It’s Day 3 of the Southern-Fried Woolf blog tour! Thanks so very much to Virginia Lee for spotlighting my book! As a blanket statement, if you visit any of these stops you can sign up to win that bookshop.org gift card. Go get it!

While I can’t say I’ve ever been one to pay much attention to Miley Cyrus (I don’t mean that disrespectfully, I’m just older than most of her fans), lately I’m seeing her everywhere. Over the holidays we watched her and Dolly Parton perform “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” together on Miley’s New Year’s Eve show. Those outfits! And if she and Dolly are tight, she’s okay by me!

Then when we watched Ms. Dolly get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame recently (we’re behind this year), there she was again. (BTW, if you haven’t seen Dolly’s stunning display with her newly penned “Rock Song” complete with – wait for it – an electric guitar, what are you waiting for? I was literally screeching with surprise and delight.)  

A moment: I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but Barry and I were asked to go to Dollywood to help out at the merchandise table of a dear sweet gospel star once, and of course, while that wasn’t something we usually did, we agreed to because of who she was and because who wouldn’t want a free trip to Dollywood? (I don’t often get starstruck, but I remember feeling so dumb telling her how poetic her lyrics are. She was as gracious as you can be.) I remember watching her from the wings of her concert, seeing the absolute adoration on the faces of those in the audience. She was magnificent and beloved.

While we there, the woman’s manager scored us two tickets to see Dolly in concert! We were stoked, but there was only one problem: we had our son, Zack, with us, too. “No worries,” the manager said, “We’ll get him in.” And let us just say that our son had a seat much closer up front than we did, no ticket required.

Most recently, Miley has been coming up in my feed with her song “Flowers.” If you’re me and you have Virginia Woolf on the brain, you immediately think of Mrs. Dalloway and that she said she would get the flowers herself. See, Woolf was ahead of everyone.  While there are multiple readings to be made of Woolf’s line, today I choose to see it as Mrs. Dalloway (Clarissa) saying she wasn’t waiting for either her husband or the servants to buy her flowers. The irony is that her husband, Richard, does buy her flowers later in the book, red and white roses, and he means for them to say what he admits that he is too lazy and shy to say: he loves her. (Flowers are a theme in that book, but I won’t go there right now.)

I also won’t get into the salacious side of Miley’s song and the unmitigated shade (check out that gold dress; that’s no coincidence) in her video and the release date of it, but it does occur to me that Briscoe could well have written that song. She’s so strong. (And I really like the song.)

Briscoe has been surrounded by music, country music, since birth. Her father was a musician; she was (no doubt) in the studio with her father during many a session. She writes songs. She plays guitar. She sings. But she’s put that aside. (Am I the only one who wants to scream at her for that? Sure, Michael’s gift is important to the world. He seems to have something special, but that’s not to say hers isn’t just as important, that she doesn’t have just as much to say. A careful reader might pick up something about her and her future with music. Just sayin’.)

I am incredibly thankful for the people who have taken the time to congratulate me on SFW’s release and to let me know how much they are enjoying it. My inbox, my messenger, my phone, etc. is overflowing with the love, and I appreciate it so much. Ah, you do a writer’s soul good.

P.S. Grab SFW now, if you haven’t already! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPTCV3F5?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_S6N19Q7132668JXBXZM5

Drēma