Book lovers eager for the start of the Virginia Festival of the Book crowded into the Bluebird & Company annex last month for a preview of the yearly event. They came away with an updated view of books formerly typecast as romance novels. “Here’s a book you wouldn’t be embarrassed to read on the subway,” said novelist Rachel McRady, herself a Virginia author, who interviewed Audrey Ingram, author of The River Runs South.
It was Ingram’s first book, and the audience was as interested in her path as an author as it was in her protagonist’s path as a mother and environmental crusader.
Festival of the Book Director Kalela Williams introduced the conversation, reminding the audience that the festival is now in its 30th year. She said that the Crozet session was the first festival-related event, and thanked Flannery Buchanan, Bluebird’s co-owner, both for her interest in supporting authors, and as a representative of independent book stores everywhere.
Ingram said she’d always been an avid reader, but had many years of practicing law before the pandemic forced her to take a leave of absence. She decided that the time was right for her to try writing a book. Like other writers juggling small children and running a household, she rose way before the kids for a precious couple of hours, then hoped for a bonus hour or so at nap time.
What she learned after hammering out her first draft: “Lawyers don’t use contractions,” she said. “I was trained that way, but in real life, people do, so I spent many hours rewriting conversations.” She said her legal training did help her in describing the legal battle in the book. However, she said, she had to negotiate the difficult divide between what she knew about the law and what the average person thinks they understand about the law. Her training did help when it came time to negotiate a contract.
Ingram knew she wanted to write a novel with a woman as the main character, and to explore themes of grief and recovery. She also wanted to set her novel in the South she loves, so most of the story takes place in Fairhope, Alabama, where the author grew up. Other themes she wanted to delve into: mother-daughter relationships (especially the powerful role of the southern mother); environmental justice (her beloved Fairhope Bay has one of the most diverse eco-systems in the world, but is located in a state with some of the loosest environmental regulations); and, of course, finding love after heartbreak. Food, especially the best of southern food, also features prominently in the book and helps establish the unique sense of place.
MacRady did a good job of getting to the heart of the author’s experience, and there were also plenty of questions from the audience, some of whom appeared to be aspiring authors interested in Ingram’s process as well as her book.
“I found out after-the-fact that there are two kinds of writers,” Ingram said. “There are those we call ‘pantsers,’ because they start out with a general idea and then sort of fly by the seat of their pants; and those we call ‘plotters,’ who know exactly what’s going to happen.” She said she was definitely a pantser in River, but has become a plotter for her next two books, the first of which, The Group Trust, is due out this summer.
She also learned that she needed to write quickly in the limited time available to her, rather than waiting for the mood to hit, or some outward inspiration, advice that any writer will understand. Just ignore writer’s block, she said. “If I’m not in the right space, it may not be all that good, but I can edit a mess. I can’t edit a blank page.”
She said many modern romance authors refer to their books as “closed door” romances, as opposed to the romances of the past, often dismissed as bodice-rippers. “I prefer to think about my book as a strong woman’s journey.” Her affection for her southern home, her interest in preserving it, the relationships between mothers and daughters, the insistence on moving past grief, even the wonderful food, serve the same underlying belief as the romantic interest, she said: “In the end, it’s all about love.”
