Williams museum—where I saw the car and the suit he died in. That was enough for me, made me feel like a Hank song.

The book launch was at the Fitzgerald House Museum—where Scott and Zelda lived for a period. It was a real honor to introduce the book, surrounded by the relics of such a hell of a writer.

Capital Books did a great job with the books that night and it was a great evening and the place was pretty full. Montgomery was full of fascinating people—including Kirk Curnutt, the author of Breathing Out the Ghost and Dixie Noir.

The next day, I rented a car, ate lunch with Gilbert and his fiancée Jaime and drove the three hours from Montgomery to Fairhope—and specifically to the Waterhole Branch where three great writers live. Joe Formichella (Murder Creek, Wreck of the Twilight Limited) and Suzanne Hudson (In a Temple of Trees, In the Dark of the Moon) live together across the dirt road from Ronald Everett Capps (Off Magazine Street), the Mayor of the Waterhole Branch.

Thanks to Joe and Suzanne, I ate like a king—not to mention drinking.

The party was the next day—an annual event—the famous shoe burning. The shoe burning began years ago when an old friend of the Mayor’s didn’t want to go outside to get firewood and came back with a bog bag of shoes. Since then, the denizens down at the Branch have been burning shoes during a big party one night in November every year, burning up the bad juju from the previous year, and commemorating the good. Everyone makes a speech about his or her shoes and throws them in. You’d be surprised how brightly shoes flare. I burned the shoes I wrote the book in. Since I write standing up, when it was hot, I often wore nothing but shoes and underwear. It was nice to watch them burn.

I read that night from the Play-Like Playhouse there on the Branch surrounded by the Mayor’s art and met a bunch of wonderful people, including Milton Brown, who wrote the song “Every Which Way But Loose.” As a dabbler in song-writing, it was a real honor. And as a lover of good stories about country music, a joy.

A great first weekend for Coffin Point and thanks to everyone involved.

Reading at Working Title Farm

I first paid attention to the stories of Ed McTeer as I was working on a novel set around Edisto Island and the small town of Adam's Run. There was a local sheriff in the novel inspired by McTeer. As I looked into the story, I couldn't get it out of my head... and I figured I'd get an article out of it.

I went to Sonny Brewer's Southern Writers Reading event in Fairhope, Alabama with my buddy Clay Risen. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and I was sure I would be too busy. He assured me that I had to go. I did. We stayed with Suzanne Hudson and Joe Formichella. I'd never read either of them, but when we woke up that morning-- out on the Waterhole Branch, which looked so much like Beaufort with hits live oaks and marshy smell-- I read a story of Suzanne's and was blown away. Later I read more of both of their work and especially Hudson's In A Temple of trees and Formichella's Wreck of the Twilight Limited confirmed the brilliance I saw in them as people that night.

They became fierce advocates of mine. I keep encountering people who tell me that Joe told them I could write. Foremost among them was Shari Smith. Shari organized the Southern Writing Reading that year and I remember she made these beautiful windows with the readers' names stenciled on them. We talked about Hayes Carl.

Her house burned down a short time later. It seemed so devastating, I didn't know what to do. But I did send a Hayes Carl cd, and a few months later, when she got a place that she called "Working Title Farm," she invited some writers to come and help thank the town of Claremont-- where she'd been living for a number of years-- for all they did to help her.

There's a hell of a lot to say about Shari, but right now, I'm just going to say that among the people she invited-- Joe and Suzanne, and the great Joe Galloway, and the hilarious Doug Crandall, she invited me.

I read what became a version of the intro of the book and played some banjo. That night, on Shari's porch, I was offered a book deal with River City.

Last weekend, Working Title Farm hosted me and Roger Pinckney—who helped with the book and wrote a novel about McTeer called Little Glory for the first annual "#44" scholarship in honor of Claremont's Greg Isaac. River City donated 100% of the proceeds from Coffin Point to the scholarship which went to Joe Litton, recipient of the award.

Roger read from his book Reefer Moon and Shari read a story "Hank and Tennessee" from her forthcoming book. You can get Roger's books here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Roger+Pinckney&x=0&y=0

And you can read Shari's blog here: http://workingtitlefarm.blogspot.com/

Also find Joe Formichella here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=joe+formichella&x=0&y=0

Suzanne Hudson here: http://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-Hudson/e/B001K7R04Q/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6?qid=1288117193&sr=8-6


The video is me reading, under the full moon, at Working Title Farm on October 23, 2010.

Globe Poster

I'm really excited about the posters that Bob Cicero made for Coffin Point. I make my living teaching Latin and so I couldn't resist the opportunity to work with a family business named Cicero. Their website begins: "In 1929, Globe Poster was founded during a card game in Philadelphia." It is a hell of a story. Then they made many of the great rock and roll posters around Baltimore for Parliament (I can still remember accidently happening upon Funkadelic playing a block from my house in Baltimore and being overcome by joy) up to John Spencer's Blues Explosion.

The only way I really know how to go about "promoting" a book comes from skateboarders and rock bands. If I can help give one of the cool old poster companies make some money and I can get a work of art that creates an aesthetic vision surrounding the book, there only one answer: Hell yeah!

I like bands who use their music, album covers, and everything to create a world-view. Why have a cover if it is disconnected from the music or the book. In other words, if you're going to do something, you've got to make it look cool. The Ciceros make super cool posters. Check out their others here: http://www.globeposter.com/showposters.html

Coffin Point: The Strange Cases of Ed McTeer, Witchdoctor Sheriff

Ed McTeer was the sheriff of island-bound Beaufort County, South Carolina, for thirty-six years. The “Boy Sheriff” was only twenty-two when the governor appointed him to fill his dead father’s term in 1926; he held the office until voted out in 1963. During that time, McTeer dealt with syndicate rum-runners, voodoo-inspired murderers, mannered Southern politicians, civil rights pioneers, and local root doctors—and in doing so became more than an ordinary lawman. After an epic battle with the famous Dr. Buzzard, McTeer, a white man, claimed he was the “last remaining tie to the true African Witchcraft.” He used his own brand of voodoo to help govern the largely African American county—and as a result never had to carry a gun during his long tenure as sheriff. When he lost the position, he became a full-time practitioner of the dark arts, revered by the community at large. Collector of curios, historian, poet, raconteur, and voodoo doctor, McTeer was most assuredly a man of his times and an American original.

In Coffin Point, Baynard Woods mixes stories and first-hand accounts from McTeer’s friends, enemies, and family with archival research and critical readings of McTeer’s own books in order to conjure the charismatic sheriff and the bygone world he inhabited. The enthralling, sweeping story reads like an episodic novel, shedding new light on the relationship between power and belief, and demolishing the beleaguered stereotype of the rural Southern lawman.