Meeting Rick Bragg

The Johns Creek Literary Fair buzzed with activity beneath the sprawling pavilion. I clutched a newly purchased biography of Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story to my chest, my heart racing as my friend, Millicent, and I inched forward in the signing line. Each step brought me closer to author Rick Bragg, and my practiced words kept dissolving in my mind like sugar in a pot of boiling water.

Curled up in a chair in my home, I first encountered Bragg’s first book, All Over But the Shoutin’, on a rainy Sunday afternoon around 2000 or 2001. From the very first page, his words reached out and grabbed me by the collar, pulling me into a world I knew intimately but had never seen captured so perfectly on paper. That first page talked about redbirds, and how they fight each other, and how they’ll fight their own reflections in a mirror sometimes until the mirror is smeared with blood. It was a common observation, but there was just something about his lyrical, raw storytelling that seemed familiar to me.

I read All Over But the Shoutin’ in less than a week, and deemed it one of my favorite books of all time, which propelled Bragg into the ranks of my favorite authors of all time. I’ve read most of his published work including Ava’s Man, The Prince of Frogtown, My Southern Journey, Where I Come From, and The Speckled Beauty. And I’ve listened to him read his own audiobooks, which is a real treat!

When he writes about his people, I see my people. When he describes Southern kitchens with their scents of cornbread and coffee, I smell my grandmother’s kitchen on Sunday mornings. His descriptions of proud, hardworking folks making do with what they had bring back memories of my relatives, who never met a broken thing they couldn’t fix or a hungry person they wouldn’t feed.

The Johns Creek Literary Fair was a free community event, and Millicent and I had the honor of listening to a question and answer session with Bragg, who was the keynote speaker that day. Now, standing three people away from his table, I watched him interact with other readers. It had been a poorly attended event due to some unpredictable weather in the area, and he wasn’t rushing anyone, taking time to really listen, his pen moving deliberately across each title page. His thin, silvering hair caught the September sunlight, and his easy smile made the knot in my stomach loosen just a bit.

Then suddenly, I was next. I stepped forward and placed the biography of Jerry Lee Lewis on the table before him. He looked up with the kind eyes I’d seen in author photos, and everything I’d planned to say evaporated like morning fog.

“How are you today?” he asked, his voice carrying that familiar Alabama lilt that reminded me of the South.

“Fine,” I said, watching him sign his name in my new book.

Then before I could stop myself, my words tumbled out like a waterfall: “When I read your stories and books, I see my own family on the pages and hear their voices. I think we are somehow related.” I felt my face flush hot with the embarrass- continued from page

ment of a crazy fan girl.

But instead of looking uncomfortable, Bragg chuckled warmly and looked up and smiled at me. “You know,” he said, setting down his pen, “that’s about the finest thing anybody could say to me.” He pushed back from the table a bit, as comfortable as if we were sitting together at a kitchen table somewhere, having a cup of coffee. “Where are your people from?”

And for the next two minutes, as the line waited patiently behind me, Rick Bragg and I had a moment. We talked about family — about strong mothers; drinking, gambling fathers; beloved grandmothers; and about Sunday dinners. And then I turned, found my friend, and she and I walked away.

That day, I realized that great writing isn’t just about stringing pretty words together. It’s about touching that universal chord that makes strangers feel like family. Rick Bragg’s stories have always done more than entertain me — they’ve given me permission to see the poetry in my own family’s history, to recognize the epic in the everyday lives of the people who raised me and others existing on the same Southern soil as me.

I try to do that for readers — connect them to memories, allow them to see beauty in the ordinary, and make them feel like they’re sitting on the patio with an old friend, sharing stories that feel like home. I realized years ago that I would never become rich from writing stories and putting words on paper, but there is some consolation for me — some small reward — in helping others glimpse the luminous moments in their days, understand the complicated love of family, and find words for both the profound and mundane moments that make up a life. Maybe that’s all any of us can hope for in this world — to strike a match in the darkness and help others see their lives with more clarity. I hope I do that.

Amber meets Rick Bragg.