>> Hi, my name is Isabella Åhlen Jakobs, and I'm a senior at USCB.

What I liked most about the book was definitely that it had a mix between genres and that it wasn't just any type of story It was very conversational.

It was very easy to get into and it had a lot of a lot of building up to the characters.

So you had a lot of history too.

So you get to know, so you got to know them on a deeper level.

Leslie Hooton's writing style is very conversational.

I think it's very easy to understand and to be able to get along with the story.

>> I'm Holly Jackson.

Join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors as we sit By The River.

♪ opening music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

Hi, I'm Holly Jackson.

It's another beautiful day here at our waterfront studio in beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina.

As part of our love letter to Southern Writing, we are bringing you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors.

This season we are focusing on unexpected southern stories and writers and we are here with an author who is very special, and this is Leslie Hooton has written several books and here to talk about writing, talk about her books talk about where you're from.

That's one of my most exciting parts of today because you know, we were talking about the research we do before these things and whenever I watched just about 20 seconds of this video that you had done, I said, she's my people.

She talk, she talks like me.

She sounds like me.

and I think that we're gonna get along just great.

All right, Ms. Hooton, tell us a little bit about yourself just kind of who you are as a person and a writer.

<Leslie> Well, first you got to call me Leslie.

<Holly> Okay.

Okay.

>> Ms. Hooton is my mama, but I...grew up in a small town and I think, Holly, that is the greatest gift a writer can have to be born in a small town.

and I was born in a small town in Alabama, and I think the reason it is is because everything happens in a small town that happens in a big town except you go to school with these people you go to church with these people, you talk, you have a full blown conversation in the produce aisle at the grocery stores.

So, you know, you sort of know these people.

So I didn't realize, that I,... things were different or whatever, but I just I would go with my mother and observe all this and it just sort of went into my brain into I guess a vault, and it just sort of, it always came out.

and my parents were voracious readers.

My mother was a librarian and a teacher.

I mean, she was telling me about dangling modifiers when I was five which is not a very successful five year old, but you know, I'd write little diddies and she'd go, Leslie you know, you got so many dangling modifiers, you know, and I'm like, well let's start a band, you know, with all the modifiers.

But anyway.

<Holly> That was great.

<Leslie> She encouraged me to read and she encouraged me to write.

The problem with that is, I think there was, for me a cognitive disconnect between writing as a, as a hobby and writers, because I think we're five minutes into the show now, but I thought people like Pat Conroy were, you know, you had to be anointed as a writer and people like me, we just sort of we could write, that was fine, but we were not anointed.

So I just wrote, I always wrote, because when I was a child I had a lot of surgery, so I was sitting I had to sort of, I was forced to sit on the sidelines, and so I watched then and then I wrote little diddies for my mother to keep me company, because my characters were my friends and they would, they could be cool and they could do things that I would never do, and they were, could be uninhibited they could be this, they could be that, and so it then it flipped for me, I guess in my 30s.

<Holly> Whenever you kind of went through that transition of more for fun to, hey, let's get serious about this.

<Leslie> Yes.

<Holly> and make this something that I do professionally.

<Leslie> Yes.

<Holly> At what age do you remember people telling you that there might be a gift there?

<Leslie> Oh...early on, my teachers and my mother's best friends were teachers and they said, Elizabeth, that's my mother's name.

Leslie's really funny and Leslie's really clever.

and she has a way with words.

and my mother would say, "Oh, she can't spell."

But this was before the innovation of spell check.

Right.

So, you know, and I would say to my mother and my little, you know, 10 year old, "know it all" voice.

"Oh, Mama.

There are people for that."

<Holly> Right.

>> But there are people for that.

You're gonna have your, your army of people to help you with that part.

>>...so, and my mother's good friends would help me.

I mean, my mother said early on, red Ink is Love Leslie.

So she would send anything I wrote she would write all over it.

and she may not tell me she loved me, but man, there was an an ocean of red ink on these little diddies I wrote for her.

and so that, that had to be love, cause if there was red ink then that meant they could be better.

and that meant they could be corrected.

If there was no red ink, then they wouldn't, they weren't they had couldn't be good.

So I was... <Holly> and so she was investing that time into, correcting this at an age you've mentioned at age five.

Are we talking that early?

<Leslie> Yes.

<Holly> That she was doing that?

<Leslie> Yes.

>> Because, I started probably having surgeries when I was eight or nine.

and I could, and so when I was convalescing I would sit at the table either in a wheelchair or whatever, and I could, I could write.

and so that would,...I didn't like to color, Holly.

So I...wanted to get inside my head and, and so I wrote and so that's, that's sort of, it gave me an outlet for maybe the frustration I had by not, you know being on the sidelines- <Holly> Sure.

>> and not being popular and stuff like that.

So, and I would just observe and it, it, as I said it went into my little tiny brain, and I guess it just kind of came out.

<Holly> Well, it sounds like from just the very early moments of these, you know, dangling modifiers pieces that you wrote, that it was very therapeutic for you.

Do you still find that it has that effect on you?

<Leslie> Oh, absolutely.

When, and even though I started writing in an early age, I didn't get published until I was 60.

So I hope for any of you that are out there I can be a poster child for never giving up on your dreams, but when I was, you know, I was writing all this time and going to Suwanee and people kept saying, "When are you gonna get a book published, Leslie?

and I'm like, you know.

<Holly> Working on that.

>> When I was 60, my mother was dying.

This is gonna be a little sad, but I my mother was dying and my 25 year my 25 year marriage was kind of coming apart at the seams.

and so in the morning I'd be at a divorce attorney.

In the afternoon I'd be at the dementia center with my mother.

and I just needed something to make me feel good and and something to make sense to me to bring back beauty into my world, and enter Bailey Edgeworth, who is the protagonist in my first book Before Anyone Else, and I, she she sort of saved my life because I started looking at all these magazines and transformation and becoming who you are, and I thought, wow if rooms can be transformed, can people be transformed?

and by proxy, can I be transformed?

and so I...became very invested in writing before anyone else, not thinking it would be published but just something to soothe my scarred up little heart.

and so I did, I sent it out and my my reading committee loved it.

and they said, you need to send it in, and so that ended up being my first book.

<Holly> So have characters who you have created and written their story, have those characters inspired you motivated you, and in some way had a deep connection with?

<Leslie> How have they motivated me?

Well, Bailey, especially in the first book, not so much in After Everyone Else, but in the first book Bailey is fearless and she's got a lot of confidence, a lot of moxie.

She does not, she is from a family of men.

She doesn't want to be so-and-so's daughter so-and-so's sister.

and I related to that because I was from a small town and I was always so-and-so's granddaughter.

<Holly> Right.

<Leslie> So-and-so's That's how you're identified.

<Leslie> and I mean, totally identified.

and I'm like, I just want to be Leslie.

<Holly> Right.

<Leslie> Like Madonna.

So, you know, and and I don't want to be the special girl either, you know, and so I, when Bailey, I was able to turn around with her into having all this moxie into having all this confidence so much confidence that she went to New York with her talent and she believed in herself.

And...that's why I say Bailey saved my life because Bailey encouraged- I know that sounds weird- but Bailey encouraged me to be confident.

So I...thank Bailey for encouraging me to be confident, because here before I wasn't as confident, and I'm still a little on days.

I'm still like, Ooh, I wish I had Bailey's confidence.

<Holly> Right, but I just love, you know, you kind of have to think into layers here, but you know that's something you created that is is an inspiration for you, and I just think that's really beautiful.

Okay.

I want to talk about the whole small town thing.

We've...certainly gone into that some, but you know, these, the stories within here those of us who are from those small, small towns are like, oh yeah this could happen here or this may have happened here.

So, have you mimicked actual stories from that small town?

And are there people in that small town like, wait a minute she's talking about me.

<Leslie> Well, that is.

So, my second book is The Secret of Rainy Days and it's set in Erob, Alabama which is bore spelled backwards.

<Holly> Okay.

<Leslie> and I'm from a small town in Alabama, and so of course immediately when that book came out the guessing game started.

<Holly> Right.

<Leslie> So I...said that I have this committee that reads my books first and my best friend reads it.

and then my other best friend who is a guy, reads it, and he is someone I grew up with, from the time memory started.

<Holly> Okay.

So he understands.

<Leslie> and He also used to be president of Books A Million.

<Holly> Okay.

<Leslie> So he also has sort of a, he's not president now, but he used to, he, so he knows what, you know, books are, and so when I sent it to him, he goes, "Well, Les "you didn't even change our little stories," because we had little, we, he was my best friend.

I didn't know he was a guy, and so we just, we just had all these little adventures and we got into trouble and our parent, my mother our mothers would have to sit us down and say you can't do this anymore.

You can't... so we, we, they were harmless in retrospect, but.

<Holly> Right.

<Leslie> Our mothers thought we were probably juvenile delinquents.

<Holly> Right.

Big deal at that point, especially in a small town because everybody's going to be talking about those two little ones.

<Leslie> Yes, and they're like, "Oh gosh", and then in the book, there's a...scene where the, the guy gets shot, and my best friend when we were in the 10th grade, got kidnapped and shot.

<Holly> Oh, wow!

<Leslie>...so I didn't put the whole thing in because, but I...did put the - So, and, and he go, Lou was like I cannot believe you're writing all this.

I'm like, but is it, Is it a good story?

Because Holly, at the end of the day, I mean if you want to call me an author, that's fine.

If you want to call me a novelist, that's okay too, but I want to be a storyteller and I want you to want to sit with me or sit with my stories and go, "Ah, this is a warm hug", or "Oh, I know these people."

and some people from my small town were like, Leslie why did you call the town Bore?

I mean, we live here.

I'm like.

<Holly> Right, right.

<Leslie> Well, the rest of kind of liked it, so, you know, and I had to have a reason why the protagonist left, and I said, so that's why.

So they're still speaking to me, Holly.

<Holly> Good.

Good.

That's what matters.

<Leslie> But, and they made all these funeral casseroles when I came and because my mother was always, "Leslie, when you come home "don't forget to bring something that we can wear "to the funeral home.

", because she, you know there's always.

Did you did your mother do that?

<Holly> Oh, listen the lights are on at the funeral home, and then the call chain starts.

"Who died?

Who died?"

because the lights are on at the funeral home.

Oh, yeah, I know exactly what I told you.

We speak the same language.

<Leslie> Where are you from Holly?

>> Bishopville, South Carolina.

<Leslie> Okay.

I went through Bishopville on my way to Litchfield.

<Holly> Okay.

All right.

<Leslie> Stopped to the subway.

<Holly> Uh huh!

<Leslie> So you know, it just, it everybody, so my mother if I didn't bring home something appropriate, she was like rummaging around her closet to, to see what's you know, small enough that Leslie can wear.

So I mean, she would be most displeased and that would be the tenor of the conversation, if, you know, I mean seriously when I got off the plane, she'd go, "A, you're not in transitional clothing and... "you didn't bring something to the wear to the funeral."

I thought, Mama don't be so fatalistic, somebody may not die.

<Holly> Right.

>>She goes, someone always dies or somebody gets sick and you got to, so you know.

<Holly> This mom sounds like a character.

I hope that <Leslie> Sarge is- I call her Sarge because I do every - my being in this chair.

It is, is my mother's motivation.

She was not, I always wanted a mother who baked cookies and my mother said, I'm not that person.

I can correct your English papers but I'm not baking cookies.

and she made me tough.

I don't think I would've, you know, I lived on my own.

I live on my own now.

and I think I needed that that fortress building... that mother inspired in me.

So she wasn't a, a mushy mother, but I think she inspired in me a desire to be independent and to to accomplish the things that I wanted to accomplish.

So, I mean, getting a book published at 60, I mean I had to have some confidence between 30 and 57 or 50, whatever, that at some point it was gonna happen.

<Holly> Right.

>>So... <Holly> and you credit her to that.

So you're now in Charlotte.

So being in that big city, do you make yourself go to these small little towns in order to stay connected to that kind of, or do you have enough within you from all that as a child that you, you know <Leslie> It's... in my DNA, Holly.

<Holly> Right.

>> I mean, I...go back to my town is Roanoke, Alabama, and I go back there to see my friends and it is like, I've never left.

and I'm, I know, I mean, I I don't sashay in a town looking like some foreigner.

I know how to walk into town.

<Holly> Right.

>> And...pretty much what you see is what they see.

I'm kind of I think that's also what a small town teaches you, and that's probably why you're so good at your job is that you're a natural on TV as well as by, you know when the cameras stop rolling because you're from a small town and that's, you know, you just your mother would probably tell you don't be sashaying into town looking, you know doing to your, you know, whatever.

So I think that's a good, I think they small towns ground us and, and the people ground us and they, if we get if we get unmoored, they tell us, they...re-attach us to what's the, what are the things that are most important, and for me the things that are most important are my friends and my family, and the, and those basic goodnesses that we grew up with.

<Holly> Completely agree with that.

All right so, I want to talk about you, we talked about a lot about you as a writer, but you as a reader is reading still much part of your life?

and if so, what genres do you tend to cling to?

<Leslie> Reading has always been central in my life because I could always read regardless of whether I was recovering from something or... or healthy, and healthy is a relative term, but anyway, I could always read.

and my mother always was putting a book in front of me and I went through, from the time I was 10 to 13 I couldn't, I didn't want to read.

I'm like, well Mama, Joe and Little Women can go anywhere.

I can't go places, and she put this weird book in my hand and it was, we would call it Y-A now, but it was we called it adolescent fiction.

It was about a Lisa Bright and Dark.

It was about a schizophrenic.

and she wore bright colors on days.

She felt good and dark colors on days she didn't.

and I was, I'm like, well, she's worse than me.

I mean, dang, okay, these are my people.

<Holly> Got it going on.

<Leslie> Right.

Yeah.

These are my people.

So I'm like, "Do you have any books about drug addicts?"

Cause I'm not, obviously I was I was really, you know, naive and everything.

I'm like, I don't know, like the trajectory of where this is going, but I'm always reading.

and my mother's big motto again was they're never bad readers they just haven't found the right book yet.

and I, I read everything and and there are books that have just broke, you know broken my heart wide open.

But in breaking my heart wide open they have shown me a way to travel, and a book like that would be Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, who is Anne Patrick's best friend.

and she talks about how she navigated the world with a... facial disfigurement.

Well, Holly, that broke me open because it showed me that I can navigate my world with a physical one.

So I-books are amazing because if, if they can grab you in your heart, then you... see what's possible.

and I have been so grateful that I have read books that show me that what's possible and...I see that there's no limit to when I read books now I'm like, there's no limiting there's no limitations because you can go anywhere with a book.

<Holly> I love that.

>> you - I say that a library card for any mother out there get a library card because a library card is the passport to the world, and a passport to improving a child's education.

I may not be able to hike, well I can't hike Mount Everest, but I can go get a book and and into thin air and read it and, <Holly> and go there and do it through your- >> Yes.

<Holly> through your reading.

Absolutely.

I can go anywhere, you can go.

just give me the right book.

You may be doing it, doing it physically.

I may be doing it mentally but that's why books are, I'm so, I'm as a I'm...as passionate about reading as I am writing.

<Holly> And...you did mention the name Pat Conroy quickly and that's a name that so often comes up here on the set, you know, for several reasons as an inspiration to the authors and also because of our location here in Beaufort and home of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

But,...is he one whom you've read?

<Leslie> I have met him before.

Before I discovered Suwanee, I would go to this literary conference up in Highlands and Winston Groom, who wrote Forrest Gump would put on this thing and he would just put it on with his friends, and Pat Conroy was one of his friends, and Willie Morris who wrote My Dog Skip was there, and so I went one time and Pat did not disappoint.

He was, I mean, I was probably, I mean I guess some people would do that when they look at Harry Styles or they look at the Beatles or something.

I was like that was Pat Conroy and because what I discovered about Pat Conroy, he told stories around the table when he wasn't on a panel.

You know, I mean now you give him a good bottle of whatever he drank, he was gonna- <Holly> He was gonna keep going.

<Leslie> He...kept go.

I mean, and I'm like, how does, where did he get the energy?

He, I mean, how does he, you know, stay, I mean he was probably our generation's Hemingway and Faulkner who is of course my, my hero because I'm gonna go back to Erob more than one time.

<Holly> Right.

>>and I just, he was just larger than life, whether he was at a, a table, in a panel, or whether he was just drinking you under the table.

<Holly> Right.

<Leslie> and he could drink anybody under the table.

<Holly> All right, well unfortunately our time is up.

I just saw the clock hit zero, unfortunately, but I love this.

We've had a great conversation, and thank you so much for coming.

This has really been inspirational.

I think that a lot of people who are in, in that in that moment of, you know, wanting to make it happen but wondering when it will, a lot of motivation and inspiration they can get from your story.

So thank you for coming and sharing that.

<Leslie> and thank you for having me, and I love your studio.

<Holly> Thank you.

We're...pretty proud of it too.

and thank you everyone for joining us here on By the River.

I'm your host Holly Jackson and we love having you around.

We hope that you'll stick with the series.

Have a good one, and remember to come back to see us on By The River.

♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

♪ ♪