I’ve been known to slow dance with words over graves of buried prayers, drink words undiluted under the shadow of my grandfather’s whiskey bottles, lift words from where they’ve spilled around my father’s brogans. I write from the seeding syllables of my gardens, from the crumbling graves of my ancestors, from sorrow sleeping in my grandmother’s tattered Bible. I dig for stories in the soil of the southern landscape, under longleaf pines, ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss, and in the fields of callused farmers. When the mood hits me, I extract poetry from the juice of freshly picked blackberries and haul memories from the soles of my bare feet. With the barbed-wire nouns and plural verbs of my mistakes, with the cast iron consonants and sweet, silent vowels of my mother’s kitchen, I write. But in the end, the most important thing is that I give these stories life.
Brenda Sutton Rose
I’ll be speaking at Dooly County Library at 4:30 PM on Monday, March 27. The event is hosted by GFWC Vienna Womans Club. As a past president of Tifton’s Womans Club, I know these women well. The Vienna group is one of the best. This event is open to the public. Come hear me speak about the stories behind the stories.
In this photo I’m speaking at the Camellia House about the stories behind my short stories, giving readers a look into the writing process and the bits of truth I pulled into “Samuel’s Wife.”
Brenda speaking at Camellia House
Book cookies by Kay Ireland
Author of Dogwood Blues
You’ll find a gallery of my oil paintings at Sutton Rose Studio.
Brenda Sutton Rose 