My name is Billie, Jim Proctor.

Hi, Jim.

Billie Letts is famous now for the words she writes.

This is a story about a Vietnam paraplegic who comes home after rehab and opens a drive in with car hops.

And what have you.

And this is the story about the pregnant girl whose boyfriend dumps her off at a Walmart in Oklahoma.

And she lives there secretly and has a baby there.

I have a wild imagination.

And that's my gift to you.

I brought it up.

You know.

That imagination became her defense against some of the words she heard growing up.

This is how she describes that time in the back of her bestselling debut novel.

I was an only child and an ugly one.

I had pumpkin red hair as untamable as tangled baling wire, buck teeth that overlapped my bottom lip, and so many freckles that my Uncle Ed call me speck and teased that I was the only girl in Oklahoma who had a dog prettier than she was.

Come on Buck, let’s go.

She lived in Tulsa, but spent her summers with relatives in the small towns north of there, up in the Osage Country, where even and admitted Ugly Kid could fit in.

My Aunt Zora, in a sincere act of kindness, tried to console me by telling me I was going to be pretty.

When I got older and grew into my teeth, a comment that left me mystified yet hopeful.

I was a mess, but the Oklahoma sun was warm and I was a kid with good friends and neighbors and relatives, and somehow I could always make them laugh.

A tap step here, a piano run there, and always the jokes, the laughter.

Even now, a lifetime later, Billie Letts, the bestselling author, loving wife and mother, still shields herself behind an old typewriter.

I can have characters say things that I could never say unless I made a joke.

Lord, we pray that you will bless this food for the nourishment of our bodies.

And we ask forgiveness, Lord, for the fornication that Mr.

Sprocket may committed this morning on this very table.

Amen.

Amen.

That's kind of the way I operate.

If it's if it gets too personal, if it gets too deep for me, I'll turn it into a joke, sort of turn it away from myself.

I don't want to deal with it.

It's therapeutic to write for me.

You know, a bad situation, a sad situation, something that a kid doesn't understand but wants to writing sort of help me to sort those things out.

I think it still does really.

And for some people, reading what Billie has written provides the same soothing, sad.

I was in Tennessee and the very first person in line.

Not that there were a lot in line then.

Wanted me to sign her copy where the heart is.

And it was just ragged.

And I said this, this book has been read several times, and she said, yes.

She said, I've read it 12 times.

And this was a rather unattractive teenager.

Her stepfather had brought her, and he was most anxious to leave.

I didn't I wanted to talk to her.

And I said, why have you read this book so many times?

And she said, I'm just like, novel.

She was a shy girl and so I signed the old tattered book for.

And she just hugged me and her stepfather.

Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, boys.

I'll never forget her.

Never.

There are a lot of them I won't forget.

She meets them at places like Tulsa's legendary bookstore and soda fountain.

Steve's.

So many tell me stories about connections to the book.

Either poignant, personal insights about where the heart is.

The coming of age novel about a 17 year old pregnant girl that became not only a number one bestseller, but a movie too.

Or they'll talk about just knowing they've been to the real Honk n’ Holler Cafe.

Morning on Tell Me.

I've been in the Honk n’ Holler.

Yep.

Yeah.

And though you change the name, I know it's in Sallisaw.

And another one will say, I know those people, I know them, they live in Henrietta, don't they?

Thank you.

Misterr Ed, have a good day.

Or Poteau you didn't you didn't give the real names.

But those people live in Poteau.

Or maybe Konawa down where highway 39 bends around the flowers in the flagpole in the center of town, we found what could easily be a real life Honk n’ Holler The faded signs and broken neon on the outside don't prepare you for how lively the filler upper can be on the inside, especially here at this middle table.

That's where all the world's problems are solved.

Right there at that table.

Every morning.

All the while, you can always tell Republican cows ears low.

And our they were.

Leo Wayne and Lauren Tiedemann and.

Oh, yeah, they're my buddies.

I come in every morning.

I like so yeah.

And every morning for 38 years, Alta Lunsford has been there to share a friendly hello, a hot cup of coffee and a smile.

She's a lot like a Billie Lett's character strong as black coffee and with a name not easily forgotten.

So that he was.

I didn't want people to forget who the characters were.

So if you've got a character named Vina takes horse, you don't have to go back and look and find out who she is and where she came from.

Sometimes the idea for who that fictional character is comes from the real life acquaintances of the author.

Novalee From Where the Heart Is was based in part on a former student.

And Fornie Hall, from where the heart Is was based on a man who worked in a used bookstore.

Can I come in?

And Boy Con from Honk n’ Holler was based on a Vietnamese refugee.

She met while teaching English at Southeastern University in Durand.

So yeah, characters are in part based on people I've known, but I add so much to them I they wouldn't recognize themselves, I hope, I hope.

What's your name?

Willie Jack Perkins.

You didn't even have to make that up, did you?

From the bestselling novel Where the Heart Is.

Billie Letts burst onto the literary landscape in 1995, when her first book was chosen by talk show host Oprah Winfrey to be an Oprah Book of the month.

Well, of course, I was shocked and, disoriented.

And I didn't know even how to respond when she called.

But, yeah, it changed my life.

And I'd always said, I don't want a book I write to change my life, but it happens.

Two weeks after Oprah told America about Billy's book, it was number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

A movie deal quickly followed.

Her husband Dennis, already retired from his teaching job, had started a second career as an actor and even got a part $218 deep pocket, 14 cartons of Winston Light 100 and plastic sack in the trunk of the car.

Bout the strangest damn coincidence.

That's exactly what someone stole from a 7-Eleven store about two hours ago.

Not to mention Jolene.

How old are you these day?

14.

Today, Dennis and Billy lead much busier lives than ever from their Tulsa home.

Quiet mornings together like this one are rare.

Dennis has been in more than 40 movies now, and Billie is beginning to work on her fourth novel.

Her third one is in stores now.

It's, of course, another Oklahoma story.

And, it has to do with, murder and kidnaping that took place in the back story before my book starts and, a stranger shows up in town.

And so the mystery of what happened to this, woman and, her child that is ultimately solved.

But despite new books coming out of her old typewriter, Billy's fans and sometime even the author herself are still enchanted by that very first story.

What they all wonder has happened to Novalee Nation for Annie Hall and Little America's.

At first, when I was asked if I would write a sequel to Where the Heart Is, I said, never.

And now, let's see, nine years later, I've heard from so many readers saying, please, please write a sequel.

I think, well, maybe I will, I don't know, I've got, I've got two more stories in my head.

And, if after that I'm blank and I feel there's nothing, nothing left of up here.

Yeah, I might, I might say I might give it a try.

Her fans hope she will because no one wants the story to end.

Now, when people ask me how to write a book, the answer's easy.

I don't know.

I only know how I've written two books.

I had stories to tell, and I began typing.