-This is Steve Beverly asking for your help.

WLJT Channel 11, West Tennessee's home for educational and quality TV since 1968, needs your financial support.

We don't sell commercials.

Instead, we rely on donations from viewers.

Channel 11 is the most local station in all of West Tennessee, bringing you local shows about events, happenings, and issues important to West Tennessee.

It's really easy to donate.

Go to westtnpbs.org.

It's quick, easy, and secure.

Donate today and show your support for local, educational, and quality television.

Channel 11 needs your support today.

[music] -He had a dream to be a National Geographic photographer.

That dream is the basis for an incredible true life story from a Tennessee farm to becoming president of a global company.

Coming up next on Tennessee Writes, we meet Tennessee author Brenda Sellers, and we'll hear about her journey.

That includes caring for elderly parents, being a supportive wife to a veteran, and her hilarious travels of life journey.

-Books about Tennessee.

-Books that come from Tennessee authors.

-Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

-West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

[music] -We welcome you to Tennessee Writes.

I'm your host, Peter Noll.

Grab a cup of coffee, your favorite comfy chair, and get ready to dive into the world of Tennessee books as we sit down with authors that have a Tennessee connection.

Some are from here, others call Tennessee home now, or they've written stories with a Tennessee twist.

Today, Tennessee Writes welcomes an author who grew up on a Tennessee farm and went on to be a president of a global manufacturing company.

Please welcome Brenda Sellers.

Brenda, welcome to the show.

Thank you for coming on in.

-Thank you.

-Have a seat here.

-Thank you.

-Tell us, where in Tennessee did you grow up?

Where was your family farm?

-Okay, we grew up at a place called Prater Flats in Eas.. in Blount County.

-What about that upbringing on the farm impacts you today?

-Living on a farm, you learn to get up early.

You work all day.

Back before child labor laws, we actually worked in the fields all day.

I was learning to drive a tractor.

Daddy had soybeans and he did beef cattle.

That's what we did.

To this day, we had to pick okra and tomatoes.

To this day, I will not eat okra.

[laughs] -Even fried okra?

-No, because I had to eat okra.

I had to pick it, and it was so hot.

I said, "I'll never eat okra."

-You never have?

-I never have.

-You grew up in the farm, and then you had jobs like-- I heard you were a car detailer, was one of your first jobs?

-Yes, one of my first jobs was a car detailer.

Growing up with a farm and with brothers, we loved cars.

We had a love affair with the cars at a very young age.

Our farm was right through a dairy farm, and I had a white car.

Every day, I had to clean manure off my car.

I learned at a very early age to detail cars.

That ended up going into a car detail business.

-Tell us about your family.

-Okay.

I would say my dad and my mom.

I had two brothers, older brother and a younger brother, but I was the only girl.

-You're married now?

-Yes.

Part of my claim to fame and mentioned in my book is I raised 15 .. -Wow.

Tell us about that.

-These kids had families of their own, but we had one son, we call him the blood kid.

He's a rockstar in Nashville, but we had all these other kids and we fed them.

I'm a junk food eater, and so we fed all these kids and they came back.

From grade school to high school, college and beyond, I'm still helping and mentor these kids.

-Every single day?

-Not every day, but the girls and I try to go every year on a beach.. -Where did you go last year?

-We went to Panama City.

-Wow.

How many girls are going on this?

-This is about 8 of the 15.

-Where's this year's trip?

-We didn't do one this year, so hopefully next year.

-Where do you hope to go to next year?

-We try to go someplace different every time.

-Okay.

You grew up in a farm, car detailer.

You left the farm and what happened?

-I got a job as a receptionist.

For a farm girl that had to work out in the hot sun and pick okra, I couldn't believe that I actually got paid to work inside in nice air conditioning.

[chuckles] I went from the receptionist to the presidency'.. -That's stuff of legends.

How did you go from being a receptionist at a company to the president?

-Just working hard.

There again, it goes back to that farm ethic.

You just learn to work hard and set goals and try to achieve those goals.

-How long did that climbing the corporate ladder take you?

-I was at Chroma, which was the company that makes the little stick people.

-The stickers on the back of truck windows or cars?

-Yes.

I ended up working there for almost 40 years.

-You became a receptionist and then how many years later were you president?

-Probably 10 to 15 years.

-Wow.

You did everyone's job at the company at one time, pretty much?

-Not really.

I learned very early on to surround yourself with good people.

It was really the employees and our staff.

We had a lot of dedicated people that worked at Chroma.

A lot of that, I was just there for a good time, but we worked hard and we played hard.

-Now, are you still working there now?

-Yes, in 2020, Big Ed, my husband, that's a veteran, he's a two-time Purple Heart veteran, he was experiencing some severe PTSD and then COVID hit.

I ended up working at home, but that also was an opportunity to finish this book and get that completed.

-While a lot of people were binge-watching television shows on Netflix during COVID lockdown, you wrote a book?

-Yes, I'd been working on it for several years, but I finally got a chance to finish it.

-Your husband, veteran?

-Yes.

-Was he serving while you were married or was that before [?]

-No, he was a Vietnam vet.

He had already had served his time.

The people don't realize that even though that was a long time ago, something tragic can happen and bring all those PTSD feelings back.

Part of the story is, I wasn't going to tell his story, but it ended up, the first chapter, we're in an underwater hotel, we're scuba diving, he couldn't swim, he didn't know how to scuba dive.

Then he ends up being an instructor with over 50 certifications, but then he has a tragic accident.

That's told in the story too, but that brought all that PTSD back.

-Sure.

Channel 11 does a lot of work with the West Tennessee Veterans Coalition.

Even World War II veterans that I've met and spoken to, they still are dealing with what happened so many years ago.

Next month is Veterans here.

We do the parade and do some special features about that.

-Big Ed has his own fan club.

They even have buttons that say Big Ed Fan Club.

[chuckles] -Now, where did the Big Ed.. -Well, if you go on the website, and each chapter has its own episodes and its own chapters, so you can see the pictures, he was a big guy.

He was just a big guy.

It just stuck.

It wasn't derogatory.

It's just like, he's Ed and he's Big Ed.

He's just Big Ed.

-Now, when you're not touring with the book and traveling with the girls, what's fun to Brenda?

-Well, I have a lot of fun.

Every day's fun.

I make it sure that-- because life is too short.

That's part of my story.

My cousin died at a very young age at 23.

My grandmother died when I was 12.

I had a hard time understanding death.

I'm like, "Well, you need to live life while you can."

Then when I was 12, I had a pony accident.

It wasn't an accident, but it could have been a fatal accident.

It was where my adrenaline seeking came into because my mother was going to take a picture of me on my pony, but that pony had other plans and the pony went off, started jumping and bucking, but I held on.

My mother about had a heart attack, but to me it was adrenaline rush.

My whole life I've spent not only bungee jumping, skydiving, swimming with sharks, scuba diving with sharks.

That's how I have fun.

-What's been your most recent adrenaline ru.. -The most recent?

Driving down here.

I almost got rear-ended and had to go off road.

[laughs] -No.

Seriously, this morning?

-Yesterday, I came in yesterday.

-Yesterday, oh no.

-Growing up on a farm, we learned how to drive at a very early age.

I did Land Rover driving class and race car driving school.

That helped yesterday.

-Hopefully it wasn't in Jackson.

-No, it was not.

-Okay, good.

[music] -It's time that we talk about your book, You Slept Where?

Calamities of a Clumsy Businesswoman.

Give us an overview of the book.

It's got such a unique title.

What's it about?

-The book is like Dorothy.

I go all over the world, and I find that there's no place like home.

It's not just a travelogue that I do bizarre things.

I climb Mount Everest.

I do a lot of different things.

The story really is dedicated to my parents and Big Ed.

-Why did you dedicate it to your parents?

-Because they had to put up with me all my life.

My dad was from the Great Depression, and they're such a resilient generation.

-They're called the silent generation sometimes, because they got through stuff.

They didn't complain.

They didn't want credit.

They just got through it.

-They got through stuff.

It was so sad, because my mother was a sweet, timid, Christian lady, but then she got Alzheimer's.

Mama always said, "Just be nice."

That's why I always wear the "Be nice," shirt, because later on with the disease, Mama wasn't so nice.

-That's one of the things that happens with Alzheimer's.

-That's part of the story ..

It shows it's not just about travel and bizarre places.

It's about life, work, balance.

How do you run companies and take care of your own family, deal with your elderly parents, and raise 15 kids?

-So many of our viewers are in that sandwich where they've got their own family, spouse, kids, a career, and then their parents start getting older, and then they become a caregiver to them as well, and juggling it all.

You were doing it with laughs in your book.

-Yes.

Well, when I was dealing with mama, with her dementia, I would write the stories, and then I would read-- because mama was an avid reader.

I'd write the stories, and I'd read them to her, and then she would laugh.

Laughter really is the best medicine, because the Bible says, "Blessed be a merry heart."

We just tried to laugh.

-I'll have to remember that when I'm laughing at inappropriate times.

-Okay.

-Your family is woven into the stories about your travel.

Your travel gets jump-started by this quest to become a National Geographic photographer.

What was it about that goal?

-As a little girl, I always watched mama take pictures.

I grew up with watching her take pictures, but mama had some magazines that my aunt gave us from National Geographic.

I said, at 10 years old, I wanted to see those places, and I wanted to photograph them.

From that point on, at 10 years old, even with a Polaroid, back in the day, when you had a black and white Polaroid, I started taking pictures back then.

That was my quest.

That's where the list started.

I started making lists of trying to see all these places.

-Your family begrudgingly was very supportive, trying to get the polar bear photos, is one part.

Dad was looking, Big Ed looking, and they're like, "They're all blurry.

What's that a photo of?"

-[laughs] That's right.

-You kept going.

-I kept going.

I kept trying.

That was so disappointing.

That trip, we spent all that time and effort.

That chapter was a tough chapter, and none of my pictures turned out well.

Each time, I just tried to get better and better and better.

-What of all the trips that you've taken stands out most in your mind?

-Probably Mount Everest, because that was a hard trip.

Also, I don't remember three days on that trip.

[laughs] I've said my biggest accomplishment of climbing Mount Everest, that I didn't break a fingernail.

-Was that important?

Did you bring makeup and stuff along?

-Of course, I did.

[laughs] Yes, I did.

The goal was trying to-- I was trying to photograph one of the mountains.

People don't realize that Mount Everest is one of the natural wonders of the world.

I was trying to photograph four sets times seven.

Mount Everest just happened to be one of the natural wonders of the world.

-Is promoting the book hard, being away from Big Ed?

-He usually comes with me.

I do a lot of book clubs, and at this one book club in Johnson City, I forgot to tell them that Big Ed was coming.

They screamed when they saw him, because they had read the book.

They're, "Oh, it's Big Ed."

They ended up being in Big Ed Fan Club as well, and got a button.

-Are you jealous?

-No, not at all.

-You have all these women who are starting-- -Because he's got a little bit of dementia now too.

It was just a good pat on his back.

It was just a good atta boy for Big Ed.

-You mentioned lists.

That's a big part of your book, because at the end, you really want people to make their own list of things that they want to accomplish.

How did you become a list maker?

-I started very early on.

It seems like it was part of achieving and then being goal-driven.

I love my electronic devices, but it's something about the pen and paper, writing it down and then checking it off.

If I could have skydived on Mount Everest and checked it off the list, that would have been good, because I checked it off the list.

That's what I encourage people to do, because life goes by so fast.

Before you know it, if you don't write the items down and make a list, then life goes on.

-Do you think the art of making a list is getting lost in this digital world?

-Maybe.

You can mark it off digitally, but it is something about achieving it on paper.

That's why in the back of the book, I gave you your own-- Did you see in the back?

-Yes, you can tear out your own to-do list.

-You tear it out.

It was just a simple little template that makes you think, well, where do you want to go?

What have you always dreamed about as a child?

Is there any place that you wanted to go?

-Me?

-Yes.

-I'm trying to think, where did I always want to go?

Lately, I've been wanting to go to South Korea.

-Okay.

Write it down your list.

-Put it on my list.

-Put it on your list.

-That's as simpl..

Your book has a very immersive website companion.

It's almost like an extension of your book, "Not just trying to sell you more copies, but here's some more about the places that I mentioned."

Every journey that you've taken that you mentioned in the book, there's photos.

-Yes, and that was from the publishers.

That was very innovative, because if you tried to put all those photographs in a book, you'd have a $50 coffee table book that nobody cares about.

If you're reading through the Underwater Hotel or the Ice Hotel, you can go to that chapter on the website and see what tha..

-[?]

fun.

-It's very interactive with the reader.

-This is your only book so far?

-Yes, that's the only one that I have.

-Are you planning on doing more books?

-My goal is to get a streaming-- because each chapter could be a streaming documentary.

That's my next project.

I'm working on that.

-What advice would you give to someone who wants to write a book?

-You need to make a list and write it down and do it.

-The process of getting published, what was the most surprising thing to you?

-The hardest thing for me, because it wasn't my background, is I needed a lot of editing.

I had editing on top of editing, and I didn't know you had to have a line editor, you had to have a content editor.

There was so much editing going on, and then once the publisher got it, they do their own editing.

It's editing on top of editing, on top of editing.

-You got to go have a thick skin?

-Oh yes, but my business background, we were used to dealing with large retailers, so that did not bother me at all.

They're the experts.

-I think you've said that it was quite a long.. How long did that editing- -It was a 10-year process.

You can spend another 10 years.

That's the advice I'd give to others.

You could spend another 10 years trying to rewrite.

Ernest Hemingway did rewrites up to 56 times on one page.

56 times.

You could spend 10 years more writing.

You finally just have to cut it off.

-What is your hope with the book?

-That people live life, in life.

-Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't?

-The title.

The title is from my dad, because daddy could not .. being in that great generation, that I paid money and took time to go sleep in a silo, when we have a silo in our backyard.

I went to Quaker Oats Silo, and he's like, "You slept where?"

He could not believe you slept where.

-Where was the Quaker Oats Silo?

-It was in Ohio.

-Ohio, okay.

You've been all over.

Are there any states you've not been to?

-No, been to all the states and 69 countries.

Actually just got back from Iceland, so that's 70 countries.

-What was Iceland like?

-Iceland was cold.

It was cold, but it was wonderful.

I had a book signing there at one of the bookstores.

They brought their young daughters to see me, to meet up.

-In Reykjavik?

-Yes.

-How much fun.

-Yes, that was really cool.

[music] -Brenda, now we've come to the part of the show we'd like to call the Tennessee Writes Lightning Round, where we ask each author a series of book-related questions and see how many you can answer in two minutes.

If you can't come up with answers, say "Pass."

Are you ready?

-Yes.

-Okay, here we go.

Favorite book of all time?

-If Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries, Why Am I in the Pits?

-What book are you reading right now?

-Spare.

-Last book you finished reading?

-Was Spare.

-What book have you read multiple times?

-Oh, Gone with the Wind.

-How many times?

-Twice.

-What author, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?

-Erma Bombeck.

-Paper books or e-books?

-Audible.

-Audible.

First book you can remember reading?

-Harriet the Spy.

-On average, how many books do you read in a year?

-70.

-Favorite children's book?

-The Little Engine That Could.

-What book has most influenced your life?

-There's so many I can't really tell, but probably Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

-What book is on your list to read next?

-I have a lot.

A whole bunch.

-Name an author you most admire.

-Erma Bombeck.

-How many books are on your nightstand right n.. -Six.

-What book took you the longest time to finish?

-Probably Gone with the Wind.

-How long?

-Months.

-Do you own more paperback books or hardcover books?

-Hardcover.

-What's your favorite movie based on a book?

-I like the National Lampoon's Vacation and Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.

-How many hours a week on average do you spend time reading a book?

-Oh, probably 20 hours.

-Favorite place to read?

-I listen in the car.

-Least favorite place to read?

-The least favorite place?

At the dinner table.

-What's the last audio book you listened to?

-My own book.

-Do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?

-Nonfiction.

-Whose autobiography is your all-time favorite?

-All-time favorite?

I'm just finishing Barbra Streisand's.

-Name a fellow author you would like to go on a book tour with.

-There are so many.

I can't pick just one.

-What celebrity would you most like to co-author a book with?

-Matthew McConaughey.

-You did it.

Coming to the end of our two minutes.

-Oh, good.

-You did great.

[music] -Brenda, if people want to purchase the book, what's the best place for them to go?

-Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

-Okay.

It's hardcover.

Do you have paperback yet?

-I don't think so.

I think it's just hardcover only.

[?]

-It is available, audible.

-It's audible, yes.

-I noticed when I was listening to it, the narrator.. you share a name.

-Yes, that's my cousin.

That's Amanda Prater-Stribling from Nashville.

She's reading my book and also Dolly Parton's book.

-Wow.

Was she narrating before you became an author?

-Yes, she was.

That's [?]

-Oh.

That was a natural, "Hey, I've got a book, cuz.

Do you want to read it?"

-She did.

She's a professional actress.

-Great job.

-She does a good job.

-What's next for you?

Is there going to be You Slept Where Part 2?

-I don't know.

I'm trying to get it into a streaming platform, to a movie or some type of a segment [?]

because it'd make a good travel documentary.

It's dealing with parents, too.

-Sure.

If people want to stay in touch with you, your travels, do you have social media?

-Yes, I'm all over social media.

I have a YouTube channel as well.

Then on my website, just www.brendapratersellers.com.

They can look at all the pictures from the book.

-Okay.

Brenda, we have sadly come to the end of the show.

We do want to thank you for joining us here on Tennessee Writes and sharing more about yourself, your family, and your book.

We would like to ask if you would sign the book for us.

-I would be glad to.

I love the fact that you have a red Sharpie.

-They're important, aren't they?

-Yes, red Sharpies in Blount County, Tennessee.

I'm just going to sign this to PBS West.

Is it West PBS?

-West Tennessee PBS.

-Okay.

West Tennessee PBS.

I'm going to sign, Brenda Sellers.

I'm going to end with, and I hope you will, "Be nice," because Mama said so.

Okay.

-Great.

Thank you.

[music] -For comments about today's show, or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennesseewrites@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

-When my parents left us their home, we weren't sure what to do with the property.

-Do you have land, residential, or commercial property you're not using?

Donate it and support our station.

You may even qualify for a sizable tax deduction.

-It feels good to be able to give back, and they would have loved that, too.

-Your real estate donation can make a real impact.

Call us, toll free, or visit us online.

-The program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music]