The House of Words (no. 7): Luck (Marjorie Hudson)

5 birds, 3 eggs: Press 53
Cover artist Emma Skurnick
A Novello Literary Award Finalist

7. More on luck

Marjorie Hudson’s second book, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas: Stories about Yankees Moving South, is forthcoming on May 15 from Press 53. Doris Betts says “Hudson’s prose is pure as birdsong.” Visit her website here. Click on the title to sail onto her page at Press 53.

I e-met Marjorie after now-novelist and then-and-now bookshop manager Erica Eisdorfer told me that she had talked about my novel Catherwood in her first book, Looking for Virginia Dare (originally published by Coastal Carolina and now reprinted by Press 53.) And I still like to keep up with what she is doing. Some day when I am in North Carolina, I shall meet her. In the meantime, luck to her!

* * *


Marjorie's first book
came out in hardcover and paperback
from Coastal Carolina Press.
Now available from Press 53.

I think my big stroke of luck was getting a job at Algonquin Books in 1985 reading fiction. My job was to fix typos and fact check and run schedules. I was good at that. But the urge got stronger and stronger to write Southern fiction myself. So I quit my job and started doing it. For a Yankee, I've done well. I think my good luck started when I moved here. But that was because of a sign from GOD. A rainbow over a farmhouse for rent. I kid you not. I've had plenty of lousy luck too--ironies so brutal that only another writer could understand the pain--having the NY Times book page editor call, leave a message, but turns out he was fact checking a review of a rival book and was checking in with me as an expert--me, who wrote a book he was not going to review. Oh, the anguish! That's not bad luck really, it's just the convoluted system at work re: who gets attention. Other bad luck: having my publisher go out of business in an economic crash just as my first book was getting more attention and orders. What I do with bad luck? Sometimes I cry. But I've got a stubborn streak and I always get up and keep trying. My first book, Searching for Virginia Dare, is back in print and selling respectably. And the new publisher is publishing my debut fiction, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas. Press 53 has just won a bunch of IPPIE awards, so I feel really fortunate to be associated with the editor and other authors.

I kind of like being obscure and brilliant. There's a lot of freedom in it, and great pleasure in the work. Wish there was a little more money in it.

The House of Words (no. 6): Lucky

This post may seem a little odd to those who have been with me through many editorial departures and books that were timed in some unlucky manner. Nevertheless, I shall simply vow with Emerson that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

* * *

I don’t regard myself as “special” or think that the world owes me any rewards. I am quite glad when it does toss me a gold star, but I do not wish to beg for one or demand one. This preserves me from a great deal of anguish.

Instead, I think that I am lucky.

I think this despite the fact that I am the absolute Beggar Queen of Orphaned Books (“Orphaned” book? That’s when your editor leaves before or during the launch period of your book. And then the poor offspring of your mind wanders the halls and offices, homeless, sitting in corners with the Little Match Girl, desiring only to be taken up to the bright and shiny Paradise of Readers.) You see, I now realize that a writer cannot do one blessed thing about randomness, a thing that includes editors seeing greener grass and unexpectedly jumping the fence, etc., and so these problems no longer concern me.

As I am capable of considerable dark denseness, it took me some time to grasp another little idea: I was given a gift. This gift is a great gift that makes me laugh and feel thrilled and sometimes weep. I jig as a partner to readers I will never meet. Sometimes I encounter people I become fond of because they have danced with me. Yet I did nothing to earn or win or deserve the gift. It is a free gift. You see? I am thankful. I am lucky.

That gift plus life events made me a maniacal reader in childhood and an obsessive writer later on. Also, I grew up in a family with many books, too, and with parents who cared about reading and writing. More luck!

I am nothing but happy that I was given this gift, a thing that has even transformed the tragedies and sorrows of childhood and adult life: those grits that can become pearls in the sea of words. In fact, I have a strong sense that it is while writing that I find the thread of path that allows me to escape the labyrinth--to move toward a sunlit redemption of my own bumblings, sins and errors, and the random "black swans" of life.

* * *

The circle rainbow was photographed by the appropriately-named Joy Butler (wish I had a joy butler in my butler's pantry, but there are only dishes and cleaning supplies) of Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia. Courtesy of Joy and sxc.hu.