Today's special guest is Bonnie Stanard writes poetry,
short stories, and, more recently, historical fiction. Her three
novels began as one manuscript based loosely on slave narratives
collected 1937-38 by the Federal Writers Project and antebellum
diaries.
Stanard’s work has been
published in journals such as
The
MacGuffin, Slipstream,
Harpur Palate,
and
Kestrel.
In the 80s
while she lived in Brussels, Belgium she edited a magazine for
English speakers. On returning to the States, she
assisted/edited periodicals in Georgia, Virginia, and South
Carolina. She lives in Columbia. Her website:
http://www.bonniestanard.com. Her blog:
http://writepersona.blogspot.com.
Awards Won:
Third Place;
2013 Savannah Authors Anthology Contest
Honorable
Mention; 2011 USC Sumter’s Medical Humanities Writing Event
Second Place;
2009 Carrie McCray Literary Award
Honorable
Mention; 2005 Carrie McCray Literary Award
Finalist; 2008
Del Sol Press Poetry Book Contest
Winner; 2008
River Poets Journal Short Poem Contest
Winner; 2008
Ecolit Contest, Knock magazine
Pushcart Prize
nomination 2007
Finalist; 2008 Marsh
Hawk Book Contest
ABOUT THE BOOK
Kedzie, Saint Helena Island Slave takes place in 1857 on an island plantation in
South Carolina. The history of slavery impacts many Southern stories, and the
“facts” are still contentious. If you’re black you’re haunted by Uncle Tom and
the ubiquitous “Mammy.” If you’re white, you’re confused, if not embarrassed,
that your ancestors fought to preserve a culture of cruelty, ignorance, and
white male supremacy.
Wonderful and tragic
stories told by former slaves were collected by the Federal Writers’ Project in
1937 and preserved as narratives. These former slaves spoke of how they and
their parents struggled to keep their humanity. Many of them were courageous
and clever. In large measure, they inspired the writing of Kedzie.
How can a Southern white woman write empathetically and
authoritatively of the plight of a young slave girl and her master’s abuse in
the years immediately preceding the Civil War?
Stanard’s interest in the conditions and fate of South
Carolina slaves grew out of her family’s history of working the land in the
early 1900’s when descendants of slaves were
still trying to make their way as free men and
women. Thoroughly researched, Kedzie,
while fiction, is historically based and tells the story of what could have
been any number of young slaves girls in the years leading up to the war.
Kedzie, Saint Helen
Island Slave is one of a trilogy of antebellum novels written by Stanard.
AN EXCERPT
“Your pretty dresses won’t keep a
cat warm. Believe me, Kedzie, when your lips turn blue and you’re like a
shivering owl, you won’t worry about cutting a figure. You’ll be glad you got a
linsey-woolsey dress.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in one
of them,” she said.
“Where did you put your dress?”
“I threw it away,” said Kedzie.
“Throwed it away? What you talking
about?”
“I threw it away, Granny!”
Kedzie stalked out of the cabin.
Her blue dress had faded to gray and the bodice gripped her waist so tight she
couldn’t button all the buttons, but it bespoke what she wanted to be.
Kedzie wondered if religion could
make a difference. Maybe God could help her. She intercepted Iverson on the
street one day and said, “I want to ask about something.”
Iverson paused and waited.
“If I want to get religion, what do
I have to do?”
“You got to seek the Lord,” said
Iverson.
“How do I seek?”
“Some people call it going to the
wilderness, but you can go anywheres away from folks—in an old field or piney
woods or by the creek.”
“While I’m by myself, what do I
do?”
“You pray, child! Pray to God and
seek him with all your heart.”
Kedzie asked Granny how she’d known
when she got religion.
“I musta been twelve years old when
I started seeking the Lord. I heard people what crossed over the river say
different things. ‘God done struck me down,’ or ‘I been blinded.’ My brother
said he saw fire in the top of a oak tree. God talks different ways to people.”
“What did you see?”
“I did most of my seeking down by
Station Creek. On the night I come through, I was so tired and almost asleep
when I seen a white man standing out in the middle of the creek. I tried to
look at his face, but his eyes was so powerful I couldn’t look. He come up to
the bank and held his hand out to me. When I reached up and taken it, I felt
something like a warm river run into my arm. He told me he was my Father and I
was his child. He said for me to tell the preacher to baptize me.”
Looking for a place to seek the
Lord, Kedzie disallowed the best live oak, which grew by the sick house, for
too many people happened by. She wandered in the pasture, but the cows and
beefs watched her and she felt spiritual interference. The musty nature of the
hay loft irritated her nose. She wandered in the woods, came upon the brush
arbor, sat on one of the stumps, and began her journey to cross Jordan.
CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR
books are available at various sites on the internet, e.g.,
barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com
