Toni Orrill, M.Ed.'s Blog: Toni's Travels through Literature

Hit the link below to hear about the idea of writing Poppy King The Novel Series.

I'm just a writer from Louisiana, LOL. Watch and you'll understand:

https://youtu.be/H-WbVfdx9Ko

"Maybe it's hard to believe but I'm not into you. Your rags and your things. Sunder. dirt. and I'm really not into you. So go home with your dog Demon and your peculiar scents cause I'm trying not to let anyone interrupt my sunshine. Not today, demon, not today, Ma Mae said, pushin' the schnoz of the mutt aside."

AKA Southern Literature.

To quote Good Reads member Susanna, SOUTHERN LITERATURE is defined as "literature that was written by a Southerner AND set in the South."

Whew! I qualify! Join me here to hash all this stuff out!

And follow me, a Southerner writing Poppy King The Novel Series, which is set in Louisiana and Mississippi. Or what's popularly called the South Coast.

I am a gardener, writer, and painter. I love writing and gardening in the morning. They just seem like the best companion planting I know. Both put the day in perspective, how we grow, think and convey those thoughts into ideas and words. Some of my best dialogue comes from a conversation with myself and God in the garden. It is usually a sentence, today it was this blog. I just wanted to share that with you this morning. How I plant my garden then express it in acrylic and armour. The word is powerful but robust gardens and frescoes of the mind create the fertile sod for our truest creative work.

"Life comes and goes but books stay in place." --Toni Orrill

Mondays are good days here in Nola (that's short for New Orleans, Louisiana) where I write you from. My two doxies are sprawled on foot cushions, there is a gentle breeze in the Southern air and it's pleasant. It's also Wash Day.

In New Orleans, typical fare every Monday is red beans and rice, slow-cookin while the laundry was hung and no kitchen monitoring required (sounds good to me :) Red kidney beans are the most popular kind for locals and people spice them with sausage, onions, boudin, ham or creole seasoning.

I remember coming home from school and never forgetting the day of the week nor the comforting smell of my grandmother, Alice the Great's' red beans. My great-grandfather was her inspiration, and he swore the water in Bay St. Louis, where I spent weekends as a child, made them creamy. My mom swears it's a scoop of butter at the end.

You can read about some of these stories in the novel I am working on called Poppy King, and check out Martha and Dottie, my empty-nest "babies", plus my family recipe on the side. Happy Monday friends! :) ox TO