Making a story truly relate is a difficult task that if accomplished can establish a long lasting relationship between author and reader. It is a great honor to have a conversation with a writer who truly possesses this talent whom I, personally, have connected to through reading his books. Clyde Edgerton is a local author, teacher, and musician whom I have learn to greatly respect. He is the author of seven published novels, five of which received notable awards from the New York Times as well as much other recognition.
I stood in the narrow hallway on one of my most hectic days at three o"clock sharp. I was careful not to be late on a day when everything was going wrong for me. Clyde's door was wide open so I looked inside his small office and found exactly what I had expected to see, a typewriter. I also noticed an old keyboard leaning against the wall, a small fifteen watt guitar amp, a very old, and a hard back copy of the book Where Trouble Sleeps on the desk, but not its author. .
He arrived a few minutes late and we struck up a conversation. We talked about our growing up in southern North Carolina and taking for granted the wonderful things we experienced as possible sources for writing. He encouraged me to carry a notepad in .
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my pocket and write things down as they come in life, a practice he started before becoming a writer that greatly benefited him in the future. Clyde spoke about growing up as a child learning to hunt, playing baseball, and running around the woods with his friends, all of which do I had also done as a kid. These kinds of things are what make his work so special to people who lived a similar type of life. Even the people who can't relate sometimes find it more fascinating and humorous because it is foreign to them.
It is very heartening for Clyde to hear responses from his readers. Many times at a Clyde Edgerton reading the seats are filled with middle-aged women, which seem to be his largest audience.
Mattie Rigsbee is the main character in Clyde Edgerton's southern style novel, Walking Across Egypt. Mattie is a seventy-eight year old widow with two middle-aged children. Living alone in a small house, she makes sure that everything is taken care of. She cooks, cleans, mows the lawn, and takes up ...
