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.