sunny's world

Pictures today from our research trip in May. Jim reading at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi; napping at Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home in Oxford; traveling the back roads into the Delta, the roads Sunny would know in book two; Bryant's Store in Money (just outside of Greenwood); and Shellmound Plantation, the setting for Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding.

We spent two days in Greenwood with our guides. We soaked it up. We visited our friends at Turnrow Books. I sat and imagined this town in 1964, listened to the stories, and imagined Sunny in the middle of it all, which is where I've put her in book two.

This is my third research trip to Greenwood, and I'm finally beginning to feel like I know the place just a little bit. Sometimes it just takes time.  This is the first book I've written about a place I didn't live in myself.

Even though I did a lot of growing up in Mississippi, my homeplace was three hours south of Greenwood. In some ways it was exactly the same. In others, it may as well have been a different planet.

But it's not a different planet. It's a different character.