I love hearing from readers! Last week I got an interesting email from a woman named Muriel who lived in Alabama in the 1960s. With Muriel’s permission, I’m sharing her letter:

Dear Shana,

I wanted to write and tell you how much I enjoyed your book. I found it
on the library shelf while waiting for my two precious granddaughters to
find books to read this past summer.

I was drawn to the book because we lived in Birmingham, Alabama while my husband was at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, College of Medicine for 5 years. We lived there from 1960 to 1965 during the civil rights movement.

We were in our church that dreadful Sunday morning when the 4 little
girls were killed in the bombing. We were one block away when that bomb
exploded. It rattled our church windows and caused fear in all of our
hearts. I gave birth to our second child on October 6th, 1963, 3 weeks
after the bombing. Six weeks later our president, John F. Kennedy was
assassinated. It was a very sad time in the history of our country!

I lived in New Jersey till I married so was not familiar with the laws
and rules of the South. I went to school with many African American
friends and thought nothing about it till I moved to Alabama and saw how
different things were there.

Thanks again for telling us about the “other side” of the story and
letting us have a taste of what they went through during those very
difficult years.

Sincerely,

Muriel

When I was writing A Thousand Never Evers, I had to figure out how a vegetable garden could grow in the middle of town without any of the townspeople seeing it. I was racking my brain, losing sleep, night after night, week after week.

Finally, I put in an S.O.S. call to Mississippi farmer Allen Eubanks. ”Hmmm,” he said and thought a millisecond. “Why not plant a wall of corn?”

“Would it still be taller than me even if I stood on my tippy toes?” I asked.

Allen, my hero, assured me that corn stalks could grow twelve feet tall or more. Still, nothing could describe the joy I felt when I saw those stalks with my own eyes, felt those husks with my own hands–row after row of thick beautiful corn.