| Julia Reed: Southern culture on the skids |
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For attendees at AASFE's 58th annual conference in New Orleans, the
Deep South might summon images of Dixie gents sipping bourbon or prim
debutantes awash in pink. Julia Reed, author of "Queen of the Turtle
Derby and Other Southern Phenomena" (Random House/2004) and a New
Orleans resident, came to the conference to say these impressions
aren't entirely accurate: the South is as much about violence over
Thanksgiving dinner as it is about cotillion balls.
Julia Reed: Southern culture on the skids For attendees at AASFE's 58th annual convention in New Orleans, the Deep South might summon images of Dixie gents sipping bourbon or prim debutantes awash in pink. Julia Reed, author of "Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena" (Random House/2004) and a New Orleans resident, came to the conference to say these impressions aren't entirely accurate: the South is as much about violence over Thanksgiving dinner as it is about cotillion balls. Reed, the featured speaker at the writing awards luncheon at the Hilton Riverside on Thursday described the telling, often hilarious contradictions in the South, an often-maligned region that has perhaps the greatest impact on presidential elections. The lunch concluded with the 16th annual AASFE Writing Awards presentation honoring the 121 winners chosen from 1,600 entries. During Reed's talk, she recalled how her editors at Random House planned to categorize her essays under "violence," "food" and "women." When they came to her piece about a wife who stabbed her husband to death over the last piece of turkey on Thanksgiving, they saw that the culture was beyond such oversimplification. Reed, a senior writer for Vogue, said she had some trepidation about writing a book about the South, but "realized that when (Louisiana's) Edwin Edwards was running for governor for the fourth time, and his running mate turned out to be David Duke, it was something that might be too good to miss." The Greenville, Miss., native fielded questions about covering first daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush ("They were actually completely well behaved") and her plans to give up her New York digs to live full time in New Orleans. In about a month, Reed and her husband, attorney John Pearce, will move into a house on Bourbon Street across from the home of "Interview With a Vampire" author Anne Rice, Reed said. And this being the South, they expect a daily infusion of characters -- in this case, camera-slinging Rice fans on tour buses. "You can't escape the wackos who descend on us," says Reed, "but it makes it interesting." Mark de la Vina is an arts and entertainment writer for the San Jose Mercury News and a 2004 AASFE fellow. |