Beach House in the Burbs

According to Kathryn Tucker Windham, yelling "Rabbit, rabbit," at the top of your lungs, before your feet hit the floor on the first morning of every month will guarantee you have good luck all month long. To keep that luck going, eat the pointy end of a piece of pie last. Eating it first is a sure way to bring bad luck. But to me, the best luck of all came just through knowing Kathryn Tucker Windham, the Alabama storyteller, writer, photographer and inspiration who died this past Sunday at the age of 93. While she became famous for her ghost stories, including stories about Jeffrey, the ghost who lived with her in her Selma home, the stories I loved best were of her family and friends. I feel like I knew her aunt Bet, the local postmistress who tried to save a tree from demolition with a shotgun and a rocking chair. And her daddy who ran the local bank and told stories to Kathryn. And the carpenter who built the pine box she'll be buried in. She stored her mother's ...

Every eye in the tent was on the woman sitting on a stool on a bare wooden stage talking about how she’d have lost her virginity if only the police hadn’t interrupted at a crucial moment the carefully researched and staged event. No one gasped or tut-tutted at the indelicate subject matter. We were too busy wiping the tears of laughter that ran from our eyes. Beth Horner , the virgin under discussion, was followed by Bil Lepp , who told us about how one of his college buddies, Paul, had built a submarine in his dorm room their senior year. The sub was so big they had to blast a hole in the dorm wall to get the pig-pink contraption out. (Bil won the West Virginia State liar's contest several years running.) The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, which comes up the first weekend of October each year, is like sitting around the Thanksgiving table enjoying a feast of the best family stories—with 20,000 of your closest friends and assuming your family includes t...

As a theater major at Florida State (Go, ‘Noles!), a storyteller, freelance writer and aspiring mystery writer, the phrase “always keep your audience in mind” has been in my brain for nearly my whole life. That idea is why debut mysteries have the body on the first page (or at least in the first couple of pages) because mystery readers—including agents and editors—have expectations. It’s why “if it bleeds it leads” became the mantra for television news. Someone decided that’s what the audience wanted. And it’s why authors at a book talk-book signing shouldn’t let their child take over the presentation. Recently I went to a book signing at an independent bookstore near my house. I like the bookstore. The owner is friendly, knowledgeable and supportive of local and regional authors. This was a pay-to-attend event, not much at $5, but still. I didn’t mind spending the money to hear an author I’ve enjoyed. Author’s books are funny, so I had high hopes that Author would be, too. But Author...

Our Selma, Alabama, tour picks up at the library. I swear, this will be my last post on this. It was just such a great weekend I couldn’t resist reliving it! We didn’t get to see the Kathryn Tucker Windham Conference Room at the Selma Public Library, a meeting was in progress. But we didn’t need to see inside the room named for Miz Windham to recognize her influence. First, every person we saw in the beautiful, well-appointed, book-filled library knew who she was the second we walked through the door. Second, paintings and photographs of her fill the space. Third, she knew every inch of building, from the offices to the children’s room. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated money for computers for the library, she told us. And even visited Selma to present the money. They stayed at the St. James Hotel, an old hotel recently renovated, according to Miz Windham. Overlooking the river, the hotel has balconies and ironwork, which make it look like something from New Orleans. After...

Obviously after just a couple of days—though I’ve heard Miz Windham tell stories for years and read “13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey” as a kid (it was practically required reading in Alabama, where I grew up, filled with great, creepy stories)—I don’t know all about who she is. But she manages to give quite a bit of herself away in a short amount of time. She’s a woman who’s lived through a lot—in her town and in her personal life—and yet she appears to have come through it thinking the best of people and demanding the best of herself. We stopped at the Live Oak Cemetery after lunch. According to Miz Windham, Selma is the northernmost point where Live Oaks will grow. They are scattered throughout this beautiful cemetery that looks like it ought to be in Savannah or Charleston rather than an inland Alabama town. They’ve been burying folks in Live Oak since the early 1800s—back when they knew how to bury their dead. I’ve included a photo of one of the more spectacular monuments, for Drury ...

At storytelling festivals that's the only way Miz Windham wants to be introduced: her name and where she's from. But I want to tell a little more about her, in case you don't know who she is. Because I got to spend much of last weekend with her and enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes when you meet someone you’ve admired, you find you don’t admire her as much anymore. Their humanity shows, with all of its warts and blemishes, leaving you feeling a little disappointed. Kathryn Tucker Windham, a storyteller, writer and photographer from Selma, Alabama, who (whom?, I never know) I have admired for years, wasn't like that. I came away from the weekend not only not disappointed, but inspired to write more, tell stories more and find ways to be a better person. Pretty powerful stuff to pick up from a woman who will be 90 in June. She was one of the featured storytellers at a storytelling festival in Huntsville, Ala. My parents and I were assigned the enviable task of driving...