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novels

Paula Martinac’s Testimony

January 25, 2021 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

For much of her life, novelist Paula Martinac lived in either Pittsburgh or New York City, but she and her wife moved to Charlotte in 2014.  Since then, Paula has published three historical novels about lesbian characters who have Southern connections.  The first of these novels, The Ada Decades, came out in 2017.  Set in Charlotte between 1947 and 2015, this novel traces the evolving relationship between Ada Shook, a school librarian, and Cam Lively, a teacher in the Charlotte public schools.  In 2019, Paula published Clio Rising, a novel about a young woman named Livvie Bliss who leaves her home in North Carolina and relocates to New York in 1983 so that she can pursue a career in publishing and because she feels that she can live openly as a lesbian in New York.  Paula’s most recent novel, Testimony, came out this month from Bywater Books.  It tells the story of Gen Rider, a professor who teaches at a private college for women in rural Virginia in the early 1960s.   Gen’s career is threatened when a neighbor reports to the local police that she has seen Gen kissing a woman.  Testimony is a powerful story that underscores the destructive nature of LGBTQ discrimination that was commonplace in the South and elsewhere in America during the 1950s and ‘60s. 

Although Testimony is a historical novel, I think that it also speaks to contemporary issues and concerns.  I recently contacted Paula and asked her for more information about how this novel relates to our current situation.  Here is what she sent to me:

A couple of years back, I’d finished writing my novel Clio Rising, and I was toying with ideas for what my next book might be. In my research, I stumbled on an article about Martha Deane, a tenured professor at UCLA in the 1950s who was fired because a neighbor reported her “moral turpitude”—she’d been seen kissing another woman through the window of her own home.

As I looked more closely at the period, I discovered many stories about repression at universities. The infamous Johns Committee in Florida systematically rooted out queer teachers and students through the mid-1960s. The esteemed literature professor and scholar, Newton Arvin, a gay man, lost his position at Smith in 1960 for keeping a private collection of nude photos of men.

My novel Testimony took its inspiration from stories like Deane’s and Arvin’s. Their experiences highlighted the issue of who gets to enjoy privacy, and, at the same time, who gets to be public about their relationships.

It’s no coincidence that I started writing Testimony during a new wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment and activism. According to a report from Lambda Legal Defense, the Trump administration “ushered in a judicial landscape that is significantly more hostile toward LGBTQ people.” On the positive side, Deane’s story in particular spoke to the power of the support networks queer people and women create. I hope Testimony leaves readers with a sense of the LGBTQ community’s amazing resilience and also the importance of straight allies who speak up.

For readers who would like to learn more about Paula and her publications, please click on the following link:  http://paulamartinac.com/  For readers who are interested in taking Paula’s upcoming Charlotte Lit workshop called “Start to Finish: The 10-Minute Play,” please click on the following link: www.charlottelit.org

Like her character Gen, Paula teaches on the college level.  She regularly teaches creative writing courses as a part-time faculty member in UNC Charlotte’s English Department. When the publication of Testimony was announced to the members of the English Department last week, Paula was inundated with congratulatory email messages.  As a member of the English Department, I share my colleagues’ pride in Paula’s latest publication.  In fact, I think everyone associated with Storied Charlotte can take pride in the fact that Paula has established herself as one of Charlotte’s leading novelists. 

Tags: anti-LGBTQlesbian charactersnovels

Of Anchors, Books, and Juggling Women

May 17, 2020 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

My guess is that in other cities television news anchors and radio broadcasters don’t generally write books, but in Charlotte it’s another story.   This month Molly Grantham, a WBTV news anchor, published her second book, The Juggle Is Real:  The Off-Camera Life of an On-Camera Mom.  Grantham is not the only Charlotte-area anchor or broadcaster to have published multiple books.  Sheri Lynch of the Bob and Sheri radio show has also published two books, and the former news anchor Robert Inman has published numerous books.   

Grantham’s The Juggle Is Real is a follow-up volume to her first book, Small Victories, which came out in 2017.  In fact, both books share the same subtitle:  The Off-Camera Life of an On-Camera Mom.  Grantham wrote her first book while on maternity leave.  It started as a series of Facebook posts that she wrote on a weekly basis shortly after the birth of her second child.  Small Victories has a candid and humorous feel to it.  The Juggle Is Real is just as candid has her first book, but it is more serious in tone.  The book opens with Grantham recounting her visit with her dying mother.  From there she writes about experiences of juggling her job and her responsibilities as a parent while working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic.  Grantham includes lots of humorous observations in this memoir, but it is all set against the sobering backdrop of our current public health crisis.  For more information about Grantham’s books, please click on the following link:  https://www.mollygrantham.com/

Grantham’s two memoirs are perfect shelf mates to Sheri Lynch’s two books about motherhood:  Hello, My Name Is Mommy:  The Dysfunctional Girl’s Guide to Having, Loving (and Hopefully Not Screwing Up) a Baby, published in 2004; and Be Happy or I’ll Scream!:  My Deranged Quest for the Perfect Husband, Family, and Life, published in 2007.  Both Grantham and Lynch have a knack for writing self-deprecating humor, but Lynch’s humor is a bit edgier than Grantham’s.  Like Grantham, Lynch writes about the difficulties of juggling her family life and her career, but Lynch’s juggling act often doubles as a comedy act.  For more information about Lynch’s career, please click on the following link:  https://bobandsheri.com/bio/

Of the Charlotte-area news anchors who have also published books, no one can match the record of Robert Inman.  From 1979 to 1996, Inman worked as a news anchor for WBTV, but he took an interest in writing novels in the mid-1980s.  He published his first novel, Home Fires Burning, in 1987.  In 1996, he decided to step down as a news anchor and become a full-time writer of novels, plays, screenplays, and essays.  For more information about Inman’s books, please click on the following link:  http://robert-inman.com/about-the-author

Inman’s most recent novel, The Governor’s Lady, came out in 2013.  Like Grantham’s and Lynch’s memoirs, this novel deals with the experiences of a woman attempting to juggle multiple roles and expectations.  In the case of The Governor’s Lady, the central character is Cooper Lanier, the wife of an ambitious southern governor who decides to run for President of the United States. Her husband concocts a plan for her to succeed him as governor so that he can devote more time to his presidential campaign.  However, when she is elected governor, she finds herself torn between being a stand-in for her husband and following her own ideas and plans.  The result is a story that combines family dynamics and political intrigue.

For Molly Grantham, Sheri Lynch, and Robert Inman, the demands associated with their broadcasting careers have not prevented them from launching new careers as authors.  All three of them have written memorable books about the realities of contemporary women’s lives, and Storied Charlotte is richer for it.

Tags: family lifehumorjuggling lifemotherhoodnews anchorsnovelsradio broadcasters
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