What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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Crow Johnson Evans 'Me and Miss Henrietta' "Me and Miss Henrietta" started life as a short story in a 2012 book titled "Flights of Fancy," Crow Johnson Evans says. A lifelong singer/ songwriter, Evans started writing when she was living between Gravette and Decatur in Northwest Arkansas and caring for her aging parents. "I couldn't go do gigs when they were living with us," she explains, "and a story was a bigger canvas than a three-minute song anyway." Evans intended to turn the short story into a chapter book for children, but the characters took over, she says, and it became a young adult novel "that is actually for anyone from teens to about a hundred years old." "The book is about a friendship between a young girl — she's 10 when the book begins — and a really cranky old woman who lives out in the woods," Evans explains. "She's probably in her 70s. She doesn't like kids and doesn't want people around her. But they become really good friends and have a level of respect and communication that's unusual. They're really well matched. They get involved in all kinds of crazy things; there's some mystery in it and, thank heavens, humor." Evans laughs when she says "these characters are kind of pushy and now I'm looking at a full novel for adults. You don't mess around with Miss Henrietta, 'cause she's cranky!" 10 WHAT'S UP! APRIL 19-25, 2020 Matt Coleman 'A Rocky Divorce' Matt Coleman, who lives in Texarkana, says he wanted to write from the time he was 16. "I had a teacher who inspired me to write, who was the first one to tell me I was good at it, and when you're 16, anybody telling you you're good at anything fuels you," he remembers. "It also set me on a path to become an educator. I didn't anticipate that; I kind of stumbled into it. But I came from a family of educators, so it was sort of predestined." Coleman has been in education for 17 years, and it was during a post-graduate class that he started an essay about his first year teaching and thought, "Hey, this could turn in to something." He threw in a little mystery — something he'd always been drawn to as a reader — and his first book, "Juggling Kittens," was born. "I took the memoir side of things, and the humorous side, and inserted a mystery into it, and when I was finished, I thought it was something I'd pick up and read," he says with a laugh. The seed for "A Rocky Divorce" also came from real life — the experiences his wife went through when her first marriage ended. "Rocky is recently divorced, very anti-socialite, bubbly and witty and fun and likes to have a drink and have a good time," Coleman describes. "She's pretty snarky, but she also has a Sherlockian sense of observation and is able to suss out mysteries. After her divorce, her cousin, the Watson to her Sherlock, talks her into joining the Junior League. She's poking fun at it all, but her cousin wants her to look into string of home invasion robberies — because if she solves it, they'll be Junior League superstars. "It's been the most nerve-wracking experience of my life," he says of publishing "A Rocky Divorce." "It's out there, and people are reading it who are the basis for characters in the book. I'm always waiting on who I'm going to run into at the grocery store!" Meanwhile, Coleman is working on a followup to "Juggling Kittens." Matt Coleman is the author of "A Rocky Divorce." (Courtesy Images) GO ONLINE! Matt Coleman Buy "A Rocky Divorce" on Amazon, where the Kindle version is 99 cents during the covid-19 pandemic. Read more about Coleman at mattcolemanbooks.com. Books in Bloom Continued From Page 9 Mark Christ 'The War at Home' Mark K. Christ is a program director at the Central Arkansas Library System who has worked in historic preservation in Arkansas for nearly three decades. He is the editor or co-editor of many books, including "Rugged and Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas" and "I Do Wish This Cruel War Was Over: First-Person Accounts of Civil War Arkansas." "The War at Home" is a foray into World War I, including the works of nine authors collected from a pair of centennial symposia at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock. Christ did, in fact, have an interest in World War I himself, he says. His grandfather was a Doughboy and was wounded in a gas attack in France. But he also discovered that the war affected Arkansas more profoundly than he might have imagined. "Casualties of the war were substantial," he says. "More than 2,000 Arkansans died while in service, and almost 72,000 served." Mark Christ is the editor of "The War at Home." (Courtesy Images) GO ONLINE! Mark Christ Buy "The War at Home" at uapress.com. Crow Johnson Evans is the author of "Me and Miss Henrietta." (Courtesy Images) GO ONLINE! Crow Johnson Evans Buy "Me and Miss Henrietta" under the "mercantile" tab at crowspun.com. COVER STORY