Or at least it seemed like it: The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth was larger than life on the big screen, here in Chapel Hill at the Lumina Theater. The Thursday before the Friday premiere of the Water For Elephants movie (based on Sara Gruen‘s best-selling novel, Water for Elephants), Algonquin staff and members of the North Carolina literary community were treated to a preview screening of the much anticipated film.

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Gathering outside before the show.

Daniel Wallace, author of BIG FISH, with lovely wife, Laura

David Parker, Michael Parker, author of THE WATERY PART OF THE WORLD, Kathy Pories, Senior Editor, and Geoff Martin

Lawrence Naumoff, author of TALLER WOMEN, Haven Kimmel, author of THE SOLACE OF LEAVING EARLY, and Chuck Adams, Executive Editor

Ina Stern, Associate Publisher, and Jill McCorkle, author of GOING AWAY SHOES

Michael Parker and Lee Smith, author of MRS. DARCY AND THE BLUE EYED STRANGER

It’s the week between Christmas and New Years. The joy and excitement (and stress) of Christmas are over, but the decorations can still be left alone. For now, at least. The New Year is just around the corner, ready to be filled with resolutions and bold new habits, but right now they only exist as a list and you can savor the last few days of not going to the gym at 6 a.m. or whatever it is you promised yourself on that sticky note on your desk. It’s a good week for reflection, so we asked a few of our authors to tell us what the holidays mean to them. We’re excited to share five essays from them this week. We start today with Jill McCorkle.

My earliest memories of Christmas are those I don’t even remember–Kodak moments caught in family slides where the big bulb lights distort the print in such a way that all that is visible of my sister and me are our glowing eyes on a background of lights and the strands of silver icicles.  There are many such moments to follow of course and many tree versions, and yet, I never let go of the colorful bulbs and thin strands of silver. I think once artificial trees became available, we had one, and I was always so envious of the friends with real trees, especially flocked trees, especially the year one friend’s family had a pink flocked tree. First came the artificial tree and then the wave of all white lights. Then came those red satin balls. This would have been the same era when kitchen appliances were avocado green and harvest gold, people raked their carpet and Pintos backfired on every corner. My mother liked for those balls to hang in a uniform pattern and then to weave gold tinsel round and round equidistant from the balls. I could respect this, this need for order and symmetry and the great time and pain it took to get there, but it wasn’t what I had believed in so early. When I was eight, I decided I wanted my own tree and took a serrated steak knife and a small hatchet out into the woods along the interstate and got a little pine tree for our storage shed which had become my playhouse. I decorated it with silver icicles and cast off ornaments and aimed a flashlight so it looked like it was lit. This ritual continued for many years, satisfying my desire for a tree that was NOT orderly but looked like something that had just sprung from the earth, fresh and surprising. When too old for the playhouse, I decorated a plant in my room and then in college, my roommate and I always had a small tree–whatever we could find–even for that short bit of time during exams. As a grown up, I get a tree and get it up and lit as close to after Thanksgiving as I can. I can’t imagine not having a tree. I hear people talk about not wanting a tree because of the difficulty and hard work of it all and there is no part of my brain that understands this. It hits me the same way it does when I hear people talk about being tortured by writing. Damn. There is definitely a piece missing in that puzzle.  I have found that in sad or hard years, I have wanted and needed that Christmas tree even more. The tree serves as a kind of ritual focal point. I like to get up and turn it on before the day begins–colored lights and silver strands–ornaments that have stories and history–glowing in the darkness. It is a time to look at what has been lost or left behind and a time to look ahead to the unknown. There’s something in the glow that makes me nostalgic but also leaves me filled with anticipation. It makes me think over the years and make mental lists of those people I miss, those I plan to write, those I want to thank; making good on such thoughts is always my  resolution; some years I do better than others but the process and ritual remains. I realize I’m dangerously getting a little Hallmark here, but I’ll go for broke and say, I love my tree; I love the smell, and the sound of needles dropping onto packages below. I love how every year the tree is different, its weak spot turned to the corner and filled in with extra lights and icicles; its branches determining what ornaments best fit where, kid photos and home made things front and center. Something new always added.I always acknowledge how much I will miss the tree, especially those early mornings, but when January rolls around I am ready to let go and move on and get back to normal. I remove and box the ornaments, then I unplug and remove the lights; when the tree is tossed out into the yard, it’s branches still shining with silver threads, and I sweep up all the needles, I am already thinking of what I might do a little differently the next year–more lights? More icicles? Mainly, I just want more time sitting there in front of it.

Jill McCorkle is the author of eight previous books, five of which were New York Times Notable books. Two stories in Going Away Shoes were published in The Best American Short Stories. Winner of the New England Book Award, the Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature, McCorkle teaches writing at North Carolina State University and lives with her husband in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Keebe Fitch

Pittsboro is technically outside of the Triangle area, but it’s so close and has such distinctive charm that we consider it an honorary member of the area. Many Triangle residents make the short trip to Pittsboro to visit Fearrington Village, which boasts a 5-star restaurant, an enchanting inn, belted cows, and some of the best stores in the area–not least of which is McIntyre’s Fine Books. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve visited McIntyre’s and never wanted to leave–it’s the kind of bookstore that is so  incredibly cozy (including a fireplace) and inviting that you just want to live there. Owner Keebe Fitch–who, despite photographic evidence to the contrary, is not a monster–is in our bookseller spotlight today.

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What books recently rocked my world:
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
The Wake of Forgiveness, Bruce Machart
House of Prayer No. 2, Mark Richard

Best damn event we’ve hosted:
Toss up between Roy Williams for Hard Work and Jimmy Carter for Living Faith. Both had large crowds of very happy people in lines that moved quickly. Nothing is worse than a long, slow line of unhappy people.

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Most entertaining author we’ve hosted:
Roy Underhill of The Woodwright’s Shop on PBS. He has a workshop in up the road and had people laughing themselves silly for 90 minutes.

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Strangest question a customer has ever asked:
Had to ask Pete, and he reminded me that the oddest customer was a guy on the phone who wanted directions to traffic court. Turns out he was calling from Texas and became quite indignant when informed he was talking to a bookstore in NC. Pete thinks we should have suggested taking the next left and keep going straight.

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What makes our neighborhood and customers awesome:
As the store is off the beaten path, we are a destination for readers. People intentionally seeking out book browsing and advice. We are very fortunate to be in a community of great readers and have several retired devotees with lots of time/desire for books.

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I promise you won’t find this at any other store:
Our trademark black and white belted cattle right outside the front door.

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If I weren’t selling books, I’d be:
Probably teaching school.

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Books that changed my life:
Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

Top three authors, living or dead, I’d invite to my dinner party:
Jill McCorkle, Dorothy Parker, and Laurie Notaro

Top three songs on the soundtrack to my life:
One Way or Another, Blondie
Eight Piece Box, Southern Culture on the Skids
Will it Go Round in Circles, Billy Preston

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My last meal request:
A sandwich of prosciutto crudo and fontina on focaccia with a cold pint of ale or Rick Robinson’s steak frites.

Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr, and Land Arnold at Flyleaf Books. Courtesy of Chapel Hill Magazine. Photo by Briana Brough

The Triangle area of North Carolina—Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill—is famous for a lot of things:  stellar restaurants (three of which made Gourmet‘s most recent Top 50 Restaurants list), musicians (Ben Folds, Ryan Adams, Mitch Easter, James Taylor, The Connells, Squirrel Nut Zippers), authors (David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris, Lee Smith, Charles Frazier, Allan Gurganus, Kaye Gibbons, Jill McCorkle), and, of course, its basketball teams (Tarheels, Blue Devils). It’s also home to some of the best independent bookstores in the country–five of them in fact, each with its own distinctive charm. And they all pull in A-list authors for events.

This week we’ll be spotlighting all five of our local bookstores. You really can’t find better people than the owners and booksellers who work at them. If you ever travel to the Triangle, be sure to check them out!

First up is Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books, which opened just about a year ago and which has a gorgeous space conveniently located beside Foster’s, one of the most popular restaurants in Chapel Hill. Land Arnold, one of the three owners, took the time to answer a few questions.

What books recently rocked my world:
I’ve snuck in some backlist lately. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Such a talent. 1989 National Book Award-winner Spartina by John Casey. Tried to read it a dozen years ago and couldn’t get into it. Tried it again a week ago and I was floored–I like to think I’ve matured. But I haven’t matured too much because I also loved recently Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney, a memoir about the formation of counter-terrorism Special Ops written by one of the original unit operators. There’s a group photo of these guys and they all really do look like Chuck Norris.

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Best damn event we’ve hosted:
Has to be our grand opening. The place was silly with good cheer. At least 350 people attended –half in our event space listening to local luminaries Daniel Wallace and Nic Brown read from new novels, half having a cocktail party on our selling floor. And Jamie, Sarah, and I exhausted in some third, indefinable place.

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Most entertaining author we’ve hosted:
Not being the one that usually books author events (and after this, never again), I relented to an event with seven poets. Not an easy proposition with the best conditions, but it turned out that all seven poets were the same guy. He got improv actors to play the parts. Before the event happened I had half a mind to cancel it, there was so much confusion and intrigue, even involving a seemingly unrelated Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. But some people showed up. There were staged cell phone interruptions, alcohol consumption and a pre-event call from an Ivy League police detective.

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Strangest question a customer has ever asked:
I don’t remember exactly which two books she was holding, but it might as well have been War and Peace and Green Eggs and Ham, but the customer asked with utmost sincerity and curiosity, “which one of these books is better?” I tried to ask the usual follow up questions, like whom the book is for, etc. But she just wanted to know which book was better as if there existed empirical data that could prove one’s superiority.

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What makes our neighborhood and customers awesome:
I just grabbed a copy of The Best American Short Stories 2010 and we have three people that I’ll currently claim as local represented. If you cough without covering your mouth, you are more than likely to get an author sick. I always sneeze into my elbow crook, so as not to fell a future National Book Award-winner.

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I promise you won’t find this at any other store:
We have three functioning shower stalls, courtesy of a Ladies’ fitness center that preceded the bookstore. All three have the original dispensers filled with this magic liquid that acts as body soap and shampoo. A lot of sweat goes into running a bookstore, but with the aid of the showers, we hope people can’t tell.

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If I weren’t selling books, I’d be:
Exhausting my excitement of what I’ve been reading upon friends and family without recompense.

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Books that changed my life:
Two books jump to mind: GRE test prep–if I’d actually studied the math section, I might have gone to grad school instead of opening a store. In the introduction to one of his novels, Stephen King mentioned an author I mistakenly wrote down as Kirk Vonnegut. At the library I settled for Slaughterhouse-Five by this guy Kurt Vonnegut and novels have forever since made me feel blissfully unstuck in time.

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Top three authors, living or dead, I’d invite to my dinner party:
Oscar Wilde to pick the wine. Ernest Hemingway to bring the fish. Julia Child to pass the butter without reprimand.

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Top three songs on the soundtrack to my life:
I like sad songs, though by most accounts I appear pretty happy. “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” by Kris Kristofferson; “I See a Darkness” by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy; “The River,” by Bruce Springsteen.

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My last meal request:
If this is an awkward way to give me bad news, I vote my doctor for worst bedside manner. Otherwise, there’s this pb&j doughnut from a bakery in New York that might make me smile one last time when my time is up.

Jill McCorkle

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If you live in the Chapel Hill area, head over to Flyleaf Books tonight to hear Jill read from Going Away Shoes and sign copies at 7 p.m. Click here for all of the details.

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To give you a taste of this fabulous collection, read “Me and Big Foot” below. Hope to see you tonight!

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-Katie

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McCorkle gave a wonderful reading. A good author does not always a good speaker make, but she’s engaging and warm and immediately puts the audience at ease–like maybe we’re old friends. She read the story Magic Words, which is one of my favorites. It’s told from four points of view, which have been melted together in a meditation on what it truly means to say “please” and “thank you”. McCorkle described the format of the story as a compressed “landscape of a novel”; packing the punch of 200 words into 25. (Now, I’m going to link you to the full text of this story, but I recommend going out and getting the book, because the stories work together quite nicely and, if you like this, I guarantee there’s more in the collection you’ll want to read. Magic Words.)

Afterwards, she took the time to field a few questions. I was most interested in her advice to young writers, seeing as she’d done her first-ever reading on that same campus about thirty years earlier. “The more you write, the more you write,” she said. It’s not about waiting for the perfect story to spring from your head, fully formed, it’s about putting in the time, each and every day, and developing a craft. Sounds like a lot of work, but the post-reading queue of people waiting to have books signed is a testament to the fact that the woman obviously knows what she’s talking about.

-Susannah

Segue: SPEAKING OF NPR, I just love it. If you’re ever in the car, listening to mindless radio, and that Lady Gaga song comes on again, just make the change. Do something good for yourself. And that’s my Public Radio PSA.

Need a warm-up before Monday? Jill McCorkle was recently featured on North Carolina’s public radio station, reading from her collection of short stories, Going Away Shoes. Listen here!

-Susannah

Jill McCorkle has me thinking about shoes. Not styles and prices and the long-term benefits of arch-support, but more along the lines of, What are our shoes telling us? And what are they telling other people about us?

I just finished reading Going Away Shoes, a collection of eleven short stories about family dysfunction and the pitfalls of human relationships, all of which, in one way or another, reference footwear. McCorkle suggests that our shoes are more important than we give them credit for. And she might be right. They allow us to go out and do. Nine times out of ten, when someone asks, “You ready to go?” your answer is going to be, “Just gotta put my shoes on.” But they also define our limits. Wearing sneakers? Can’t eat at certain restaurants. Wearing sandals? Better hope it doesn’t rain. Wearing high heels? Don’t get chased.

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop, eyeing everyone else’s choice in shoes. That lady’s boots are out of style, but she’s sensible and warm and dry. Whereas, this other chick is wearing some sparkling sort of dress shoe and is probably getting a mild case of frostbite, running around in this weather. Oh, and there’s that guy, with the two-tone leather lace-ups that say, “I’m not a professor yet, but someday I’ll delight in talking over three-hundred heads at once.” Not to judge or anything, because I think, a lot of times, we wear the shoes of the person we want to be. I certainly do.

I remember being twelve and discovering the magic of punk rock. I was about as hardcore as a homeschooler, but I had my mom take me to the mall and I put down my $40 for a pair of black Converse. They were the first shoes I ever bought with my own money and they were too stiff and too clean to wear to school, so I just wore them around the house for the first few months—trying to make them look like they belonged on me. Or maybe, like I belonged in them.

The last story in the collection is called “Me and Bigfoot.” It’s about a single woman who comes to care for a stranger’s pair of work boots. Though she’s never even seen the boot owner, she thinks up the perfect man to fill those empty shoes and goes along as if the figment of her imagination were a real person; a real relationship. Normally, this would come across as pathetic or delusional, but in light of the previous ten stories (divorce, adultery, addiction, abuse) I think McCorkle is making a point about the true value in all relationships: Other people are only who you make them. Every day, we have to look at the piles of shoes by our front doors and decide how we’re going to love the people who wear them. We have to look at the shoes on our own feet and decide that we’re worth loving.

That may be a whole lot of meaning to assign to a silly pair of shoes, but from where I sit, snug in some black Converse, it seems like as good a way as any to examine life—and justify shoe shopping.

-Susannah

For Her

Going Away Shoes
By Jill McCorkle

Eleven short stories, full of longing and laughter, from the “guardian angel of short fiction.”

The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World
By Betsy Block

A humorous, life-changing book on mom’s mission to achieve the ultimate of all makeovers: improving the family meal. Complete with helpful charts, food lists, recipes, tips, and suggested culinary and farm programs for kids.

Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance
By Nancy Verde Barr

Casey Costello, an executive chef at morning television show, is too busy for men…that is until she’s unexpectedly whisked off her feet by the adorable Danny O’Shea, a rising chef from Ireland who seems like he may be more trouble than he’s worth.

For Him

Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court
By Roy Williams with Tim Crothers

An inspiring memoir from the head coach of the UNC Tar Heels Men’s Basketball team.

Boone: A Biography
By Robert Morgan

This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years.

Far Bright Star: A Novel
By Robert Olmstead

Napoleon Childs, an aging cavalryman,  leads an expedition of inexperienced soldiers into the mountains of Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa and bring him to justice.

For the Gardener

Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
By Amy Stewart

An A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

A Rose by Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names
By Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

With full-color art throughout, this eclectic little volume is a marvelous miscellany starring what is arguably the world’s most popular flower.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden
By William Alexander

Part humor tale and part garden memoir, The $64 Tomato follows Bill Alexander on his journey from organic idealist to pragmatic food producer, and from eager backyard gardener to tired gentleman farmer–taking time along the way to reflect on ecology, nature, and the meaning of it all.

For the Foodie

The Feasting Season
By Nancy Coons

Meg Parker is a harried mom in a lackluster marriage until she lands a dream assignment: to write a guidebook about French history. Follow her adventures as lamb daube, paella and rosé, bull steak and anchioade, Brebis and strawberries awaken her senses.

Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South
By John T. Edge

Spark a delicious road-trip with this guide to savory, Southern restaurants!

Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home
By Bill Smith

Structured around the seasons and the freshest seasonal foods, this cookbook offers up marvelously uncomplicated recipes— Tomato and Watermelon Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes with Sweet Corn and Lemon Beurre Blanc, Pork Roast with Artichoke Stuffing, and his signature dish, Honeysuckle Sorbet—the new bistro food of the South.

For the 20-Something

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small
By John Cook with Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance

The exuberant story–in words and pictures–of a much-loved indie record label that, despite the odds, has become a major success story.

Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers
Illustrated by Edward Hemingway; Text by Mark Bailey

The perfect blend of classic cocktail recipes, literary history, and tales of the good old days of extravagant Martini lunches and delicious excess.

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad
By Dan Kennedy

Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he’s directing a gangsta rapper’s commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy’s in way over his head in this power-ballad to office life and rock and roll.

For the Travel Enthusiast

A  Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure
By Marlena de Blasi

In search of the rhythms of country living, Marlena and her husband move to a barely renovated former stable in Tuscany with no phone, no central heating, and something resembling a playhouse kitchen. They dwell among two hundred villagers, ancient olive groves, and hot Etruscan springs. Together, they discover the soul of Tuscany and explore all the land has to offer.

Very Washington DC: A Celebration of the History and Culture of  America’s Capital City
By Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation’s capital city. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers.

New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
By Andrei Codrescu

New Orleans has been author Andrei Codrescu’s hometown for over twenty years. This collection of essays is an epic love song , a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

For the Pet Lover

My Therapist’s Dog: Lessons in Unconditional Love
By Diana Wells

An intriguing exploration into the rewards of relationships–both the canine and human varieties–begins when the author agrees to dog-sit for her therapist. What follows is an exploration of our canine connection: what we name our dogs, how we breed them, how we’ve explored the wilderness with them, the kinds of literature we write about them, why we love them, and, most important, what we can learn from them.

First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends
By Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis

A lighthearted romp through American history, packed with drawings and paintings from early America, plus photographs, starting with Abraham Lincoln’s Fido all the way to Obama’s Bo.

Enslaved by Ducks
By Bob Tarte

Bob gets more than he bargains for when he marries Linda and moves to rural Michigan: there’s Binky, a belligerent rabbit who craves high voltage wires; Ollie, a tyrannical parakeet who brutally attacks the Tartes; and Stanely Sue, the gender-bending parrot; and more. This hilarious account gives us the other side of animal ownership: the complicated logistics of blending species under one roof, the intricate routines that evolve before you realize it, and ultimately, the distinct and insistent personalities of every animal inside—and outside—the house.

-christina

The most memorable book I have ever given for a Christmas present is the wonderful edition of Capote’s story, “A Christmas Memory,” which Random House printed. The book came in a sleeve with a photograph of a very young Capote and his elderly cousin “Sook” — a photograph that is referenced in the story as one taken by someone traveling through, someone on the list of all those who receive a fruitcake from the narrator, “Buddy,” and his elderly friend. It is a beautiful Christmas story, one I read each and every year — sometimes alone, sometimes aloud to my classes, oftentimes both. I have given it so many times by now I can’t even remember when and to whom.

I have also given the VHS and then DVD of the film version starring Geraldine Page. I remembered seeing it on television one Christmas Eve when I was a child, but all I could recall was the wonderful narrative voice describing first the way the two made money for ingredients, and then the detail of the cakes they baked and where they sent them. I remembered that I cried and cried over the sad ending — one of those good cleansing cries, where you feel both uplifted and changed. For many years, I tried to figure out what I had seen and how I could see it again. It was in high school when I came across the short story and recognized from that first line: “Imagine a morning in late November….” and I knew I had found what I had been looking for. It’s a classic treasure, a great short story and one that I plan to keep giving.
– Jill McCorkle

From Bookreporter.com

Jill McCorkle is the author of eight previous books—three story collections and five novels—five of which have been selected as New York Times Notable Books. She is the winner of the New England Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. She teaches writing at North Carolina State University and lives with her husband in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Her latest book, Going Away Shoes is a collection of eleven stellar new stories about women in transition. Click through to the video on Forum Network to see Jill read an excerpt: