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Odd-Egg Editor
This reflective autobiographical book details Kathryn Tucker Windham’s pleasures and her challenging struggles in the world of southern newsrooms. Though not a crusader or a trailblazer for women’s rights, Windham was indignant over discrimination. She found her niche and remains secure as one of Alabama’s favorite authors and raconteurs.
Her femaleness aside, she is a dynamic reporter and a writer recognized throughout the South as one of the best storytellers alive. She frequently is heard on radio and on recordings sharing her tales and her perceptions of southern folkways.
In addition to being female in the male domain of old-time southern journalism, she was during one period the staff editor of her hometown paper in Selma, Alabama, to whom bizarre and freakish subjects of “human interest” were assigned―stories about gourds that grew in shapes of animals, fish that had swallowed knives, albino squirrels, a dog that could bark “Dixie,” a peach that looked like Winston Churchill, and various odd eggs whose owners pointed out to Windham that the shells bore prophetic messages (usually in Japanese) that were omens of victory in the war.
Windham’s experiences with newspapers spanned over forty years, from the Great Depression to the Civil Rights era. She began in the early 1930s writing for her Cousin Earl Tucker’s paper, then edited a college paper, and took her first real job in newspapering in 1941 on the Alabama Journal in Montgomery, having been turned down a year before solely because she was female. She worked thereafter for the Birmingham News as well as the Selma Times-Journal in a career that took her to all of Alabama’s sixty-seven counties and allowed her to meet numbers of Alabama’s politicians and personalities.
This entertaining and poignant book of personal experiences and remembrances provides not only a retrospective view of a reporter’s life during a crucial era but also a delightful encounter with Kathryn Tucker Windham.
Her femaleness aside, she is a dynamic reporter and a writer recognized throughout the South as one of the best storytellers alive. She frequently is heard on radio and on recordings sharing her tales and her perceptions of southern folkways.
In addition to being female in the male domain of old-time southern journalism, she was during one period the staff editor of her hometown paper in Selma, Alabama, to whom bizarre and freakish subjects of “human interest” were assigned―stories about gourds that grew in shapes of animals, fish that had swallowed knives, albino squirrels, a dog that could bark “Dixie,” a peach that looked like Winston Churchill, and various odd eggs whose owners pointed out to Windham that the shells bore prophetic messages (usually in Japanese) that were omens of victory in the war.
Windham’s experiences with newspapers spanned over forty years, from the Great Depression to the Civil Rights era. She began in the early 1930s writing for her Cousin Earl Tucker’s paper, then edited a college paper, and took her first real job in newspapering in 1941 on the Alabama Journal in Montgomery, having been turned down a year before solely because she was female. She worked thereafter for the Birmingham News as well as the Selma Times-Journal in a career that took her to all of Alabama’s sixty-seven counties and allowed her to meet numbers of Alabama’s politicians and personalities.
This entertaining and poignant book of personal experiences and remembrances provides not only a retrospective view of a reporter’s life during a crucial era but also a delightful encounter with Kathryn Tucker Windham.
188 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1989
13 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Tucker Windham
50 books46 followersKathryn Tucker Windham was an American storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist.
Windham got her first writing job at the age of 12, reviewing movies for her cousin's small town newspaper, The Thomasville Times. She earned a B.A. degree from Huntingdon College in 1939. Soon after graduating she became a reporter for the Alabama Journal. Starting in 1944 she worked for The Birmingham News. In 1946 she married Amasa Benjamin Windham with whom she had three children. In 1956 she went to work at the Selma Times-Journal where she won several Associated Press awards for her writing and photography. A collection of her photographs is on display at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. She died on June 12, 2011. The 2004 documentary film, Kathryn: The Story of a Teller, directed by Norton Dill, chronicles Windham's life and varied careers.
Windham got her first writing job at the age of 12, reviewing movies for her cousin's small town newspaper, The Thomasville Times. She earned a B.A. degree from Huntingdon College in 1939. Soon after graduating she became a reporter for the Alabama Journal. Starting in 1944 she worked for The Birmingham News. In 1946 she married Amasa Benjamin Windham with whom she had three children. In 1956 she went to work at the Selma Times-Journal where she won several Associated Press awards for her writing and photography. A collection of her photographs is on display at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. She died on June 12, 2011. The 2004 documentary film, Kathryn: The Story of a Teller, directed by Norton Dill, chronicles Windham's life and varied careers.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 31, 2019
Anyone who grew up in Selma, Alabama, prior to 2011 had heard of Kathryn Tucker Windham, and odds were they loved her. A master storyteller, she inspired an annual Tale-Tellin' Festival that survives today. Odd-Egg Editor is a brief memoir of her newspaper days, before she became a local legend. Beginning with the Montgomery Advertiser in the 1940s, covering the police beat, Tucker expanded her career to land a position in Birmingham, but later settled in her hometown of Selma just as the civil rights movement was warming up in the 1960s. This memoir has a lot of little stories, with colorful characters -- a playful judge who once busied himself creating spitballs during testimony, an inveterate escapee named Billie Jean who counted herself a friend of the cops and her regular juudge-- as well as a few sadder stories. The title of the book comes from Tucker being assigned all the odd stories at the Montgomery Advertiser, and is itself a colorful collection. One could easily read it as two decades of journalism from mid-20th century Alabama , but I was drawn to it for the author's voice. Although she was too advanced in age to do a lot of storytelling during my youth, I heard her a time or two at Cahaba Day festivals. Even in her last years she was a volunteer at the Selma-Dallas County Library, firmly ensconced in the town she loved and which loved her back. I enjoyed this account of her getting started -- of overcoming prejudice against her as a young woman invading male spaces like the cop beat and the governor's hunting camp -- very well.
February 9, 2022
LOVE!!!
Read
November 17, 2023Good books
June 6, 2023
Good Book.
September 10, 2012
Delightful! Just loved this sometimes funny, sometimes serious little book. Mrs. Windham is well known for her storytelling talent and this is no exception. A true Southern voice with no pretension.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews