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Kerry Madden is the author of Offsides, Writing Smarts: a girl's guide to writing great poetry, stories, school reports,
and more! and the much-loved Maggie Valley Trilogy: Gentle's Holler, Louisiana's Song, and the
forthcoming Jessie's Mountain. On the occasion of the publication of Louisiana's Song, out this month
from Viking, I sat down for a cyber interview with Kerry Madden to learn more about her work and the Maggie Valley books.
The Edge of the Forest: In reading your biographical sketches, it is clear storytelling has been important to
you since childhood. When did you decide to become a writer and how did you begin your work?
Kerry Madden: My fourth grade teacher, Miss LeClair, at St. Cecilia's School in Ames, Iowa told me I was a
"good writer." It was the first compliment I ever received from a teacher other than "Aren't you a nice tall girl?" or
"Don't you listen well at Mass!" I took what Miss LeClair said to heart and went home that day and got one of my dad's
yellow writing tablets (he was always sketching football plays) and I took it outside and wrote down notes of
everything—sour green apples on the tree, white clouds in blue sky, the way our neighbor, Mr. Lang, stomped on
cherries in a pail in his kitchen to make cherry wine...it was the only time I saw him happy—he had five kids and was
always grounding them. In high school, they made us put down our "major" for college, and the only "writing" was
"journalism" so I put that down and later switched to Theatre and English (after my junior year abroad at Manchester
University) and discovered playwriting. When I met my husband, we wanted an adventure so we moved to Ningbo, China for our
first year of marriage, and this is embarrassing, but I had just seen Out of Africa and was reading Isak Dineson's
letters, so I wrote long (endless) letters home from China describing life in the ricefields—the university was so
isolated. And it was a few years after that (when I was dragging toddlers to rehearsal) that I thought—hmmm—fiction.
Maybe I'll write fiction.
The Edge of the Forest: Your Maggie Valley Trilogy—starring the Weems family and told in Livy Two's
voice—is set in the North Carolina Mountains during the 1960s. I am curious as to why you chose the 1960s in
particular. And, in a related question—is Maggie Valley much different today?
Kerry Madden: When I first began writing the Maggie Valley Trilogy (and maybe I will write more books of this
family, but for now it's a trilogy), I thought of how old my sister-in-law, Tomi Lunsford, would have been in 1962. She's a
well-established singer/songwriter in Nashville, and I tried to imagine her life as a kid. Then I began to do research, and
I discovered that GHOST TOWN IN THE SKY opened in 1961, so I knew I could immediately give Emmett, the big brother, a
desire to go be a gunslinger at this Wild West Amusement park...I didn't know "Maggie" (as the natives call it) in the
1960s. I never actually saw it myself until 1994 on trip with our own kids, but I moved to East Tennessee in 1977 and
immediately began going to the Smoky Mountains. I understand that back in the 1960s, there was just a two-lane road through
the mountains. In the 1960s and 70s, my friend, Ernestine Upchurch, worked with two other women, Shirley Pinto and
Brenda O'Keefe, to get folks to stop using spring water and use city water because of all the hotels being built with the
opening of GHOST TOWN. Shirley and Brenda handled the businesses, and Ernestine went into the back hollers, but she always
waited until the man was coming home from work because he made the decisions.
The Edge of the Forest: Livy Two has seven sisters and two brothers. She's the third-born (living) child, and
second-oldest girl. How did you decide she would be the window on the marvelous Weems family?
Kerry Madden: Again, I was thinking of Tomi Lunsford, my sister-in-law, because I wanted a kid who loved to write
songs, so she grew out of that...and she became a girl who liked spying on the family from the red maple, longed for
adventures, hankered after books from the bookmobile—wrote songs about everyday life..."Daddy's Roasted Peanuts,"
"Mama's Biscuits," and "Grandma's Glass Eye."
The Edge of the Forest: The Weems family (at least in Gentle's Holler and Louisiana's Song) is not well off, yet
they have many other gifts. They enjoy the beauty of the outdoors, they are creative and artistic, and, for the most part,
they enjoy each other's company. I have two questions related to this: a) do you see the Weems as fundamentally different
from most families in the U.S. today; and b) are the Weems very much like your husband's family, which was also large?
Kerry Madden: (a) I guess the Weems family is different from most families today by the sheer volume of them. I was
doing some writing workshops at a school in La Jolla, CA recently, and the librarian said to me, "As I was reading it, I
began to wonder if these well-to-do children today could even relate to these mountain kids? They're just so 'southern!'
But then I got wrapped up in the story." And from the letters I've received from young readers, they do relate to the Weems
kids because of the adventures, ordinary squabbles and longings—I hope that's universal. I do writing workshops where
the students write about their favorite secret places, and every kid has one. (b) I definitely think the Weems family is
like my husband's family. His sister, Tomi, is a songwriter, his sister, Nancy, is a painter (although not shy), and then
his father, Jim Lunsford, was a man who loved his children. Jim died in 1978, so I never met him, but I always heard
stories of how he'd come in from a gig and wake up the babies to play with them, right after the mother, Frances, had
gotten them to sleep. I wanted to write about a man who loved his children and was excited about all their possibilities as
artists in the world. And one brother did have an iguana, which fascinated our children, so the iguana found its way into
the story too.
The Edge of the Forest: You have just completed the third volume of the Maggie Valley trilogy—Jessie's
Mountain. Will Livy Two narrate volume three as well?
Kerry Madden: Yes, Livy Two will be the narrator. When I first envisioned the series, I thought I'd write a book
from each kid's point of view, but my editor at Viking, Catherine Frank, convinced me that Livy Two is the heart and
storyteller, and I'm so grateful that she did. Melanie Cecka was my first editor on Gentle's Holler, and she convinced to
keep Daddy around (I had written a very bleak version to contrast a sappy, cornball version), and I'm so glad she did too.
I have been so blessed with good editors, because I tend to write a lot of nothing before anything happens.
The Edge of the Forest: In Louisiana's Song (out this month from Viking), things are tough for the
Weems family. Dad has returned home after being injured and he's not himself. He's grouchy, doesn't remember anything
(even, sometimes, the children), and lives in the smokehouse while recovering. The older kids are all working to make ends
meet, and grandma wants to move the family to a nearby town—Enka. Will she get her way, or can you tell us that?
Kerry Madden: All I can say is the Enka-Stinka looms large in Jessie's Mountain and will not go away.
The Edge of the Forest: Also, Grandma is such a fascinating character—she's strong, supportive, loving, yet still
wants her own way. Does she have a real-life model?
Kerry Madden: Mercy me, what a question...a good one. My own grandmother, Elizabeth, was very opinionated and
despised "common people." She would say things like, "If you smell yourself, it's too late! Somebody else has already
smelled you. Wash yourself, take a bath everyday! Scrub!" But she was also very gentle too and loving...not a hugger,
though. So I guess Grandma Horace is like her, though I don't think I realized that until now. Ironically, my husband's
grandmother, Grandma Lunsford and her family, lived in a house on Haywood Street in Asheville, North Carolina, which is
now a children's bookstore. SPELLBOUND BOOKS was selling Gentle's Holler way before I knew of the Grandma
Lunsford connection. Grandma Lunsford did have a glass eye, and my husband, Kiffen, used to inspect the tiny box of spare
eyeballs she kept in a drawer by her bed.
The Edge of the Forest: The role of storytelling in Louisiana's Song is very important—in songs, in
homemade picture books, in stories Livy tells to her younger siblings. Can you elaborate on why this theme is so important
to Louisiana's Song?
Kerry Madden: Well, the Uncle Hazard fairytale was born out of finding a way to keep my daughter, Norah, in her
carseat when she was little. She hated her carseat, so I'd bargain with an Uncle Hazard tale, and one found its way into
Louisiana's Song. I have three more—apple tree, rainbow, dolphin—but they didn't make it into
Jessie's Mountain. Maybe they'll be picture books one day. I also wanted a popup book for Gentle, who is blind, to
experience the story with her fingers. In the South, storytelling is such a rich, oral tradition. I love sitting on my
mother-in-law's porch in Tennessee listening to stories...I just heard Kathryn Tucker Windham speak at the Alabama Book
Festival in Montgomery, and she has a CD (tons actually) and one is called Front Porch Stories. I could listen to
her tell stories forever, because she has the Southern gift of storytelling that transports you to another time and place
and makes you listen—hard—you don't want to miss a word. (The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough,
Tennessee is about the best place in the world for stories—you feel like a kid again getting swept up in stories.) I
was also just in Monroeville, Alabama with my sister, Keely Madden, doing research for a new book, and although
Harper Lee and Truman Capote are the famous storytellers of the town, I heard so many wonderful stories from the folks in
Monroeville—poetic and full of rich language and funny turns-of-phrase. One lady said, in describing a good man,
"Oh he'll have a jewel in his crown, a jewel in his crown! Several!" In the airport last year, I heard a grandmother say,
"We're gonna spoil our grandbaby rotten, and when we get through, he won't be worth killing!" And she just laughed and
laughed. I also love the phrase, "It's pouring the rain." My husband always says it...
The Edge of the Forest: I noticed that you have five stops in Maggie Valley, N.C., on your current book tour.
You're even stopping at Joey's Pancake House (where Becksie Weems works over the summer) for a visit. You also spent a
lot of time in the region doing research for the Maggie Valley trilogy. What does this area of the country (the Smoky
Mountains) mean to you?
Kerry Madden: My website has finally been updated by Winding Oak, so those were 2005 dates, but I will be going
back to those places again. I didn't go to Maggie Valley before I wrote Gentle's Holler except for a visit in 1994
that happened purely by accident. But I loved the name of the town…and so when the book was coming out, I wanted to go to
Maggie Valley and do writing workshops with school children. Lori Special, the children's librarian at the Haywood County
Public Library at the time, and my publicist, Rahni Sadler, helped me set up all the school visits. Then Brenda O'Keefe
from JOEY'S PANCAKE HOUSE invited me to do a reading. So I did...and then I got the idea, after meeting Brenda, about
giving Becksie a job at the Pancake House. Since Gentle's Holler was published, I've been back to Maggie Valley
four or five times, and once was to stay for two weeks in Ernestine's cabin in the shadow of Dirty Britches Mountain. I've
done interviews with Ernestine Upchurch and Shirley Fairchild, who gave me such a deeper understanding of growing up in
Maggie Valley and the history and the plants and the traditions—all that comes into Louisiana's Song and
Jessie's Mountain (now in copy-editing). I love the mountains—I moved around so much as a kid—I've lived
in ten states, most of them Southern, but the mountains just give me such peace. It was so great to take Norah (age eight)
with me to the cabin last summer—I watched her play, chase lightning bugs and butterflies...She loved a donkey named
Tadpole. A groundhog lived under our cabin, and now that groundhog and her family are in Jessie's Mountain. I also
love the music of the mountains, and I've read a lot about Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who was my husband's great uncle, and a
songcatcher in the mountains.
The Edge of the Forest: You have devoted a lot of time—on book tours and at home—conducting writing
workshops for children and teens. What have you learned as a writer from these experiences?
Kerry Madden: I have learned so much from these kids. When I finished Gentle's Holler, a girl, Megan,
wrote to me from Colorado and said, "I love your book, but what happens to Daddy? I didn't like the ending!" So I decided
to start the next book, Louisiana's Song, answering Megan's question. Then a blind girl, Sammi, wrote to me and
offered suggestions on Gentle...She said Emmett would whittle Gentle a cane, so that went right into Louisiana's Song.
In my workshops, kids are always surprising me. When I couldn't decide on writing Louisiana's Song from either
Livy Two's or Louise's voice, I had samples with me at a fifth-grade writing workshop, and this kid, (while I was working
with other children and my back was turned) came up and read both versions and later said, "This is the one! It's more
exciting." He handed me the one with Livy Two's voice...Other young writers have poured their hearts into stories. If they
type them up and email them to me, I make them the "Writer or Poet of the Day." At the Pancake House in Maggie Valley, a
passionate eight-year-old storyteller, Caroline Burnette, showed up with five notebooks crammed with Egyptian stories, so
I had her read with me...She had to stand on a chair, but she read beautifully! Caroline has taught me so much about
chickens—she had 38 at one point...The more I go back to the mountains, the more stories and the more wonderful
people I discover. It's why I suspect we will live in the South again one day. I miss it.
The Edge of the Forest: Now that you have completed the Maggie Valley Trilogy, what can we expect
next from Kerry Madden?
Kerry Madden: I am working on the biography of Harper Lee for Teens for Viking/Penguin's Up Close series...I've
been steeped in Depression-era Alabama as of late and sweet tea and more stories. I feel so incredibly lucky. My sister,
Keely, went with me, and we had the best time together.
The Edge of the Forest: Can you give us some hints as to what will happen to the Weems family? Will Livy get a
song published? Will Louise go to art school? Will Gentle be sent away to a school for the blind? I understand if you
can't spill your secrets, but discerning readers will want to know!
Kerry Madden: What I can say is that Jessie's Mountain answers some of these questions, and what's been
such a joy about writing this third Weems family novel is getting to go back to the 1940s to Jessie's childhood through her
diary. So Livy Two is the storyteller but Mama's diary from childhood is a big part of the book and story. There's also a
roadtrip...
The Edge of the Forest: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Kerry!
Kerry Madden: Thank you for all these wonderful questions!
Kerry Madden's Books for Young Readers
Offsides: A Novel. William Morrow & Company, 1996. ISBN: 0-6881-4935-9.
Writing Smarts: A Girl's Guide to Writing Great Poetry, Stories, School Reports, and More!
American Girl, 2002. ISBN: 1-5848-5505-3.
Gentle's Holler. Puffin, 2005. ISBN: 0-1424-0751-8.
Louisiana's Song. Viking Juvenile, 2007. ISBN: 0-6700-6153-0.
Jessie's Mountain. Forthcoming from Viking Juvenile, 2008.
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