[♪♪♪] -♪ Every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] -Welcome.

I'm Rose Martin, and we are Write Around The Corner in Keeling, Virginia with debut novelist, Bill Guerrant.

His story was inspired by a true clipping that he actually saw in the newspaper that read, who wants a seven-year-old boy or a four-year-old girl?

That's true.

The year was 1918, January 4th - could you even imagine reading something like that?

Hi, Bill.

Welcome to Write Around the Corner.

-Thanks.

It's great to be here.

-And thank you for inviting us here to your beautiful farm.

What a great location.

-Yes, we're fortunate to have such a beautiful day for this.

-And this was your family farm?

-Yes, that's right.

-So, when you transitioned, I know, I had read that you were an attorney in Tampa.

And the best thing that came from Tampa was your beautiful wife, Cherie, which we already had a chance to meet.

Is that true?

-Absolutely.

The best thing that happened to me in Tampa.

-Okay, that's a good, that's always a good answer.

But you always wanted to come back to your roots or to Southwest Virginia.

And so, this farm has been a part of you.

Did you grow up here?

-I did grow up here.

Yes, and I should say, when I moved away, I didn't necessarily expect to want to come back.

I just grew more and more homesick over time, and eventually really wanted to come back, and... -What was it about it that you missed?

-Well, I miss things like this, you know, the peace and quiet, nature.

I liked growing things.

I liked gardening.

I liked being closer to family.

I just liked being on a place that I felt I had roots.

This is home; there's an attachment to it that I didn't feel anywhere else.

And it took me 20 years or so to realize that, but when I did, I was really homesick.

So, it's great to come back.

-So, when you came back, so did you leave law completely?

And what kind of law were you practicing?

-Well, it was a transition.

I did commercial litigation, basically handled business disputes of intellectual property work.

But it was a transition.

For a while we just came back on an experimental basis.

I didn't want my children, who were, I think, 15 and 13 at the time, or Cherie, who had never lived anywhere other than California and Florida, to - I didn't want to move them here and have them hate it.

So, we came back and rented a place and just let everybody see if they liked it.

And in the meantime, I was commuting back and forth, and still working my job in Florida.

And after a while, the family agreed, Cherie and the kids, and as we all agreed, we did want to relocate here.

And so, I just continued to work at my law practice, kind of cycling out the cases I was handling and ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

But I commuted for a number of years, and then finally in the year 2010, I kind of cut the cord and moved back to the farm permanently.

-And talk about a total life transition.

So, from attorney in Tampa to now, I think, you call yourself gardener, goat herd and wanderer.

And we see the amazing goats behind us.

So, what has that done for your quality of life?

-Well, it took a lot of getting used to.

I was used to really high-stress life, workaholic lifestyle, and I transitioned that right into the farm.

I worked just as many hours, but I didn't feel as much stress anymore and overtime, I really - all of us, not just me, but Cherie and the kids as well - you know, we felt reconnected to here.

And then it's been good.

We transitioned to being organic vegetable farmers and had a good group of customers, and we're doing what we loved.

And Cherie plugged into the community with volunteer work, and eventually with a job for a nonprofit and everything went great.

-Well, and it certainly is beautiful - a little piece of heaven out here.

I can see why you wanted to come home.

But it was also important to make sure they had a buy-in too, that they felt that that was going to be home.

-Oh yes.

And if that had not been the case, if it was something that they didn't enjoy, or they were miserable, we wouldn't have done it, you know.

It had to be a family decision.

-So, then did you practice - because to go from being an attorney to farming had to be quite a change of life for all of you.

Did you, when you were growing up on the farm, was it an active still vegetable garden?

Or what was that like for you?

-Yes, well, it was a working farm.

But in those days, the farm was a tobacco farm, like most of the farms around here.

And when we moved back here, it was being rented and used as a tobacco farm.

And we didn't want to do that.

We wanted to transition to what we were calling at the time, chemical-free sustainable agriculture.

So, we had to heal the land and learn to grow without using chemicals, and it was quite a transition involved.

But that's what we did for the first few years.

It's just.

-And so, is it still an organic?

Do you still, are your vegetables organic too?

-Yes.

-Oh, wow.

-Yes.

And we're not certified organic, so we're not permitted to use that word in our marketing, but we use all organic practices.

-Okay, and when did the goats come?

-[Bill] Yeah, the goats were not originally part of the plan.

Our daughter really wanted to have a horse, so we had a horse, and her friend had a horse, and they were back here in the pastures behind us.

A friend brought me over a few goats.

I think it was two or three young females.

And he said here, just keep these goats.

Put them in your pasture.

They'll help you maintain your pasture.

Don't worry, they're not pregnant.

Well, they were.

Fast forward a few years later, we had 50.

But we love raising the goats.

And so, that's just been something we transitioned into.

It was never part of our original plan.

-[Rose] Well, I love being out here with them.

I love being on here with them.

So, when you made the transition from law to coming out here to be a farmer, when did the itch to write come about?

-Yeah.

Well, one of the things that I discovered is in the winter on a farm - well, I should say, first of all, there's work to do every day of the year.

You could always fill every day.

But in the winter, you had some downtime because the work that needed doing didn't have to be done that day.

The sun comes up later and it goes down sooner, so there was some time on my hands, and I thought I should use this time to try to write.

And so, my passion is history.

I thought I would write a book about history.

And I chose to start researching for a book about life in this community in the year 1918.

-But let me stop you there.

So, why did you pick 1918?

-Because I thought it would take me about a year or so to do the research and get the book out.

And I figured it would be published in 2018.

And I wanted to be able to say, this was a hundred years ago.

-Okay.

So, that was a very methodical process that you chose it.

-Yes.

-Okay, okay.

So, then you thought okay, I love history.

I think I want to write a book about our place.

And how did you narrow down the topic?

-Yeah.

Well, so fate chose 1918 for that reason.

Well, I knew what we all know about that year - the big things that happened in the world history and so forth.

But I didn't know what were people around here reading in their newspapers on a daily basis.

What were they talking about over breakfast?

It wasn't likely to be everyday: prohibition or World War One or the Spanish flu, or whatever.

So, I went to the library in Danville, and I got the Danville newspaper on microfiche, and I went to the year 1918.

And my goal was to read the paper all the way through January to December - making copies, taking notes, getting material for this history book.

-And you were set, ready?

You were going to go a whole year?

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

In fact, a lot of material, and I still do.

It's still a great idea.

But four days into the year, this paper, this article on the front page of the paper knocked me off my feet.

-And that just grabbed me.

So, that part of the story is true?

-Absolutely.

And that story about the woman who - it described her.

Her name was Rose Scruggs.

She was a widow.

It said she had a seven-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, and she wasn't able to care for them anymore.

And she wanted someone to adopt them so they could have an education, and the things children deserve.

And that's still, after all this time, that still moves me every time I tell that story.

And I was intrigued by it.

I knew I wanted to use it in my book to show as an evidence of life without social safety nets and so forth, but I could never find any more about them.

I don't know what happened to her or the kids and such an intriguing story.

What happened to her husband?

Why didn't they have any family to turn to?

And there was a little comment in the story about the chief of police vouching for her credibility.

Why?

So, one day, in fact, it was here on the farm, I was just out doing work and it started coming to me, a story started coming to me.

I reached in my pocket, and I pulled out my smartphone, and I pushed the button for audio recording.

And I dictated what would turn out to be the first episode in this book.

-Wow.

-Which is an old woman, angry that they had her brother's name wrong in his obituary, and I knew that woman was the little girl.

The brother was that little boy.

And for the next few weeks, I ended up over the next few weeks, dictating about 200 of those messages on my phone.

And before I knew it, the history story was gone.

And I had this idea to write a novel.

And that's what I did.

-Wow.

So, you actually told it, you actually said it out loud to an audio recorder first, before you ever put pen to paper or keys.

Did you use a computer or handwriting?

-I did use a computer and I didn't - it's not like I dictated the book start to finish.

Little episodes would come to me.

So, and I would say okay, a little episode, you know, when did Jim start calling Mrs. Wrenn mother, mamma, you know, something like that.

And it would occur to me that to do that, and I would dictate it into my phone.

I was very used to dictation, by the way, from my other life.

-Right.

So, there's a useful story right there.

-Yeah.

So, I sat down, and I started mapping it out on a piece of paper and then I sat down at the computer, and started typing it.

It took me less than two months, a few hours a day, and the only reason it took that long is, I don't type very fast, I mean, literally.

-Well, I read that about you.

-Rushed out of me.

-Yeah, so that is true.

It's just the story couldn't wait to just get out of you to write.

-You know, Rose, if I heard an author say this before it happened to me, I would be very dubious.

But I felt the story was coming to me; I wasn't making it up.

It was there and I was just writing it down -Almost the vehicle, right, the catalyst to get it on paper.

So, in that process, was it just constant writing during the day, during the night, or did they come in little episodes?

Because that's really a very quick turnaround time to be able to get this, flush out this story, which is beautifully written - I love the book - to get that on paper.

Is that really how it happened, that was in two months?

-It did.

I would set aside a few hours a day to write.

And sometimes, I would sit down, and then whatever the episode I was working on that day would be, and I did write, you know, from beginning to the end, the way it came out.

Sometimes when I was typing it, it would go in a direction I had not assumed it was going to go, you know, just felt like this is what really would have happened there.

And then that's the way it came out.

Now there were a few spots where I had to do some research - the farm life, things in the book, I didn't have to research because even when I was a young boy, my grandfather was still farming with horses, so I even knew that stuff.

But I've never worked in a mill.

I didn't have that background.

I didn't know that kind of thing.

And these days, research is so much easier than it would have been before.

So, when I needed to know, for example, what was a typical mill injury, I could literally, and I did, go to medical journals from 1918 and read articles about treatment of mill injuries and how they occurred and so forth.

If I needed to know what the phase of the moon was on a certain night, 100 years ago, you can go on the internet and get that information.

So, it's really neat.

So, that's what I did.

So, I plugged in the gaps where I needed research, with the research as I was writing, but it all went very smoothly.

I wish I could say that when I tried again, it was that smooth.

But it was just this book that came out that smooth.

-Yes, it was meant to be.

What about the editing process?

What was that like for you, since the first drafting, the first write was so easy?

Was there much editing even involved that you needed to do?

-I don't recall having to do a lot of editing other than - I was so used to having a secretary, you know, who's skilled and brilliant, and I wasn't.

So, the formatting was all messed up and things like that, so.

But as far as changing the content, not a lot of change happened.

There was editing to make the thing readable to someone other than myself, you know.

-Well, and I read that you gave out some preview copies to your wife and some friends and they were complimentary, but you weren't getting the really strong bolstering feedback that you thought you wanted.

So, you almost put it away.

-Yeah, yeah.

True?

Well, I let about three, three or four people read it.

And, you know, one was my wife, and of course, she said she liked it.

But I didn't think that was necessarily- -You didn't think you could trust her right, because she had to say that.

-So, I didn't know.

I didn't have a lot of confidence that other people would like it.

I liked it.

I mean, it resonated with me.

But whether it would resonate with others, I didn't know.

But I had one friend who reviewed it, who read it for me.

And I'm very grateful that he did because he said, "Bill, it would be a sin not to publish this book."

So, I said okay, I'll go forward, and I did.

-That's wonderful.

Well, there's a few others, Bill, who absolutely loved this book.

The first of them came from one of our viewers who sent me the book and who actually wrote this down - "Dear Mrs. Martin, I'm enclosing the book "by a local writer named Bill Guerrant.

"He is a lawyer by trade who lives in Danville.

"I loved this book - underlined - "and would really enjoy seeing him "on Write Around the Corner .

"I loved the story, "and especially loved his writing style.

"It's easy flowing, clever, gentle and a bit naughty.

"Please consider featuring him on the show.

Wonderful.

Deirdre Martin."

So, not only the viewers, but then some of the other reviews have just been amazing for this book - "A stunning first novel reminiscent of Jerry Archers' " Clifton Chronicles in Scope , "inspired by a century-old newspaper clipping.

"Guerrant crafts an epic story across generations, "rooted in the love and land and a neighbor "championed by Wendell Berry.

"Painted a beautiful, pained portrait "of the changing landscape of farming in the USA.

A remarkable achievement, highly recommended."

Another one - "This is one of the best books I've ever read.

"I found myself experiencing every emotion, "from anger and frustration to sadness and joy.

"I could relate to the characters, "and I haven't stopped thinking about them "since putting the book down.

"For me, that's what makes a great book.

Fabulous."

So, let's invite everybody who hasn't read it yet into the world of Jim Wrenn and the characters.

-Yeah, there's nothing more satisfying to me than hearing things like that, and it just makes you feel good that these characters resonate with other people, the way they did with me.

-Well, and, you know, it's part of because, I think I read that you said, you know, this is our life.

If people can find a piece of history that makes a difference so that they can feel like they belong, then that's what makes it so meaningful.

-Yeah.

And people in this area and who endured the things that typical people did, to be portrayed in a sympathetic way, not caricatured, not as a bumpkin, not as some sort of superhero, but actual people who had to go through very difficult times sometimes and very wonderful times sometimes.

-I think, and very hard working in a sense of such integrity, all the way through.

So, introduce us to the characters.

-Yeah.

Well, we begin with the woman, Rose Scruggs, whose story is told in that article.

And I begin by imagining how it is that she came to be in Danville and how it is she came to be a widow, and what the story behind these children were.

And what happened is, I went to - it's said in the article, she lived on Floyd Street.

So, I went there, and I found that approximately where she would have lived.

And I looked around and I just thought about it for a while, and I said to myself, I think I know where she worked.

And once I knew where she worked, I begin to say, I think I know how she came to be here.

And the story of the migration from the mountains to the Mill Towns, and from the little subsistence farms in the County to the Mill Towns is known, I think, throughout the South and once I had those characters in place, then I tell their story.

The first section of the book ends with the publication of that story in the newspaper.

And then I pick it up from there, what happened to the kids - this is all from my imagination, by the way.

-Which is a wonderful imagination.

And I think the fact that you had them change their names from Fuller and Lillie, because where they were going, they wanted to start a new life on their own.

And then she's faced with enormous heartache and heartbreak to where this life that they imagined isn't going to happen.

And she makes the ultimate sacrifice by putting this ad in the paper for her children.

And that just, I mean, it's sometimes you - it broke my heart; at other places in the story, I was cheering; at other places in the story, I'm like, yeah, you go.

Because it was great.

Okay, so after Lillie Mae, Rose needs to find someone to care for the children, who enters to take care of them?

-Henry Wrenn enters - an elderly farmer from the county, who was in Danville to sell tobacco.

And that morning, he's in the hotel, he's getting ready to go back home, and he reads the newspaper that morning and sees that article and decides to stop on the way home.

He was so moved; he wanted to just help the woman out, leave her a little money or something.

I guess I shouldn't necessarily say too much about what happens.

But his life at that point intersects with the lives of these little children.

And it turns out to be an enormous blessing for all of them.

-So, they go to live together.

And then we watch young Jim then grow into a very entrepreneurial guy who's a counted on man, who just really loves the land, really wants to be a part of the land.

And his sister isn't quite like him.

Is she?

-No, not from the moment they were born.

-Right.

They're both very, very different.

And his sister is Pearl.

-Pearl, yes.

-So, she lives a very kind of different life.

But Jim's an upstanding guy and he really tries hard, and he really works hard.

But he meets some characters along his life's journey that he wonders, is my life going to stay just solitary?

But he makes a difference not only in his community, but with a young boy.

How does that happen?

-Yes, so at the end of his life, his life now, as his life is coming to an end, intersects with a struggling young boy.

He's a great nephew of his.

And that enables me to tell a little bit different story and, that is, life in this community in the 1990s for those struggling with poverty, and ignorance, and so forth.

But Jim now once again, I think, for the second time in his life, sees an opportunity to find purpose and meaning in his life journey.

And it's with this boy, just as Henry Wrenn came into Jim's life and changed it.

So, Jim comes into Bobby's life, and helps change his life.

-And he does, and in a most remarkable way, but you threw us in a twist because even though Jim and his sister Pearl were raised by the Wrenns, there came a point in time where Jim also found himself having to go to work at the mill.

And we'll let the viewers go ahead and figure that out - why as an older man, he had to go back and work in the place that he had such terrible memories.

And that was something that was such a hard place for him as he grew up with knowing about his mom.

So, when you're spanning 100 years putting that story so seamlessly together, you had them as young children, you had them working at the mill, you had Jim growing up, and then Pearl kind of going off on her own.

When you came to the resolution of the story, what were the important things that you wanted to leave the reader with?

-Well, I didn't necessarily set out with that, a goal of that.

-Oh, you didn't?

Okay.

-But I think the things that the story says to me, that I hope will resonate with readers, is values of integrity, of hard work, of finding purpose and meaning in life, of the ability and of finding the fortitude to endure the things that this family went through, that Jim went through.

And I think, also, this love of land and place, I think, probably comes through.

Those are the things that come through to me.

I hope that readers will both find a story that's engaging and entertaining, but also a chance to reflect on some of the bigger issues that the story presents like overcoming adversity in life or finding a sense of purpose or being in a position to offer help when help is needed, and being in a position to recognize when help is needed and to take it.

You know, those are the kinds of things that I hope come through.

-Sure.

And they do.

I think that resonated with me all the way through, and your obvious love of nature and love of the land and the protection of that.

Would you be willing to read something for us?

-Oh, sure.

I'd love to.

I'd love to.

I have to put on my spectacles to read.

-Oh, okay.

-All right.

So, I'm going to read the section in Jim Wrenn, where Jim is now, a little Jim is now being mentored by Henry Wrenn, who's his foster father.

Okay.

"And so, the boy Jim shadowed the man Henry Wrenn every day, at first out of obedience to his mother "but soon because he came to love and enjoy farm work.

"A quick and eager learner, he soaked up everything "Henry could teach him, "and the old man had accumulated "wisdom of generations to pass on.

"That winter, they cut and stacked wood, "they built a new Curran barn, "they tended to the livestock, "they kept the cow milked and the smokehouse smoking.

"Henry taught Jim to hitch and harness the horse and mules.

"He watched with pride as the boy's capacity "for carrying pails of milk and buckets of well water "grew daily, "as he began to fill out the sturdy new work clothes "that Caroline had made for him.

"And when spring approached, they prepared a plant bed, "and they seeded the tobacco.

"And when the earth thawed and dried, "Henry taught Jim to plow and to prepare "a vegetable garden, and later, a tobacco field.

"And when the South fared, "he taught Jim how to cut the little bores, "and they built and repaired fences "and they hauled in forked hay.

"Henry taught the boy how to make and sharpen tools, "and he took him along "on his occasional trips to the depot store, "where he bought Guana and coffee and sugar "and 100-pound sacks of dried pinto beans.

"In an early summer, "Buck drew a plow through the red soil, "creating the beds and shaping the rows "into which they dropped chunks of seed potatoes "and beans and seedlings, tomatoes and tobacco.

"And in the sweltering heat of the long summer days, "they chopped weeds and squished bugs "and hauled buckets of water to thirsty plants.

"And they watched as their crops grew rapidly, "affirming the value of their labor.

"And when the tobacco began to ripen in yellow, "Henry and Jim pulled it.

"They broke off the ripe leaves and they laid them in a sled, "a sled that Buck pulled to the barn, "where Caroline strung the leaves together "and hung them on tobacco sticks, "which Henry in turn hung in the barns to cure.

"And when the barns were full, Henry fired them "and he and Jim slept outside under sheds "on the warm winter nights, "keeping the fires tended and burning.

"And from the gardens, they harvested vegetables "and from the orchard, fruit.

"They cut and shucked the corn and hay.

"By late Fall, the gardens were winding down "and the cellar was full.

"Henry taught Jim how to extract honey "from their beehives and once it was cold, "how to slaughter a hog and a steer.

"He taught him the stars and the moon signs, "what meant it was time to plant, "what meant it was time to harvest, "what meant it was time to kill a hog, "what meant the fish were biting "and what meant they weren't.

"Henry took Jim with him "when he carried the corn to the mill for grinding.

"When the air grew cold and wet for winter, "they worked in the packing barn, "stripping the cured tobacco and bundling it for market.

"On Sundays, they rest.

"And on those days, Henry told the boy "the stories of 150 years and beyond, "the stories that came with the farm "of the lives that finished in the graveyard "behind their house - "take care of this place, Henry often told him, "and it will take care of you.

Love it, and it will love you back."

-There's so much meaning and beauty in that passage, I think, from not only the enormous work that it takes, and his commitment to running a farm, but the life lessons he wanted to teach, to share but making sure that, you know, he respected and took care of it and took time and the love of the land.

And I love the fact that on Sundays, it was a day of rest.

And he had always promised his mom, right, that Sundays was a day of rest.

And I can see him sitting on that front porch, drinking that watermelon wine on Sunday nights as people came, you know, came by to Townsville to come by.

It's been a joy meeting you and I absolutely loved your book.

-Thank you.

And I think the message for a lot of people is going to be, you know, to make sure that not only do we continue to preserve and protect the land but take time for ourselves to heal and to recognize the things we can do for others.

Thank you so much.

-Oh, thank you.

It's been an honor.

-My special thanks to Bill Guerrant, and his wonderful wife, Cherie, for inviting us here to their farm.

You see the beautiful goats behind us.

It's been a great time, and also to Deirdre Martin for recommending Bill by sending us that great letter and wanting him on Write Around The Corner .

Make sure to stick around - we're going to do an extended interview with Bill, and also talk about another book that he has out.

I'd be grateful if you would share this information with your friends, share the link to this show and others.

And until next time, I'm Rose Martin, and I'll see you Write Around The Corner .

-♪ Every day every day Ev ery day every day every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ [♪♪♪] ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪ ♪ Every day every day Every day ♪ ♪ Every day I write the book ♪