A Voice for the Voiceless

On assignment in China with her husband and family in 2003, Kay Bratt took up the cause of China’s forgotten children. Kay spent four years volunteering in a Chinese orphanage. Her memoir: Silent Tears – A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage is based on the diary she kept while there. It offers a painful and often bleak account of her daily struggle to care for the children she came to love and the fight to change their conditions.

Now back in America, Kay Bratt continues her work with China’s orphans, raising awareness wherever she goes. She was honored with the Chinese 2006 Pride of the City award for her humanitarian work. She is the founder of the Mifan Mommy Club – an online organization that supplies rice to children in Chinese orphanages, and she is an active volunteer with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates.)

Kay Bratt joins us for Cover to Cover this Sunday at 8pm on GPB.

Will Jesus Buy Me a Double Wide?

A title that was originally intended as a joke sold the book before it was even written. Karen Spears Zacharias recently published this book - her fourth - titled: Will Jesus Buy Me a Double Wide. She is a journalist and author of 3 other non-fiction books and has won dozens of writing awards.

Karen traveled the country collecting stories of ordinary and not so ordinary folk. Each chapter anonymously titled: The Preacher, The Evangelist, The Sister, The Marine. Karen investigates what role God and money play in people's lives. The book is filled with humor and also asks some incredibly tough questions like: What does it mean to be blessed by God? And Karen isn't afraid to give the answers.

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The Majic of Bloodroot

Amy Greene grew up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. She was born to a family of natural story tellers and a rich tradition of folklore. Bloodroot is her debut novel about a family spanning three generations. It weaves through time and space with a mystical dream like quality starting with the Great Depression and ending in present day.

The novel is told in a myriad of voices, each character more vivid and compelling than the last. Bloodroot is filled with mystery, grace and rich Appalachian folklore. The book is named for the flower whose sap has the power to heal and also to poison.

At the center of the story is the character Myra Lamb whose "haint blue" eyes are said to liberate her family from an old curse. Haint blue is a very special shade of blue that wards of evil spirits. This kind of blue can be found on the doors and windows of many houses in Appalachia.

Amy Greene lives with her husband and her two children in East Tennessee where she grew up. Her novel Bloodroot is published by Knopf and her second novel is in the works. Listen to this episode

Through the Eyes of a New Generation

Noni Carter is only 18 years old. Despite her young age, she has recently published her first novel - Good Fortune. Good Fortune was inspired by her great-great-great-great grandmother - Rose Caldwell. Noni and her siblings listened to the stories of Rose and other accounts of her ancestors' histories around the family's kitchen table. Rose's story in particular inspired Noni to embark on a three-year journey researching her family's history and the history of black America.

The book that started as a short story has evolved into a historical slave narrative, tracing the story of Ayanna Bahati from Africa to a plantation in Tennessee, and finally to freedom.

Noni's desire is not only to teach history to young African Americans, but also to inpsire them to value and embrace their legacy.

Noni Carter is a student at Harvard University. She is not only a novelist, but also a classical pianist and poet.
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America's Lost Musical Genius

In The Ballad of Blind Tom, Australian author Deirdre O’ Connell describes her subject as “The most famous black performer of the Civil War generation.” Was he a naive genius or a freak? Was he a gifted, original American composer or a mere mimic of the reigning piano styles of the day? O’Connell wades through 50 years of press clips and testimony searching for the answer to the question, “Who was Blind Tom?”

He was born a slave in Columbus, Georgia. Despite his autistic condition, he made his guardians piles of money, perhaps, by today’s standard, millions of dollars, of which he and his family saw almost none. It would be story of overpowering sadness had Blind Tom not been so full of life. He took great delight in playing piano up to 12 hours a day, never regarding it as work even in the midst of a staggering itinerary. (In 1999, the pianist John Davis recorded a selection of his songs, John Davis Plays Blind Tom.)

Full of wit and wild anecdote, The Ballad of Blind Tom has an astonishing cast of characters. It is Deirdre O’Connell’s first book, and she spent a good deal of time in Georgia conducting research. She has also made documentaries for the Jimi Hendrix Estate and the United Nations Environment Program and has worked in news at SBS Australia.

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The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta by Marc Wortman

2009 marks the 145th anniversary of the fall of Atlanta during the Civil War, so Mark Wortman's book is a timely look at this fascinating chapter (some would say dark chapter) in Georgia's history. Wortman has a journalist's flair for keen insight and detail, and above all he tells a good story.

Like most of my interviews, 30 minutes proved all too short to ask the author everything I was interested in. Some of the ones I posed to Marc Wortman: How does a guy with a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton get interested in Atlanta and the Civil War?

One of the things in his book that most intrigued me was the fact that we now take it for granted that Atlanta is an important city, that it's the Gateway to the New South, the home of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the Atlanta Braves, Home Depot, CNN, Coca-Cola, etc., but the Atlanta he describes wasn't all that big or seemingly all that important as a city. Wortman writes, "Few people in the North or among Union military officials had heard of Atlanta before the outbreak of the rebellion." How then did two great armies find themselves in and around Atlanta in the summer of 1864? And why is Atlanta's fall directly credited with paving the way for Lincoln's re-election the following November?

A book like this is full of fascinating characters, among them of course William Tecumseh Sherman. He obviously plays a very prominent role in this book, and in fact Wortman gives him the very last word. Even today, his name evokes fierce passions and emotions in Georgia. And yet, when he returned to Atlanta in 1879, Wortman writes that "few people in Atlanta remained ill disposed toward Sherman." How is that possible? I'm quite certain that wouldn't be the case now, 145 years later. Last year the Georgia Historical Society had a public program about Sherman, and we received numerous letters and emails from people across Georgia (and the rest of the country) vehemently denouncing him. How was it possible that "few" of the Atlantans who actually lived through Sherman's siege were so forgiving in 1879?

Finally, with the Civil War's 150th anniversary fast approaching, there will be commemorative events across the country. One of the questions I like to pose to writers of Civil War history: What do the events in your book still have to teach us in the 21st century?

by Stan Deaton

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Raven Lover, Poet, Novelist

I had the pleasure of first meeting George Dawes Green at The Moth in Savannah, Georgia. This one of a kind story-telling ensemble, was founded by Green back in 1997. It mimics evenings spent on his friend Wanda's porch in St. Simons Island. Green and his friends would gather there to drink and tell stories. Moths would find a way into the porch and flutter around the light. The Moth travels all over bringing story telling to life like never before. It has become such a popular event, that most Moth slams are usually sold out. They attract raconteurs from all walks of life with an occasional celebrity or three thrown in for good measure.

Green has published three novels to date. The latest, Ravens, just hit bookstores this summer. It is a thriller set in Brunswick Georgia about a family who has just won millions, but whose fate takes a twist downhill when two drifters from up north show up and hold the family hostage. It is a gripping, humorous, under the covers kind of read.

His other novels, both highly acclaimed - The Caveman's Valentine (1994) which won an Edgar Award and The Juror (1995) were both made into major motion pictures.

When Green isn't writing he is bringing The Moth coast to coast and across the ocean. The story-telling not-for-profit group has become a -not to be missed- sensation.

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Karen White: The Lost Hours

Author of award winning novels such as Learning to Breathe, Karen White shares her love for the coastal lowcountry and Savannah in her latest novel, The Lost Hours. The story is set by the Savannah River on a plantation that is full of secrets, waiting to be uncovered. Piper, the young woman in the novel, must face certain truths about her family's history. She is joined by a colorful group of characters who come together to heal their wounds and find a common thread.

Karen dedicates the book to her maternal grandmother, Grace Bianca, inspired by her stories and the stories of others who passed through her grandmother's house.

Karen's work has appeared on the South East Independent Booksellers best sellers list. Her novel Learning to Breathe received several honors, including the National Reader's Choice Award.
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