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MEET KERRY MADDEN
by Bonnie O'Brian

What inspired you to write GENTLE’S HOLLER?

Kerry Madden

My husband grew up one of the 13 children, which meant his mom had babies in the 40s', 50's, 60's, and 70s'. She's a wonderful woman, Mama Frances, but I was always amazed at the sheer number of 13 kids and what that must have been like for all of them. I also grew up drawing pictures of huge families with sets of twins and triplets and naming them, just for fun, and then, a few years ago, I thought of writing GENTLE'S HOLLER. I also love the Smoky Mountains, and when I passed through the town of Maggie Valley on a cross country trip with the kids, I fell in love with the name. This was years before I ever decided to set a novel in the town. My husband is also the great nephew of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who was a song catcher and started the Mountain Dance and Folk Music Festival in 1928 in Asheville. I love the music of “Uncle Bascom” and my husband is an actor and storyteller and teacher. He is my first reader on everything. LOUISIANA'S SONG, the companion novel, comes out in May 2007, and JESSIE'S MOUNTAIN, the third in the Smoky Mountain trilogy, comes out in March 2008. I will be working next on the biography of Harper Lee for Penguin/Viking's UpClose Series for Teens to be published in 2009.

How much did your southern upbringing influence GENTLE'S HOLLER?

I think it had a great influence on the book. We lived in many southern football towns across the south including, Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, and later Tennessee. My father coached for four years at Wake Forest in the 1960s. I think, however, the biggest influence was coming back to Knoxville after I'd been away in England for a year as an exchange student. I didn't want to come back to the States - I wanted to live a dramatic life in a flat in London or on the moors in Howarth near the Bronte Parsonage, but I had to graduate from college, so I decided to treat my year in Knoxville like it was another year abroad. It made me pay sharp attention to language and speaking and manners, and I also fell in love with Southern writers that year. I later visited the homes of Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, and Carson McCullers. I haven't seen Eudora Welty's home, but I'd love to visit Jackson some day, and Yazoo City, Mississippi. My first boyfriend was from Chattanooga, so I got to know Look Out Mountain and Red Bank.

Livy Two Weems is an odd name for a main character. Can you tell us about her? My husband had a brother who died at birth named Alfred Kiffen, and when he was born over ten years later, they named him Alfred Kiffen too. I've always found this intriguing...and I've since learned that happened to Salvador Dali too...He had a brother who died named Salvador too. So I thought what if my girl, LIVY TWO, had a sister who died at birth...So she is really the second Livy, but she talks to the first Livy about her problems and dreams and wishes up in the red maple late at night when all the kids are asleep...That's why.

Why would kids like GENTLE'S HOLLER? I think because it's about a girl, Livy Two, who tells stories through music, and I am hoping the kids who read it may want to write their stories.

Are we going to hear more about the adventures of the Weems family?

Yes, Viking has bought two more Maggie Valley companion novels to GENTLE’S HOLLER. The first, LOUISE’S PALETTE, comes out in 2007, and the third, JESSIE’S MOUNTAIN, comes out in 2008. GENTLE’S HOLLER will come out in paperback with the publication of LOUISIANA'S SONG. I also have a rough draft of Emmett’s story told in his voice called GHOST TOWN DAYS, but right now I’m focusing on two more “Livy Two” books. LOUISE’S PALETTE opens the day Daddy comes home from the “Rip Van Winkle” rest home in Asheville, and Louise has painted the smokehouse full of murals of their family life to help him “get normal again” as he recovers.

What kinds of other books would you compare GENTLE'S HOLLER to?

I think it's a bit of WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS and WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM. It's also been compared to BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE. I was inspired by Loretta Lynn's music along with Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Lucinda Williams, and so many others.

Have you written any other books?

Yes, I wrote OFFSIDES, (William Morrow) and it was inspired by my childhood as the daughter of a college football coach on the move. It was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the “Ten Recommended Books for Mature Teens” in 1997. As a kid, I wore a lot of purple and white and red and gold as a child, depending on his team. I also wrote WRITING SMARTS, (AMERICAN GIRL LIBRARY) and it's a book about getting kids to write stories and poetry. My kids were great editors on that book and with GENTLE'S HOLLER too.GENTLE'S HOLLER is basically a twelve year old girl telling her story.

 Why do you think it's important for kids to have a chance to tell their stories?

I've worked with groups of teen moms who have been told all their lives "Don't use your big dictionary words with me!" I can't stand the chorus of naysayers who say, "You can't write that" or "Don't write that. It's too depressing" or "You think you're a writer?" I firmly believe that kids (and adults) should be encouraged to write and discover the stories within them. Brenda Ueland wrote IF YOU WANT TO WRITE, and it's a beautifully simple book about the writing life, and it gave me the courage to write OFFSIDES. I had never thought of myself as anything other than a playwright, and a middling one at that, so then I decided to write fiction. I have three unpublished books in the drawer, too, so I know rejection, but I teach the kids not to take no for answer - just keep going....keeping fighting to tell your story the way you want to tell it!

 You have a passion for helping kids tell their stories. Can you tell us about some of your experiences of working with disadvantaged children?

I loved working with Sally, my former teen mom, who now has four boys at the age of 27. I met her when she was sixteen and had one child. I naively thought that writing with her and taking an interest would be a kind of birth control - how dumb is that? But she's incredibly courageous and against all odds continues to raise her sons on her own, encouraging them to get an education. I've worked with large groups of teen moms, who saw no point in writing, but then the excitement would flare up in their eyes, and they would see the possibilities in telling their stories. I also had them write stories in the voices of their kids, so they could look at the world through their children's eyes. It's where I feel most alive - helping kids who would never have a chance to tell their own stories.

What advice would you give to kids who want to become writers when they grow up?

Don't let anyone tell you no...be aware with all your heart - to what you see, smell, taste, touch, and smell. Write because of the joy it gives you, and think of the stories you will pass down to your grandchildren. When I was in the mountains, I met an old birdhouse maker and former barber who said, "I have so many stories in me. Why didn't I write them down? Somebody told me to when I was young, and I didn't listen. So many stories. I should have wrote them down. Why didn't I? Maybe somebody else will - cause I sure can talk."

Where do you live?

Los Angeles, Ca, but I’ve made seven or eight trips back to the Smoky Mountains since April of 2005, and I so hope to one day live in the mountains. I wrote GENTLE’S HOLLER because I was missing them so much. I got to go there in my head every day.

What are your favorite books?

Short Stories of Alice Munro, William Trevor, Flannery O'Connor, Anton Chekhov, A LITTLE FRIEND by DONNA TARTT, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, ANNA KARENINA...A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN...UP AT THE OLD HOTEL by Joseph Mitchell...A DEATH IN THE FAMILY by Jame Agee...I could go on and on...

What are your favorite movies?

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, ELLING, BABETTE'S FEAST, THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS, FINDING NEVERLAND, MURIEL'S WEDDING, MEN WITH GUNS, PASSIONFISH, TALK TO HER, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER...I love movies...When the kids were babies, I often escaped to the movies to gather my wits and return again to motherhood.

Do you have children? What are their favorite books?

Three kids... Norah, age eight, loves to read stories with me, and she loves SWAMP ANGEL by Anne Issacs, MAX & RUBY stories by Rosemary Wells, THE SIGN ON ROSIE'S DOOR by Maurice Sendak, and everything by William Steig, and of course, fairy tales, Greek Myths, and poetry. She falls asleep with books all around her, and she has asked more than once why we did not name her "Rapunzel."

Lucy, age 16, loves the book SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson and ALL THESE GIRLS by Ellen Slezak and John Green’s LOOKING FOR ALASKA. She also liked PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, but she had no patience for the HARRY POTTER books or any other fantasy with wings...She loved A SUMMER TO DIE by Lois Lowry.

Flannery, age 18, adored every HARRY POTTER, and he's read THE LORD OF THE RINGS many times. His favorite current book, however, is a DAVID BOWIE book that tells everything you ever wanted to know about every single David Bowie song ever recorded. He loves Edith Hamilton’s THE GREEK MYTHS, and he could read them over and over again. He does not like MADAME BOVARY and can’t believe she’s behaving so badly. He gets enraged by books.

 Do your children help you write your books?

Yes...When Flannery was little, we created a character called THE JACARANDA WEREWOLF, a gentle werewolf who appeared when the jacaranda trees bloomed. Then Norah got interested in the story, and she and I began taking walks on the secret steps of Silver Lake to find the jacaranda werewolf, and Lucy said, "You should write that one down." Flannery wants to adapt some of short stories and novels into screenplays and thinks we should do it together. Lucy loves to write poetry and enter poetry slams, and Flannery loves to write songs for his band "The Flypaper Cartel." I used to tell Norah stories about Uncle Hazard in GENTLE'S HOLLER just to keep her in her car seat.