Frequently Asked Questions...

1. What do I want readers to come away with after having read the book?

The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles is written to be enjoyed.  It is funny.  It also operates on several layers.  Top layer: it’s a mix of fantasy and truth done in what I hope is an interesting style.  Next layer: it provides some history about a section of Georgia that is rarely used as the setting for stories.  No Civil War battles, few people until after the railroads came in the 1870s, few famous folks.  Next layer: several stories are rewrites of ancient Greek legends---The Iliad; Zeus, Hera and Io; Thousand-eyed Argus; the Furies; and Phaethon and his flaming chariot.

2. What inspired me to write the novel?

My step-daughter, Shannon Greenland of Amelia Island, Florida, wrote and got published a romantic mystery about two years ago.  It inspired me to try my hand at fiction.  I had stayed away from fiction writing because as a journalist I was uncomfortable in inventing dialogue.  I took a stab at it and came up with a short story that is now chapter one in the book.  I continued to produce short stories using Annie and certain recurring locales and characters.  Eventually, I realized that with a little editing I could produce an episodic novel.

3. What is the underlying philosophy to the Annie stories?  How are they similar to or different from my beliefs?

Well, that’s a tough one.  One reviewer said that reading the conversations between the educated, smart-aleck college guy and Annie of the eight grade was “a bi-polar experience.”  Certainly, the book shows that despite her degraded state, Annie possesses certain feral wisdom and humanity that one might not associate with the self-proclaimed “queen of the south Georgia truck stop and honky tonk whores.”  Another point is that the overly educated always have things to learn that come only from experiences outside their own circles.  For example, there are few cockier know-it-alls than bright but sophomoric college students.  I’ve been around them most of my adult life and was a glowing example of same when I was matriculating at the University of Georgia. 

On another level, the book might be seen as a metaphor for the New South.  Here, an educated elite tries to run things but still has to contend with the unskilled and other-directed elements of Southern society.  And there is a growing gap.  For example, in my Writing for Mass Media class at the University of South Florida, the students take a test in which one of the sentences to be copyedited contains the words “boll weevils”.  I have had to explain what a boll weevil is because virtually none of them as grown up on a farm, and none has had to harvest crops such as cotton.  Just a generation back, the opposite was true.

4. Is this a complete work of fiction?

Of course not.  Fiction is a mosaic of unrelated facts and imagined circumstances that are tacked together to form a believable but not actual story.  Now, several of the chapters are completely made up.  In fact, I sat down at the computer and wrote a title.  Then, I fashioned a story to fit it.  Examples: chapters 2,5 and 6.  However, there is much family history in chapters 4 and 8.  Chapter 13 is based on information that Wayne Ruff, a North Carolina convict, told me, and chapters 13 and 14 were based on information from Foster Sellers, who was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for two years.

5. Concept to publication---quick, easy?  Barriers?

It used to be that if one REALLY wanted to be published, he or she took the manuscript to a vanity press.  Paid to have it printed and then tried to sell the copies wherever.  Nowadays, there are POD publishers who Publish On Demand.  Costs the author nothing.  The POD publisher notifies the major book companies and Amazon.com, but the author still bears the burden of marketing.  So, it’s easy to get published.  It is not easy to market the book.

6. Why the unconventional style of The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles?

First of all, I did not have a “story” to tell.  It all started as an exercise to see if I could comfortably create a fictional work.  Second, there is no market for funny short stories.  I realized I would do better if I could convert the material into a novel of around 55,000 words.  A little editing produced what eventually became The Pulpwood Annie Chronicles.  When I was stuck for an idea, I went to Bullfinch’s Mythology and got all sorts of ideas.  Third, I have to give some indefinable credit to the creative impulse.  Ideas bounced through my brain, and I wrote them down. 

7. Who should be interested in reading this book?

Everyone, I hope.  At a recent book signing in Georgia, virtually every person who bought a copy was a woman.  That really surprised me, for I had assumed I would sell only to men.  Since one of the book’s main character is a college student, it would seem that people of college age would find the book interesting and entertaining.  I think that a college student reading the book is, in effect, holding a mirror up to his or her face.  At one point, aren’t we all that smart-aleck guy, wising off to our parents, friends and professors?  And more often than not, getting shot down or confounded by the response?  Another reason: being episodic, the book can be read, put down for a while and picked up again without the reader’s having lost track of what’s going on.  Another reason is that it is an ideal book to take on vacation to read beside the pool, at the beach and the like.  Finally, it should appeal to some simply because it’s short.

8. What about the artwork on the cover?

That was produced by a Tampa Bay area resident.  Greg Crumbly lives in Valrico. He is well known nationally for his sports paintings. His website—gregcrumbly.com—-provides numerous examples of his work.