number one hit song: Chewin' 'baccy and reading the Paw Paw Times

April 02, 2004

Chewin' 'baccy and reading the Paw Paw Times

In many senses, LaVonne Snowden is the literary world's Grandma Moses:

The dream, at first, was to get a high-school diploma. She would frame it and hang it on the wall for all the grandchildren to see.

But another idea came along to distract her: What about a novel, loosely based on her life during the Depression?

"I fell to writing, and all my schoolwork flew out the window," said LaVonne Snowden, 86, from her room at Madison House, a Kirkland retirement home. "It's the most wonderful thing, my book is."

And she wrote and self-published a 500-page book based on her childhood.

I managed to find another article about her here, but there's maddeningly little information about this book. I'm sure that it's not destined for literary shortlists, but I'd be curious to read it.

(Via Stephany, Maud's ever-reliable Friday guest.)

Posted by Dana at 11:04 AM

“I tell the story of what is actually happening and I interweave the spiritual things,” she says, emphasizing that she doesn’t preach in her books. Her characters live in the Ozarks during the Great Depression and have a deep, spiritual faith—as she does. “But you’re going to be surprised a little bit,” says Snowden, “because it’s a trifle racy. I wrote from the heart.”

*shudder*

Posted by: Fes at April 2, 2004 12:36 PM