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PAUL:

Some stories take a lifetime to write, and sometimes that's exactly how long it takes to get them just right.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today's show, we're sitting down with Jackson author Gerry Wilson, who published her first novel at the age of 82. She shares how her life in Mississippi

Her years as a teacher and her lifelong love of writing all came together to shape her book, That Pinson Girl, and what it means to find your voice at any stage in life.

Gerry, many writers dream of their first novel, and you've done it at 82. What does it feel like to reach this milestone at this point in your life? And in that, what have you learned about creativity and patience and persistence all along the way?

GERRY:

Well, Paul, I've learned some hard lessons about patience and persistence for sure. I did publish a story collection back in 2015 and I had sort of thought of myself as a short story writer only until I had the nudge. Somebody published a short story and his comment was, well, you know, this is a novel, don't you? This is the seed of a novel. And it's not this historical novel. was something else.

But yeah, I mean, I've been at this a long time and I actually wasted a good bit of time trying to get an agent. I went that route. I thought that was the be-all end-all of publishing. And then I just, I just quit trying for a while. And it was during COVID that I came back to this book. And I think it was because I'd already written in the influenza epidemic around that World War I time period where the story set. And then I think maybe it was because of the pandemic, of the COVID pandemic, that that story came back to me kind of vividly. And I've been away from it for so long. And I think that could be a good thing, especially when you're trying to write, to just take a step back and let it sit for a while.

And I really, I was able to get back into this and do some things with it that I hadn't been able to see how to do. I started checking around and I talked to some author friends who had published with small presses and got some recommendations and wound up approaching Regal House. And they are just wonderful. It's an all women run press in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ten years old last year. And so they're doing really well and they do a great job with their books and they're pretty highly respected. You know, that was an avenue that opened up for me. I always, try to tell other older writers too, that, you know, we have to be open to new routes and to doing things a little bit differently than we might've thought 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

PAUL:

And you've lived in Jackson for so many years too. And I think watching Mississippi evolve, but also seeing this long complicated history that still presents itself today: how has living here informed your creative lens, both in your book and how you view storytelling in general?

GERRY:

Well, I suppose my storytelling in general is just sort of steeped in this place. I have a couple of novels in the drawer, as we say. And they are both set in Mississippi too. One is set in the Delta, another is set in the hills like That Pinson Girl, the historical novel, is set in the hills of North Mississippi where I grew up. Of course, I left Pontotoc when I was 21 years old and married and moved to Jackson. So I've been in Jackson a lot longer than I spent those years growing up in Pontotoc. So I think I'm steeped in the history, I'm steeped in the literary tradition. I did a little event at Lemuria last night with Robert Busby. He was a young author out of Memphis, and he also grew up in North Mississippi, and his stories are set there, too. But I think the theme that became my goal was a kind of relevance, whether it's Southern story or not. Does it seem relevant? Does it resonate with where we are now? And in terms of Mississippi's kind of checkered and colorful past regarding history and politics, I hope that this novel and that my stories have something to say in this contemporary conversation.

PAUL:

That brings up a good point. In your book, That Pinson Girl, you bring 1918 Mississippi to life, but many of the themes like racism and poverty and division, you know, as we said, still echo in some places today. What gives you hope that that narrative is shifting?

Gerry:

I was a child of the civil rights era. I was at Ole Miss when Meredith enrolled. I had just started my senior year and that is all so vivid for me. I didn't witness anything because my dad actually got in the car and drove over and found me and said, ‘You're coming home with me.’ He had heard by the grapevine that things were not going to go well. And so coming out of that background, even with that background, I was a long time coming to terms with the issue of civil rights and racism. For me personally, I married young, I had a bunch of children, I was a stay-at-home mom. And it took a while for me to sort of wake up to the issues that we still have. Hopefully I am… I won't say I'm woke, but hopefully I'm awake to those things more now and I take them more seriously. I've been around a long time and I do see progress in a lot of areas. I just so firmly believe that the arts are where it's at. I want us to continue to support the arts in Mississippi to really keep those things relevant, too. Our arts efforts, I think, reflect a lot of our connection and relationship and can reflect our diversity. That's something our literary tradition has certainly changed in recent years. We have a relatively strong, diverse community of writers and artists now.

PAUL:

A lot of those writers and artists came up from from their school classrooms, their college classrooms. And you know a little something about that. Before turning to writing full-time, you spent years in the classroom guiding young writers and even creating writing programs. So how did working with students impact your own growth as a writer? And in what ways did their energy or perspectives influence you?

GERRY:

It absolutely turned me toward writing. I was a good writer when I was a little girl. I wrote a story when I was eight years old, a little mystery that my dad took to his good friend who was a mystery buff. And when Mr. Francis pronounced it good, I was just so thrilled. But I mainly wrote what I had to write, and it always came easily to me. And as I've already said, I had the interim of years when I was really busy with home and family and done with teaching. But when I saw the need, I thought for creative writing class in the school where I was teaching, I took that to the administration. I said, ‘I see so much just natural voice and creativity. It's not being tapped. You know, let me try this.’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ And then I said, ‘Gosh, what have I gotten myself into? I don't know how to teach creative writing!’ And so for the first couple of years, I sort of felt my way along. Did a lot of reading and study on my own and trying different things. And I think as I nurtured, tried to nurture the kids and help them break away from some sort of rigid patterns that had come to be what was expected of them in the classroom, I began to nurture myself. And back in those days, I would stay up and write till the wee hours, you know, after the papers were all graded, I was teaching English too. And after all those other responsibilities were sort of out of the way. That absolutely was a turning point. And I began to discover my own voice and let's try it to say, but it really happened. It really happened for me. It was a real turning point and I'm grateful for it.

PAUL:

Proving that it is never too late. So I want to ask you this question for aspiring writers, Mississippians, or people just navigating their own creative paths. What encouragement or wisdom would you offer through the lens of your own journey to help them inform theirs? I think you have to develop a tough skin and you have to develop that persistence. I reached a point where I said to myself, ‘I just have to do this.’ I want to do this, whether it ever sees the light of day for anybody else. I want to do it. I want to find some good readers I can swap work with. I want to get better, I want to get stronger, and above all, have faith in yourself. We can't always depend on somebody else to pat us on the back. Nobody's going to call us up more than likely and say, ‘Hey, would you like to send us a novel?’ That's just not the way it works. So we have to just keep at it, build a good community, whether it's two or three writers we know and trust or it becomes a broader community, which it did for me, a swapping manuscript with somebody in St. Petersburg, Florida back some years ago. If you can get into a workshop, there's the Mississippi Writers Guild right here at home that has regional activities and meetings. Google. Get out there and Google and find a way, find a way to make it work for you. Yeah, cause you can do it.

PAUL:

How has Jackson made you a better writer?

GERRY:

Well, it's good material. But it's also a really supportive writing community and just the arts community generally. I think that's meant a lot to me. Jackson's a good place. We are great lovers of Jackson and probably rooted in Jackson. We're rooting for Jackson all the time.

PAUL:

Gerry Wilson's journey reminds us that creativity doesn't follow a schedule. It follows passion, patience, and persistence. From Mississippi's rich literary traditions to the supportive arts community right here in Jackson, her story is a powerful example of what's possible when you keep showing up for your craft. We'll have links to Gerry's book, That Pinson Girl, in our show notes at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

Our podcast is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus, Dr. Rickey Thigpen, and I'm our managing editor. Do you want to know more about all of the great things going on in Jackson, Mississippi? Well, you can find that at our website at visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf. You've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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