Seeking Submissions: Sweet Tea and Southern Sunrises: 100 Stories of Strength and Inspiration from Southern Women (tentative title)
Are you a Southern woman who has a great story? Are you tired of the way media portrays us? Do you have a story that will inspire others? I’m looking for your true story that emphasizes the good qualities of Southern women—our strength, our resilience, even our stubbornness. I will also consider poetry about Southern women or living in the South.
Stories must be between 500-1200 words. If your story is chosen, you will keep the rights to it. Although you won’t be paid, you will be published in an ebook that I will edit and put together. Your name will be listed among contributors. If there is enough interest, the book might be published in a more traditional manner.
Here are some possible ideas to get you going, but are in no way meant to limit your creative energy!
1. Growing up in the South: the good and bad
2. Facing or encountering stereotypes (either as a woman or as a Southerner)
3. Encountering/conquering racism
4. Breaking cycles of poverty/being the first in your family to get a degree
5. What your mother taught you
6. What you want to teach your daughter
7. Southern ingenuity—making the best of a bad situation or coming up with unique solutions
Email your submissions to tinaboss71@yahoo.com
Let’s play a game called What’s Wrong With This Picture.
Atticus Quotes from To Kill A Mockingbird
“Scout,” said Atticus, “nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don’t mean anything—like snot-nose. It’s hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It’s slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.”
“You aren’t really a nigger-lover, then, are you?”
“I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody… I’m hard put, sometimes—baby, it’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”
Atticus from Go Find a Watchman
“Then let’s put this on a practical basis right now. Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”
“They’re people, aren’t they? We were quite willing to import them when they made money for us.”
“Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?”
***
“Atticus, I’m getting out of this place fast, I don’t know where I’m going but I’m going. I never want to see another Finch or hear of one as long as I live!”
“As you please.”
“You double-dealing, ring-tailed old son of a bitch! You just sit there and say ‘As you please’ when you’ve knocked me down and stomped on me and spat on me, you just sit there and say ‘As you please’ when everything I ever loved in this world –you just sit there and say ‘As you please’–you love me! You son of a bitch!”
“That’ll do, Jean Louise.”
That’ll do, Harper Lee. In a time when the South is struggling to overcome a few ignorant racists, this long-awaited sequel could not have come at a worse time. I’ll never understand what Lee was thinking when she assassinated Atticus Finch’s character so.
But enough of the moral hand-wringing. I want to talk about character development.
As a writer, it’s important to maintain consistency of character. If a character is a moral compass in one book, and inexplicably becomes a villain in the next, this is simply bad writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s dressed up in pretty bows–it is more than sloppy–it’s damaging. There are no clues in To Kill a Mockingbird that suggest to us that Atticus is not who he seems. Even considering Scout’s childish point of view doesn’t explain it–she’s writing from an adult view looking back at the past.
What other explanation do we have? Was Scout somehow too slow to catch on to her father’s true character? I don’t think so. She’s sharp enough to spar with Atticus, quoting constitutional law with her daddy.
Atticus, don’t worry. I’m going to pretend this second book NEVER HAPPENED.
Harper Lee, you’ve broken my heart, and I wish I knew why.
In an interview for Wired magazine, Marianne LaFrance, an experimental psychologist at Yale University said,
“On average girls and women smile more. This appears to be a function of two things. Boys are encouraged not to smile very much. Expressivity is taken by some as sign of emotionality, of femininity, something many men wouldn’t be caught dead being associated with.”
It makes sense, really. We’re trained, as little girls, to make everyone feel better. We’re told to smile when things get stressful, to smile when we greet someone, in photos, to even smile at strangers we don’t even know. When we don’t, people get worried. “Are you ok?” they ask. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Socially, it’s expected. Girls are not really given the option to avoid smiling.
Men and boys, on the other hand, are not expected to smile on command (either spoken or unspoken). If a man never smiles, people call him focused, intense, serious. Alternately, if a man does happen to smile, it’s kind of like a bonus. He’s a nice guy, he’s friendly. But if he smiles too much? It’s just as isolating. He’s insecure; he’s fake.
If a woman rarely smiles, she’s labeled as moody, unhappy, stressed out. She takes herself too seriously. She can’t handle pressure. If you don’t feel like smiling? Too bad. Fake it.
Adrian Furnham Ph.D., argues that Southerners smile more than other regions in the US. This also makes sense because we’re often taught (especially as Southern women) to be overly concerned with others and their comfort, and smiling indicates friendliness. To not smile is to be sullen, rude. Nobody likes rude little girls. Nobody likes rude women.
We even have rules about genuine smiles and fake smiles:
I think we should teach our little girls to smile when they want to. Let’s try to not pressure them into fake happiness for the benefit of others. Let’s teach our little boys that’s it’s ok to smile if they feel like it. Let’s begin as early as possible, demonstrating to our kids that genuine feelings and the expression of feelings is appropriate and ok. That doesn’t mean they get a license to be brats, by any means. It just means they are allowed to be genuine. Is it too much to hope that social expectations might shift, just the slightest, to allow our sons and daughters to be able to express their true emotions without judgement? I’d like to think so.
Tina Bausinger 
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