Reading & Books - grace grits and gardening

Gracie Lee’s Mixtape

October 19, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

As a nine-almost-ten-year-old, Gracie Lee didn’t have much money but when she managed to save a little, she liked to buy a new record or two at Savage Tunes on Main Street. Most of the time, though, she was forced to listen for her favorite songs to be played on the radio. WHBQ in Memphis played the best music—mostly top forty—and unless it was stormy, clear reception traveled across the Mississippi River to her corner of Northeast Arkansas.

She liked country music, too. Daddy blasted everyone out of bed before sunrise with the music of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, so those songs grew on her.Continue Reading

meet Gracie Lee

October 7, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

It’s high time you officially met Gracie Lee, the nine-almost-ten-year-old protagonist of The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. Over the next two months before official book release, I’ll be talking more and more about her. What she likes and says and does.

So who is she really?

Let me start by saying it’s true, the idea of “writing what you know”. Gracie Lee was born from a compilation of true life stories, what began as memoir. So it’s only natural that we share many memories. But Gracie Lee is her own person apart from me.

She’s precocious and mature beyond her years. And brave when it counts.

She counts the days until her tenth birthday, certain that ten will feel different than nine.

Her Momma sees to it that she practices the piano, a complete waste of time in Gracie Lee’s opinion. Instead, she’d much rather learn to speak French, a skill she’s sure will help her someday when she has an important job working somewhere other than in Arkansas.

She still plays with Barbie, but tries to keep this from her Daddy.

As Gracie Lee lies in bed at night, unable to sleep, her mind is chock-full of questions and notions and secrets that churn like the nearby muddy Mississippi.

The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee is available to purchase via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Talya Tate Boerner
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:
The Five Stairsteps, Ooh Child

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Ozarks

September 12, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Confession: I was never a fan of Shakespeare. My introduction began in ninth grade with Romeo & Juliet followed by Julius Caesar followed by Macbeth. The door slammed shut senior year with Hamlet, and that was it. I don’t remember ever studying any other Shakespearean play or poem even during college. And shouldn’t a bit of the bard have been included within a Bachelor of Arts degree program? Alas, his absence was no great tragedy to me.

One of my clearest high school memories involved acting out the Macbeth witch scene with two of my best friends. Mrs. Key, our English teacher, was two-thirds drama teacher, so improv was always part of our curriculum.

Imagine if you will…
a dark, dank cavern (which was really a classroom in the Delta),
and in the center, a boiling cauldron (which was really a garbage can),
and around it, we girls with naturally stringy (midnight hag) hair
delivered our lines with much giggling (instead of cackling).

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Yeah, no. I stayed confused amongst all of Shakespeare’s methinks and hithers and hences.

Fast forward to Tuesday.

Thirty-five-some-odd-years later, I had a literary “aha” moment while taking a Shakespeare class at Olli at U of A. (I’ve talked about Olli before, which you ~~can~~ should read about HERE.) What perfect timing since my #NWArkCares blogger group is focusing on literacy in September. I’m not really sure why I signed up for this particular class other than the class description sounded interesting, plus if I’m being honest (and I am), A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always sounded a bit, well, dreamy to me.

So I did and I went and it was an entertaining and educational experience. Eye-opening, even.

Instructor David Jolliffe (whose impressive biography I didn’t know until know until now) brought Shakespeare to life in a classroom not unlike mine from the Delta. In addition to holding the Brown Chair in Literacy at the University of Arkansas and working as an English professor, he is active in the Classical Edge Theatre in Bentonville.

And my aha moment? It wasn’t that I enjoyed my Shakespeare class, although that was a bonus. It was that Classical Edge provides edge-ucation, student education and teacher workshops in area schools. Students have fun with Shakespeare, acting out the mob scenes of Julius Caesar, learning how playwrights and actors create comic plots and scenes. Classical Edge is getting kids excited about reading and learning and literacy.

That is huge.

No kidding, if I could feel warm and fuzzy about Shakespeare within the span of a two hour Olli class, I can only imagine the success this program is having within a school setting.

Now, it’s your turn to take action for arts and literacy and the good of all mankind.☺

a) Plan to see A MidSummer Night’s Dream to be performed in Bentonville at Lawrence Plaza (next to 21c Museum Hotel). Admission is Free. Take a lawn chair, food, drinks, blanket, etc. More info HERE.

b) Support Classical Edge Theatre by attending events. (Maybe even become a donor.) This group is doing good things in the area.

c) Become an Olli member by visiting the website HERE. Benefits extend well beyond classes.

Go get your Shakespeare on.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Get your #Shakespeare on! @theedgetheatre @learningisbliss #NWArkCares #NWArk [/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture Op.21 by Masur, LGO (1997)