Good Reads from Goodreads!

Goodreads asked Ramey Channell:

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

   I've found that the best thing about being a writer is the connection to the reader, and to people who respond to the stories I'm telling. My poetry, short stories, and my books, Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, and The Witches of Moonlight Ridge, evoke an emotional response from the reader, and create a common ground for communication and sharing. I love the feedback I get from readers.


   

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

My own childhood is the basis for the Moonlight Ridge series. As a small child, I lived in the most magical, enchanted, and sometimes frightening place imaginable. And I had my best friend along for the adventures: my crazy cousin Willie T.!

What are you currently working on?

   I'm currently working on book three of The Moonlight Ridge Series. Book One is a summer mystery, Book Two, an autumn mystery, and Book Three is all about a cold, cold winter on the mountain and a Christmas mystery. If you enjoyed Earl Hamner's "The Waltons", Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn", and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", you'll be a fan of Lily Claire and Willie T. and their adventures on Moonlight Ridge.

goodreads

A good place to meet your favorite author and your next favorite book. 

New Review of "The Witches of Moonlight Ridge"

Thanks so much to the very talented Alabama writer, Mike Burrell, author of  the newly published novel The Land of Grace, for this review. Here's what Mike had to say about The Witches of Moonlight Ridge:

The setting of Moonlight Ridge is a pervading force in this charming novel. It’s a believable setting, filled with loving parents and happy, adventurous children. But it’s also a mysterious land of ruins, a magical forest, witches, sinister lawmen, KKK, monsters, all swirling in history, legends, and myths that its characters can almost reach out and touch.

The timeline of the story is also important in that the tale unfolds back in the 1950s in a Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn kind of world when parents didn’t hover over their children and think it necessary that every movement of their children be somehow supervised. An example is when the grandmother prepared a picnic lunch for the children and told them to go find the cat, knowing they would be wandering the woods all day. I’m not sure this could happen today, and I can almost hear readers wonder “where are the parents?”

The first-person narrator, Lily Claire, is a young girl. She’s convincing in her narrative and the wonder she finds in the world around her. She is drawn so deftly that at no time does the author intrude on Lily’s story. Her sidekick is her cousin, Willie T. All of the characters are sharply drawn, and the dialogue artfully rendered so as to project regionalism without implying ignorance. My favorite character, and the most complex member of the cast, is Erskine Batson, the garbage man/reluctant school teacher who falls in love with the beautiful witch, Evy. 

A delightful and charming story for the young reader as well as certain seventy-two year old men who enjoy a little magic mixed with memories of a rural childhood.

About - Mike Burrell

Ah minna hoe!

"Ah minna hoe! Ah minna hoe!" 

Can you translate these mysterious words into everyday English? When you read  Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, you'll know just what it means! 

Then, to continue the adventures and revelations, read The Witches of Moonlight Ridge, and find out how the legend and tragedy of Alfred Noyes' poem, "The Highwayman," is linked to the 1950s Alabama backwoods.

You may also meet the three weird sisters who are rumored to haunt the mysterious place called Cat Bluff, situated high above Moonlight Ridge and the pleasant town called Eden.

And what about that dog?

On the Trail of Treasures and Secrets from the Past

The first day of May in Montgomery, Alabama was such a beautiful day for me and my personal chauffeur, Susan Hoke Cleveland! We visited the Alabama State Archives for a day of research and a bit of sight-seeing. The Archives building and the research library are wonderful places to visit. 

The Alabama Department of Archives and History was established on February 27, 1901. According to the enabling legislation, one of the purposes of the department was " The collection of materials bearing upon the history of the state and of the territory therein from the earliest times." 

Here I am with a bust of one of my heroes, George Washington Carver. George Washington Carver was an American botanist and inventor,  one of the most prominent scientists and inventors of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute.

And here I am with Booker T. Washington. Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States between 1890 and 1915.

In one of the meeting rooms, Susan and I discovered a beautiful quilt collection. 

This quilt is called "Feathers and Flowers." 

*

My purpose for visiting the archives was to do research for the book I'm currently working on, historical fiction based on events taking place in Birmingham in the early years of the 20th century. The beautiful, indomitable, and intrepid protagonist of this novel is my always kind, always fun-loving, adventurous grandmother, born in 1890, who was instrumental in shaping my views on justice, fairness, good times, and good literature! 

My grandmother, Dovie Mullins Satterfield.

Check back for news and updates as the plot thickens.

Evergreen: The Beautiful Witch of Moonlight Ridge

Evy steered Willie T. and me over to the fireplace and we sat on the ancient looking cane bottom chairs, gazing into the dancing fire. The fire sure felt good after being nearly froze to death, tromping around out on the mountain all day. I could have gone sound asleep sitting up, right there in the chair. Willie T. kicked his legs back and forth, tapping the chair rungs with his feet. “We need to get out of here and head home, you know it?” he whispered nervously.“We need to take Erskine with us and skedaddle. Thangs is gettin’ weird.” 

Evy looked at me, then at Willie T. “Wait a bit,” she said in a soft, quiet voice. “I tell you a story.” 

Erskine made a noise behind us, and I turned around and saw that he had his clothes on and was sittin’ on the side of the bed, pulling on his brown leather work boots. When he saw me looking at him, he smiled and said, “I feel a little light headed, yet.” He stood up and ran his hands through his hair, causing it to fall into its normal uncombed arrangement. He stretched his arms over his head, then laughed and said, “Now people’ll be sayin’, ‘Erskine, you act like a tree fell on you!’ ” 

Willie T. twisted around and glared. “Everybody’s been sayin’ that already!” he chuckled. 

Erskine joined us in front of the fireplace and stood behind the chair where Evy was sitting, and you could have knocked me out of my chair with a feather when he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek!

 “So, then! Tell us that story,” he said.

 Evy drew a slow deep breath, and spread her hands like she was showing us the scene where her story took place. “It snowed early, that year. Cold moon, high in d’ sky, Harvest done come, and de witchin’ season about. An’ de man come ridin’ up in the moonlight, jus’ like always. Horse hooves clatterin’ on the hard road. Horse named Beauty, and de girl he love named Bessie. Daughter of ol’ Solomon Penny, landlord of th’ stage coach stop. Man on de horse a white man, highway robber name’ Tom Weaver, come ev’ry night to give his sweetheart a kiss . . . and sometime silver coins and jewels he stole off de stage coach.” Evy paused and touched one of the ruby earrings she was wearing. “Snowflakes be fallin’ soft on the mountain, early. This time, when Tom Weaver ride up to de place, militia be waitin’ for him for the bounty on his head. Bessie, standin’ at the window, see him shot dead on de groun’. Ol’ Solomon run out de house, hold up his hands to stop ‘em from shootin’. Dey shoot him dead right beside Tom Weaver.


“Militia mens take the body of Tom Weaver away, to get they bounty money from the governor. Leave ol’ Solomon Penny there on the ground in th’ bloody snow. “ Evy sighed. “Bessie bury him herself, behin’ the stage coach stop, an’ she carryin’ Tom Weaver’s baby. Tore de ruby earrings from her ears, thowed ‘em on the bloody snow. Leff’ the stagecoach stop, move up here to de bluff where nobody dare to touch her, evermore. Talk go aroun', said Bessie a witch. Ev’rybody ‘fraid to bother her.”

 Evy sighed again and sat up straight in her chair, smoothing her skirt with her hands. I felt like a big empty hole had come up, all of a sudden, in my chest. “Man led the militia, Holbert Tucker. Clyde Tucker’s mean ol’ great-gran’daddy.” Willie T. and Erskine and I all looked at each other. “Huh!” Erskine huffed. Willie T. was busy wiping his cheeks on his coat sleeve. After a while, Evy continued. “Clyde Tucker ain’t no bad man. But Safina Weaver? No … she won’t forget.” Erskine looked like he was studying the situation. “Well, I’d say that was a long time ago,” he said. 

“Long time ago,” Evy agreed, nodding her head. “But de memory still in de blood.”


Excerpt from
The Witches of Moonlight Ridge

Photograph from the Hugh Mangum Collection Used with permission from David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Duke University

Happy Thanksgiving from Moonlight Ridge

Thanksgiving Day came, cold and bright. Our little kitchen was crowded and cozy, everything smelled right spicy, and everybody was in a holiday mood, talking and laughing over the delicious feast.

Recipes from
"The Witches of Moonlight Ridge"

Hoppin’ John

½ pound bacon, diced

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp chopped parsley

Black-eyed peas, cooked and drained

Salt to taste (1 tsp salt for 2 cups dried black-eyed peas)

Cooked white rice

Sauté diced bacon, chopped onion, and chopped celery until onion and celery look translucent. Drain grease. Add garlic, parsley, and cooked black-eyed peas, simmer until peas are tender but not mushy.

In a large pot or bowl, gently combine peas and cooked rice, or serve peas separately over mounds of cooked rice.

Note: Before cooking dried black-eyed peas, sort through them thoroughly for tiny pebbles or other debris, then rinse and drain.

Note: Cooked ham, chopped, can be used in place of bacon. 

Raisin Biscuits

2 ½ cups unbleached self-rising flour

1 egg (optional)

Small pinch of salt

1/3 cup butter

¾ cup milk

1 tbsp unbleached sugar

1 ½ cups raisins

Preheat oven to 450°.

Sift together flour, pinch of salt, sugar. Cut butter into the flour mixture. Beat egg and add to the milk, stir into flour/sugar mixture. Add raisins. Turn onto well floured board, knead gently, using more flour if necessary for a smooth dough. Cut with small biscuit cutter and bake at 450° for approximately 15 minutes.

Persimmon Pudding

3 cups persimmons

2 cups buttermilk

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 ½ cups unbleached sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg ½ tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease a 4 x 8 x 12 inch pan with 1 tbsp butter.

Puree 3 cups persimmons, which will yield 2 cups puree. Combine puree with buttermilk. Beat stick of butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. In a large mixing bowl, stir the puree into the butter/sugar/eggs.

Sift all dry ingredients together and fold them into the persimmon mixture. Fill baking pan with mixture, place the pan into a larger pan and fill the larger pan halfway with warm water.

Bake uncovered for 1 ¼ hours or until the pudding is firm in the center and has pulled away from the sides of the pan, and a knife inserted into the center of the pudding comes out clean.

Serve hot with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

How to puree persimmons: Remove skins from ripe persimmons. Persimmons can be mashed through a colander, and seeds will be removed and left in colander. If using a food processor, remove seeds before processing.

Literary Event this Saturday at Pell City Library

I'll be at the Writers Anonymous
2017 Mid-Winter
Writers Conference

  

Saturday

February 25^th, 2017

8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Signing copies of 

The Witches of

Moonlight Ridge

 Come visit the library 

and meet lots of Alabama authors 

Pell City Public Library

(205) 884-1015

Pell City Municipal Complex

 1000 Bruce Etheredge Pkwy

 Pell City, AL 35128

Summer Reading - Sweet Music

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

An adventure is waiting for you on Moonlight Ridge!

Catch up with eight-year-old cousins,Willie T. and Lily Claire, 

in their summer escapades out on the mountain 

overlooking a small Alabama town called Eden.

Read Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge now, 

and get ready for book two, 

The Witches of Moonlight Ridge, coming this fall.

Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Typing, typing, typing! 

Book Two is coming along with quite a few surprises! Spring is here, and we're having stormy weather, but I'm tucked away, with a nice cup of coffee and a view of the green woods outside my back door. The Witches of Moonlight Ridge continues the story of Lily Claire and her crazy cousin, Willie T., out in the 1950s Alabama woodlands they call home.

In Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, (St. Leonard's Field 2015) the intrepid pair discovered a treasure map, solved a mystery, executed a daring rescue, and saved the day! Now, Lily Claire and Willie T. are once again exploring Moonlight Ridge and finding themselves up to their eyeballs in strange and wondrous adventures.

I'll post news and updates here, as the witching season, autumn 2016 approaches, and publication of The Witches of Moonlight Ridge draws near.

You can visit Moonlight Ridge on Pinterest.
www.pinterest.com/rameyc/moonlight-ridge

Moonlighting With Marsupials

I recently had the pleasure of attending the first annual Local Authors' Book Signing Extravaganza at Bessemer Public Library in Bessemer, Alabama. What an enjoyable day it was!

Couldn't take a live marsupial into the library, so here I am with Pascal the Possum, from my extensive collection of possumables.

I'm looking forward to an exciting autumn season and all the fun holidays ahead of us. Now is a perfect time to get your copy of the newly issued edition of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, and get ready for the sequel, The Witches of Moonlight Ridge, full of surprises and coming soon!

The Page 69 Test

Marshall McLuhan, the guru of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), recommends that the browser turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book. I applied the Page 69 test to my novel, and found that it works! Browse powerfully and read page 69!

                                Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge - page 69
                                                                       .

I woke up gradually, drifting in and out of sleep, the afternoon heat on me like a heavy wool blanket. My mouth was dry and I drowsily tried to remember the last time I’d had a drink of water.“Mama,” I mumbled, wanting to ask for a glass of water. But my lips barely moved and my voice didn’t work right because my mouth and throat were so dry.

My eyelids were heavy and hard to open, but finally I was able to focus my eyes on my mama. She was standing at the screen door with her back to me. She was talking to someone standing on the other side of the screen, and as I became fully awake I saw the uniform and heard the gravelly voice, and I recognized Clyde Tucker, the chief of police.

My mother’s hand was on the screen door, as if she intended to keep the tall, pot-bellied policeman out of her house.

“Well, Clyde, she’s been right there asleep in that chair all afternoon, right there where she is now,” Mama said.

Officer Clyde Tucker leaned a little to one side so he could get a better look at me, I guess. He looked right at me, his forehead wrinkled under the bill of his policeman’s cap.

“Don’t your sister have a little boy about that same age?” he asked, leaning a little further, his fat red face right up against the screen.

“My sister’s little boy is quarantined with the whooping cough! Clyde Tucker, don’t you come around here asking questions about our children! It sounds like you’ve got plenty to keep you busy without scaring our children to death. What in the world made you come here asking questions?”

*

Springtime Out On the Mountain

Oak Leaf Hydrangea on Moonlight Ridge

My Blood Kin

My cousin was named after our great-grandfather, William Theophilus Greenberry, who had been dead a long, long time when my cousin and I were born, and who had been a crazy man when he was alive. I don't know why, but it seems like our part of the country just breeds crazy people. We're from Moonlight Ridge, out on the mountain near a little town called Eden, Alabama.

Great Granddaddy W.T. Greenberry was a naturalist; he went on excursions, into the woods on Moonlight Ridge and all around Alabama, and wrote about leaves and weeds and flowers that he saw. He'd bring home specimens and try to get them to grow in his yard, and make up names for the ones he didn't know the names of. He perfectly loved a trillium! He always took a bottle of whiskey with him, and he always came home when the bottle was empty.

And Great Granddaddy W.T. Greenberry purely doted on possums!

Possum Love

Autumn on Moonlight Ridge

Ramey and all the Moonlight Ridge Possums have been very busy during this changing of seasons. With speaking engagements, book signings, and book talks in Vestavia, at the Mountain Brook Emmett O'Neal Library, and with The Pensters of Fair Hope, Alabama, we have met so many sweet folks who are interested in the magic and music on Moonlight Ridge.

Hope to have pictures posted soon, and good news is just around the corner! The second volume in the chronicles of Moonlight Ridge is in the works! News about the upcoming sequel will be posted here.

Wishing everyone Happy Reading for the holidays!

Sweet Music at Springville Road Library

This is your personal invitation to join us at the

Springville Road Regional Library

Sunday March 27th at 3:00 PM

for a special book program, discussion and booksigning.

Check out the announcement on the

Birmingham Public Library's Latest News, Reviews & Info

http://networkedblogs.com/eEZfM

Thanks to all my special friends and fans of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge.

I look forward to a fun afternoon with lots of smiling faces and maybe a few surprises.

Springtime on Moonlight Ridge

Goodness, y'all, it's March already! And in just a few weeks, I'll be inviting everyone for an afternoon program at Springville Road Library in Birmingham. I'll be there for a Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge event on Sunday, March 27 at 3:00 PM.

To check out the announcement, please visit Birmingham Public Library's Latest News at this address.

http://networkedblogs.com/eEZfM

Watch for updates as plans are finalized for this special event; there may be a few surprises as well as a surprise guest or two!

And I'll have a red calico Drunkard's Path Quilt, just like Lily Claire's, on display. The magic quilt fairies have been working overtime to help me get this treasure ready for our March 27th program.

Every time Lily Claire was tired, tearful, or had some serious thinking to do, she found the perfect retreat, on the sweet soft quilt her granny Rilla had given her.


I look forward to seeing everyone at the Springville Road Library for this afternoon of discussion, fun, laughter, and a celebration of good Alabama story-telling!