2012 – Let The Good Times Roll!
I hope you have a wonderful 2012!
Here in Louisiana we’ll be eating black-eyed peas and greens, an age old traditional New Year’s Day dinner. Supposedly this assures that we will have a prosperous year ahead. The peas are for coins and the greens represent dollar bills. In parts of Cajun Country children will get treats of fruit, candy and other gifts from Le Petit Bonhomme Janvier (Little January Man). Trust Louisiana folks to have another reason to chow down on great food, and an extra day to get gifts! Laissez le bon temp rouler!
Creole Christmas
Going green for Christmas in Louisiana? Sure. We add lots of cute green alligators to our Christmas decorations! We eat mustard and collard greens as our Christmas day dinner. Oh, and don’t forget those years that we’re wearing short sleeves because it’s so warm, and the grass and leaves are still green. Yeah, it’s going green Louisiana style. Cut the lights? Uh… No. Possible. Way. We might change them to energy efficient LEDs, but we ain’t ditching our Christmas lights.
Natchitoches (nack-a-tosh), Louisiana is the oldest French Settlement in the state, founded in 1714. So no, it wasn’t New Orleans like a lot of you probably thought. The location where the movie Steel Magnolias was shot, Natchitoches is a beautiful little town steeped in history as you can imagine. The annual Christmas Festival of Lights is amazing. Y’all are officially invited to come on down along with the thousands of others who come from around the country, even the world, to enjoy them.
In the River Parishes bonfires are lit on Christmas Eve as a decades long tradition. We’re not going to give ol’ Santa any excuses for messing up and skipping over our state. Uh-uh. Elaborate wooden structures are lovingly constructed so they can be set aflame on Christmas Eve and get Papa Noel’s attention. Naturally there’s a festival that goes on before. What? You really thought we weren’t going to party until Christmas Eve? Get real, cher!
In case you haven’t noticed we tend to do holidays a little bit different down here in Louisiana. We stick huge syringes in our main dish meats, and we’ll have gumbo or a crawfish boil while other folks are eating more traditional holiday meals. So big surprise we created a whole new Thanksgiving tradition. No routine turkey for us. Uh, uh, baby. We got to have a turducken, a turkey stuffed with a duck. Don’t laugh, that Frankenstein sounding creation is tasty. Apologies to all the vegans out there. But the majority of us down here are still confirmed carnivores. Okay, open your minds to some diversity when it comes to good eating!
Happy Fall Harvest and Thanksgiving! Turducken Recipe!
Another tradition in Louisiana is seeing the big trucks loaded with piles of sugar cane. Harvesting of the sweet stalks begin in October. For me that has always signaled the fall holiday season. As a kid I remember chewing the sugary goodness out of those stalks. Delicious. Sugar cane stalks lining rural highways from the huge trucks is a common sight. Read the History of Sugarcane in Louisiana. We even have a Sugar Cane Festival – yeah, darlin’. This is Louisiana, we gonna have a band and parades for anything! Rockin’ Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters, and, boat and street parade floats. Mais oui, cher!
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Images from Past Sugar Cane Festivals. A party, y'all!
Tur What????
In case you haven’t noticed we tend to do holidays a little bit different down here in Louisiana. We stick huge syringes in our main dish meats and we’ll have gumbo or a crawfish boil while other folks are eating more traditional holiday meals. So big surprise we created a whole new Thanksgiving tradition. No routine turkey for us. Uh, uh, baby. We got to have a turducken. That’s a turkey stuffed with a duck. Don’t laugh, that Frankenstein sounding creation is tasty. Apologies to all the vegans out there. But the majority of us down here are still confirmed carnivores. Okay, open you minds to some diversity when it comes to good eating!
Happy Fall Harvest and Thanksgiving! Turducken Recipe!
Another tradition in Louisiana is seeing the big trucks loaded with piles of sugar cane. Harvesting of the sweet stalks begin in October. For me that has always signaled the fall holiday season. As a kid I remember chewing the sugary goodness out of those stalks. Delicious. Sugar cane stalks lining rural highways from the huge trucks is a common sight. Read the History of Sugarcane in Louisiana. We even have a Sugar Cane Festival – yeah, darlin’. This is Louisiana, we gonna have a band and parades for anything! Rockin’ Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters, and, boat and street parade floats. Mais oui, cher!
Images from Past Sugar Cane Festivals. A party, y'all!
Scary Places In Louisiana
The strange thing about Louisiana is that we’re solidly in the middle of the Bible Belt south. Yet we also have a strong cultural history of believing in the ghosts, goblins, and monsters. The two are not so contradictory if you think about it. The Bible is filled with stories of spirits and demons. Yet a recent trend is for churches to strongly preach against Halloween being celebrated as a holiday. The passage in the Bible that speaks against sorcerers and witches cited. So the idea of dressing up in costumes, and celebrating spooky stuff is seen as a really bad thing.
Still this is Louisiana, home of many tall tales of ghostly and paranormal goings-on. Though it’s whispered about, and no good church folks would admit to it, the belief in “hoodoo” and other practices lies just beneath the surface.You just have to know how and where to scratch. I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed Halloween as a child, and mama didn’t see anything sinister in us dressing up and bringing home lots of candy; other than the stomach aches we got from eating too much of the sweet treats!
Imagine my delight in finding a whole list of “ghost hunters” based in Louisiana. Ghosts N Specters, based in Houma, has a list of their investigations. One is an old jailhouse where executions were carried out. Spooky stuff indeed!
Cajun Celebration!
The Grand Reveil Acadien is going to kick off soon! Go visit and find out how they’re going to celebrate the history and culture of the Acadian people and their descendants.
Ah, Love!
Okay, I know it’s not spring. But love is in the air all year round, right? This video made me sigh, so romantic.
I found it at this blog post about the Beauty of Black Love. My own take on the whole “sad single black women” topic? We need to stop talking about “all the single ladies” options being limited to either/or in terms of choosing a man, race I mean. Instead talk about things like respect, admiration and being treated good as what we want.
Call Me Ms. Sleuth
By now it’s no secret that I love history. On my list of favorite fun things to do is watch The History Channel. Yeah, history geek here. Even more I love finding obscure facts about women who blazed trails for the rest of us. So when I found information on Bessie J. Blount picture my mind being blown!
Ms. Blount was an inventor and a forensic document and handwriting expert. The FBI turned down her application, but Ms. Blount didn’t let that stop her. She continued to work with law enforcement. In 1977 she was the first Black woman to train and work with Scotland Yard. One of her inventions is still used in Belgium hospitals to this day. At age 83 she operated her own business.
She faced obstacles and didn’t let them stop her. We can let roadblocks stop us, or we can blaze our own trails!
Keeping it Legal!
Author and lawyer Pamela Samuels Young writes legal thrillers that show us a glimpse of the legal profession from the inside out, and with flavor.
Counselor, present the facts:
Lynn: Tell us your background, and how you started writing.
Pamela: I’m a lawyer, writer, wife, step-mother and more! I always like people to know that I grew up in Compton, California. When I mention my hometown, some people automatically assume that I dodged bullets on the way to school every day. But my upbringing was nothing like that.
I had two strong, hard-working parents, who still live in Compton today. The foundation they laid — faith in God, hard work and education — is responsible for who I am and everything I have achieved. I am quite proud to be a product of Compton. I was always an avid reader, but I never thought about novel writing. I wanted to be a journalist and majored in journalism in college. I spent five years as a television news writer and associate producer before going to law school. It was after law school that I stumbled into writing legal thrillers.
Lynn: Have you written in other genres?
Pamela: Not yet. I’ve always enjoyed mysteries and so far that’s all I’ve written. I’d like to write some faith-based non-fiction books at some point. My faith is God is responsible for all I’ve achieved.
Here are links to my books.
Lynn: What was the spark that led you to write legal thrillers?
Pamela: When I finished law school, I developed a passion for reading legal thrillers. But I never saw women or people of color depicted as attorneys in any of the books I read. I would close the novels feeling satisfied with the story, but disappointed about the lack of diversity of the characters. One day, I decided that I would write the kind of characters that I wanted to see. In the process, I discovered my passion. At the time, I was an associate at a large corporate law firm in Los Angeles. Despite the demands of my law practice, I somehow managed to get up at four in the morning to squeeze in a couple of hours of writing before work. I wrote all weekend, in hotels, in airports, whenever and wherever I could find the time. I never really had a true passion in my life until I discovered mystery writing. I’m currently practicing law as an in-house employment attorney for a large corporation, yet I’ve still managed to publish four books in the last five years. Nothing short of passion made that possible.
Lynn: What’s the strangest experience you’ve had or witnessed as a lawyer, and did you put it in a book?
Pamela: In Firm Pursuit is actually based on a case that I tried, where a guy was fired for sexual harassment and sued the company claiming he didn’t do it. I represented that company and won a defense verdict. I used that case as the basis for In Firm Pursuit, but I changed the real story quite a bit.
Lynn: What’s the strangest question you were ever asked at a book signing or book event?
Pamela: Wow, strange question? I can’t think of anything. Perhaps the most moving experience at a book signing was twhen we were discussing Murder on the Down Low and a woman admitted that she feared that the man she had been seeing was on the down low. She was scared to get tested for HIV, but after our discussion about the book, she said she was going to get tested. That really moved me.
Lynn: What is the best thing a reader has said about one of your books or characters?
I loved it when a reviewer told me my books were like “John Grisham with a sister’s twist.”
Lynn: I like that one! Where and when is your next 1-3 appearances?
Pamela: On August 20, 2011, I’ll be at the Los Angeles Black Book Expo. On September 17, I’ll be the featured author at Ruth Bridges’ Literary Retreat for Women Who Love to Read in Savannah, Georgia. On October 15, I’ll be the Keynote Speaker at the Reading Divas Literary Brunch in Glenarden, Maryland. You can find a listing of all of my events on the tour page of my website at www.pamelasamuelsyoung.com.
Lynn: If you have book a book trailer for you latest book provide a link.
Pamela: I haven’t gotten around to a trailer for Buying Time. (So much to do, so little time!) But here’s a link for the trailer to Murder on the Down Low. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqd-KQKzhwM
Lynn: What is your final message to readers about upcoming books, advice to writers and links to your website, social media
Pamela: I’d like readers to know that I absolutely love book clubs! So if there are any book club members reading this, please contact me through my website. I’d love to attend your people via speakerphone, Skype or in person if you’re in the L.A. area. My next book, Attorney-Client Privilege, the next book in the Vernetta Henderson series after Murder on the Down Low, will go on sale next year.
For writers, I have two pieces of advice. First, master your craft! Take the time to study writing the same way you would study any other profession. Also, read like a writer. When you read a book you enjoy, study the author’s writing style and the book’s story structure. Ask yourself why the book was a great read.
Second, don’t let rejection keep you from pursuing your dream. Most successful authors experienced years of rejection. John Grisham, for instance, received 45 rejection letters and self-published A Time to Kill because people told him no one wanted to read about lawyers. How wrong they were! So if you think you have a marketable book, don’t give up on your dream.
My website is www.pamelasamuelsyoung.com. I can be reached on Facebook under my name.
Happy reading!
Smart, Innovative, and Tireless
Growing up I was surrounded by women who taught me a lot about making a way out of no way. Naturally the female protagonists in my fiction have those same characteristics, women with brains who work hard and look good doing it.
Which brings me to a woman whose story I never get tired of reading -Madame C. J. Walker. She was born Sarah Breedlove in a little place called Delta, Louisiana, which doesn’t exist now. Madame Walker made a fortune giving Black women what they want – ways to look good so they could strut their stuff. She transformed herself from an uneducated farm laborer and laundress to the first woman to become a self-made millionaire. Yet she also gave Black women a chance to make their own money. Her sales ladies were well trained, and given a chance to become businesswomen in their own right. A little known fact – Madame Walker pioneered the sales technique of home cosmetic parties for customers. Her 1917 Madame C. J. Walker Hair Culturists Convention may have been one of the earliest gatherings of female entrepreneurs in this country, possibly the world.
You can’t help but admire a woman who starts out with the odds against her, and beats them in a spectacular way. But there are many women like that who are not famous historical figures, and I’ll bet you know them. Feel free to post about them here so we can all be inspired.
Beating the odds? Priceless.
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