Karen Spears Zacharias @ Bowling Green, pt. 1

I enjoyed the field reports Karen Spears Zacharias sent Beatrice from Jacksonville so much, I sent her right back out to the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books...Well, okay, I didn't have to send her; she was already going there to talk about her memoir, Hero Mama. But it was fun to pretend, wasn't it?

Here's the three things I've learned about Bowling Green. The streetlights are numbered, so those of us who grew up painting by numbers can easily maneuver around this town. There's a large Bosnian community, which results in some very good ethnic cuisine. And growing up in the Bible belt, hearing poetry and parables, is undoubtedly the reason why Kentucky is home to so many gifted word weavers.

I was standing outside the Holiday Inn Plaza, leaning on my suitcase, when who should drive up but the good-to-the-bone author, Silas House. "What'd they do, lock you outta of your room?" he asked.

Truth is, I was loitering for sunshine.

Silas gives me weak-knees. His prose is so lyrical it's like hearing mournful jazz. Only 33, he's already penned three critically acclaimed novels. I came across Clay's Quilt several years ago while perusing new releases at Powell's Bookstore in Portland. He's a masterful storyteller of the old southern tradition. The folks here think so, too; they awarded him the 2005 Kentucky Literary Award for Fiction Friday. I wouldn't have known that if Kirby Gann hadn't told me. Silas absolutely never ever brags about anything. Kirby and Silas look more like they belong on the same city league soccer team than like literary geeks. Which makes sense, I suppose; I just learned that Gann played semi-pro soccer (I honestly didn't know that until I looked up his bio after typing that line). Check out his latest book, The Barbarian Parade.

At the festival reception at a beautifully restored train depot, Gann, House and I ate miniature crab cakes, muffins with cranberries and sliced luncheon meat (Silas swears it's not a Kentucky mainstay) and shrimp, while we visited with our cousins in the book business. I caught up with Jackie K. Cooper, author of Halfway Home, whom I met a couple of weeks ago in Jacksonville. Sue Grafton is here but I haven't met her, yet. I did exchange handshakes with Jaclyn Weldon White, author of Distant Hearts and Whisper to the Black Candle, one of the most gothic crime stories I've ever read. Gann listened as I bemoaned the problems a writer like me faces. "I've been touring the trailer park circuit. Problem is none of my former neighbors read," I said.

Sadly, I heard a presentation at Ole Miss last week by Jon Peede, second in command at the National Endowment of the Arts, stating that more and more Americans are choosing not to read. I feel like I've been whispering to a black candle myself after Peede's presentation. The most frightening revelation was that reading is dropping significantly among the college educated. (Wonder if having a president who won't read newspapers has a residual affect?) I come from a family where both my grandfathers were illiterate. My father's father could only write his name--Howard J. Spears--and nothing else. So it really troubles me that people choose not to read. One unnamed person at the Conference for the Book at Ole Miss suggested we needed to get rid of the book altogether and find a way to get stories out through video games. OHMYGOSH!!! Should I tell you this person lives, breathes and eats in New York City?

I suggested, very strongly, that he ought to travel to Vietnam and meet the people there who beg tourists to send them books because in their country all reading material is government-controlled. Peede (who quinky-dinkly was the editor who jumped ship on my first book) said the NEA may have to consider giving grants to bloggers soon. He also wanted me to tell you that the sign at Taylor's Groceries, where we ate catfish and hushpuppies, read: "Eat more rice. Potatoes make your butt big." Those NEA folks have such a knack for observations of the obvious.

I finished up the evening at the Holiday Inn Plaza in Kentucky with the stunning Margaret McMullan, author of How I Found the Strong. If you run into her somewhere, ask her to hold her tongue and say "Rope Walk Writers Retreat" ten times really fast.

You might also ask her what BJ stands for.

Goodnight from Kentucky, where the moon shines brighter, the horses run faster and the storytellers are all sleeping.