Her literary guidebooks have invited the next generation of NC authors to explore the state's history in a very different way, through its history of the written word. But it’s this author, documentary maker, and blogger's upcoming book that stresses the importance of the preservation of another part of our heritage, food. Titled 'Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction,' Georgann Eubanks' latest book has been hailed as a "lovely ode to Tar Heel State heritage", and is due out later this year.
As an Appalachian writer and historian, there are certain books and authors whose names stick with you. Georgann Eubanks is one of them. This author makes her home in Carrboro, North Carolina in the winter and in Little Switzerland, of the Blue Ridge Parkway in the summers. The latter happens to be her favorite place to get the writing done.
Now in her sixties, Eubanks writes what she calls “documentary-style nonfiction,” a genre that uses the tools of fiction to tell real stories of people and places. Eubanks explained that she started out in fiction, “and then I learned that truth is stranger and often more powerful than fiction.”
Georgann told the blog that her interest in journalism and publication design goes back to the 4th grade when she wrote stories and published a newsletter “with one subscriber—my best friend.” When asked what inspires her to write Georgann admitted, like most writers, "I am always ready to learn something new."
Recently she, too, has taken up blogging. “Food Pilgrim is an outgrowth of my book The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods through the Year,” she said, “but the essays offer a much broader look at food as culture. I pay attention to local food traditions and interesting restaurants wherever I travel." See foodpilgrim.substack.com
The best advice Eubanks says she ever received as a writer came from a magazine editor who had assigned a profile piece. The editor said, "to be an author you must write with authority, become an expert on your subject, give the reader your experience of that person on the page.”
All authors face challenges when it comes to writing, but those issues do not stop once we are published. "Whether you are published by a press with a long and distinguished history as I am with the University of North Carolina Press, or you publish yourself, the problem is book distribution and marketing resources for publicity."
We asked Georgann what is her favorite place to visit in North Carolina. She admitted that she enjoys it all, "I spend time across the state—my first three books were guidebooks to literary North Carolina, so I have been to every county. I love being in the mountains and the piedmont where I live. In the last decade, I have also made many trips to Columbia, NC, which is near the Pocosin Wildlife Refuge in the far eastern part of the state. There, wild tundra swans migrate at the end of the year to feed in the swamp, and then fly back to Greenland and Siberia in February."
When we caught up with Georgann she shared that she was reading Imani Perry's biography of playwright Lorraine Hansberry. "I love biography, which is a good thing because my next book assignment is a biography of a North Carolina playwright."
Among her favorites quotes from writers is this one from nature writer John McPhee: “Creative nonfiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.” Since the subject of my next book passed away 40 years ago, I am making the most of what I am finding in the diaries he left behind.”
When she is not digging into a new subject for a book, Georgann said that finds joy among the vegetable garden and flower beds she cultivates in the mountains.
When it comes to writing and publishing, Eubanks offers this advice: "The market has never been more open to new writers through self-publishing, but that is both a blessing and a curse. You can publish, but finding readers is the trick. Set your sights accordingly and know your audience. If you don’t find them, you’ll be frustrated. And get the writing done first before you worry about publication."
Readers, writers, and other authors are welcome to visit Georgann's website for her essays and blog, see the list of social media sites below.
We also want to encourage writers to check out the Table Rock Writers Workshop—a weeklong writing workshop with fantastic faculty. That she’s been leading for more than thirty years. See tablerockwriters.com.
Join Alleghany Writers as they host Georgann Eubanks during their Hooked on Books event this Thursday, March 11th at 6 p.m. EST. To participate in these virtual author Q&As and other great events visit Alleghany Writers online at www.alleghanywriters.com/membership for details on how to become a member.
Now, here is an exclusive excerpt provided by Georgann Eubanks from The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year.
Preface
I CAME TO KNOW IT WAS SEPTEMBER WHEN MY GRANDFATHER PULLED out the dented buckets from his toolshed and nodded for me to follow him. We’d trek across the dam beside his hand-dug pond, watching the bass pop up after the long-legged insects that skated on the water’s surface. We did not dawdle. We went straight for the sturdy trellis on the far bank, a jackleg assembly of galvanized pipe that he’d put up long before I was born. I tagged along without a word between us. This was the man who’d let me plant my first row of butter beans the year before, at age five.
The frame was barely visible now that the pipes had become the bones of a thick, green, undulating tunnel of climbing vines. They hung heavy with fat bronze scuppernongs under the first half of the leafy canopy. Smaller purple-hulled muscadines waited at the far end of the trellis. A firmament of bees droned above the tunnel, swooping in and out of the greenery. The scent of sun-warmed fruit oozed over us as we stepped into the shaded cave and began to pick. When I encounter that fragrance now, I am back in his world, that world under the trellis.
I could reach the clusters of grapes along the sides of the light-dappled tunnel. Granddaddy would pull down the higher ones. He had already taught me how to squeeze the hard hulls between my teeth to release sweet juice and chewy innards where the seeds were stored. We ate and picked and ate some more.
In North Carolina, scuppernongs are our official state fruit, and they are at their best only in early fall. We are forced to wait—the whole passage of a year between tastes—which makes them so much sweeter.
Eubanks, Georgann The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year. The University of North Carolina Press. 2018.
Author Bio:
Georgann Eubanks is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and consultant. After many years of service to the humanities and literary arts in North Carolina, she has been named literary executor and director of the Paul Green Foundation, charged with preserving the progressive legacy of North Carolina’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright and human rights advocate. Georgann’s books include the North CarolinaLiterary Trails series of guidebooks commissioned by the North Carolina Arts Council, The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year, and the forthcoming Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction, all from the University of North Carolina Press. She also directs the Table Rock Writers Workshop, held annually in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Eubanks is immediate past president of the NC Literary and Historical Society and serves on the board of the North Carolina Writers Network, the statewide organization that she helped to establish in 1985.
Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction by Georgann Eubanks, forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press in fall 2021
Vividly written for non-scientists, Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction explores the history and current status of a dozen rare and federally endangered plants struggling to survive in the Southeastern United States. Author Georgann Eubanks takes readers on an expedition into natural sites in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Along the way, she considers the ways that the extraordinary biodiversity of the region has shaped our sense of place as southerners, the stories we tell, and the landscapes we love. Through personal anecdotes, plain spoken interviews, and experiences in the field, readers will meet the botanical professionals and citizen scientists that Eubanks encountered. These present-day heroes—young and old--are wrestling daily against the effects of global climate change, toxic pollution, and disruptive development. They caution us not to take for granted the fragile ecosystems that contribute to the region’s longstanding appeal to visitors and confirm our cultural identity as a place of magnificent plants and trees.
Georgann Eubanks georganneubanks9@gmail.com (919) 454-7429 WEBSITE: georganneubanks.net BLOG: Food Pilgrim WORKSHOPS: minnowschool.com LAST BOOK: The Month of Their Ripening: North Carolina Heritage Foods Through the Year, from UNC Press FORTHCOMING BOOK: Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction (also from UNC Press in fall 2021) Sign up to receive my FOOD PILGRIM BLOG once or twice a month.
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