Writing – Karen L. Cox

Nearly four months ago, I sat down to write a blog about stepping away from my latest book project on the Rhythm Club fire. The pressure of writing it had become unbearable. I was literally in tears. In truth, I was the only one putting on the pressure and it was making things worse. Listen to the universe.

In the summer of 2019 I believed that my research was complete (it wasn’t) to begin writing the book. But that August I decided to write an op-ed on the two year anniversary of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally and the ruse of organizers who suggested it was about protecting the monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. That decision led me in an entirely different direction than the one where I believed I was headed. Listen to the universe.

After reading the op-ed, UNC Press asked me to consider writing a book on the history of Confederate monuments. I looked myself in the mirror and knew that I would do it but it meant shelving the book on the Rhythm Club. The result was a new book, No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice (2021). No regrets but there was still this nagging from the project on the shelf.

Four years and numerous talks, interviews, and essays on Confederate monuments later, I had yet to return to the Rhythm Club. Yet wonderful things had happened during that time. Serendipitous things. Things you wouldn’t believe unless I told you, so here goes.

In 2019 my mother, who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, had gone to get a pedicure. Sitting next to her was a Black woman who was from . . . Natchez. They struck up a conversation and my mother told her about my book Goat Castle, which is set in the city. Mom also wrote down the woman’s name and number so I could reach out to her. She told me the woman’s name was Ora Frazier. Her last name was very familiar to me. The man who operated the Rhythm Club on the night of the fire was Ed Frazier. My gut told me there was a connection and indeed there was. Ora’s husband, now deceased, was Ed’s son. This led to an oral history with Mrs. Frazier and photos I’d never seen of her late husband’s father. Listen to the universe.

Then, in the spring of 2021, I received an email from a man who had read a 2018 blog entry I wrote about the fire for We’re History. This is what it said:

letterfromRon

This woman, Alice Kastor Campbell, was sixteen when the fire consumed the Rhythm Club and took the lives of several of her friends. As of this writing, she is the last surviving witness to that terrible tragedy yet she is so much more than that. Her life represents an entree into the world of Black Natchez during the years when it was a thriving community. And her son? It turns out that Ron Hendrix, the man who wrote to me, is an ER doctor. . . wait for it . . . in Mint Hill, a community less than 30 minutes from my home in Charlotte. Listen to the universe.

Not only did Ron’s email lead to two interviews with Alice, I have developed a friendship with him and have since assisted him in getting his mother’s writings into print. And, in February 2024, I am traveling to San Antonio, Texas, for Alice’s 100th birthday celebration where I will meet her in person for the very first time. Listen to the universe.

Between January and May of 2023, I felt I could return to the project. My goal was to write a book proposal and a sample chapter and then meet with book agents. All of that happened and yet I still shelved the project. The agents weren’t convinced but I kept trying to push ahead with the writing. The result was that I hit a brick wall and decided to shelve the project again. Listen to the universe.

The last four months have been, as the academics like to say, generative. I took time to breathe and cut myself some slack for not writing about the Rhythm Club. Then, in October, I had a wonderful opportunity to join fellow scholars in New Mexico to workshop essays for a volume to be called “Contested Commemorations.” I was invited because of my work on monuments and memory and actually wrote something new. It was an invigorating experience amid the beauty of Taos where we were meeting. I stayed a few extra days in the state to see a friend from my Mississippi days who now lives in Santa Fe. That visit restored my spirit in ways I had not anticipated. I returned from that trip transformed both personally and professionally. Listen to the universe.

Only a few days later, I received what is known as a “funding alert” email. I always look even when there’s nothing that is well suited to my project. But this day, there was an alert for a summer fellowship with the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) in Chicago. A significant part of my book project on the Rhythm Club is Chicago-based. Yes, the fire took place in Natchez. However, the jazz orchestra playing that evening was from Chicago. The Chicago Defender covered the story of the fire extensively. A group called the Natchez Social & Civic Club from Chicago raised money for the bronze plaque that memorializes the victims that sits on the Natchez bluff. Mississippi and Chicago are forever linked because of the Great Migration. I realized that my research was not complete and so I applied for the fellowship. I have since applied for a second short-term fellowship with the Newberry Library, also in Chicago. Listen to the universe.

Regardless of what happens with these applications, the gift of time has allowed me to rethink what my book on the Rhythm Club fire might look like and to consider its meaning beyond Natchez even though it most directly affected that community. The universe is speaking. And, I’m listening.

Alice Kastor at 16.
Photo courtesy of Alice Kastor Campbell.

Note: This post primarily applies to university presses, since this is where I’ve published.

The design of a book cover should convey the essence of what’s inside and intrigue potential readers (read: buyers). As an author, I’m interested in how a designer visualizes the title and the ideas I’ve expressed in a book I’ve written or edited. This can be both exciting (“The designer got it!”) or worrisome (“Whoa, that’s really off the mark!”). It’s a process that I didn’t pay much attention to with my first book, and one I am far more invested in at this point in my career.

Consider the design of Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture, published in 2003. I didn’t have any quibbles with the font and the designer tried to incorporate some element of Confederate symbolism in the reddish bar below the photograph by adding stars. Stars and bar, anyone? There’s also a Confederate gray, one might say.

The photograph, one I found, is from a girls’ school in Texas where the students wore Confederate-inspired uniforms and are all standing at attention with rifles cast over their left shoulders, as though they were members of the CSA. This conveyed a theme in my book, which is that it was women who took on the cause of Confederate memory and, in a sense, they were soldiers in the Lost Cause.

The only issue I had with the cover was that the initial gray color in the title muted my name and it couldn’t be seen. This was upsetting, since it was my first book. It has since been corrected.

My second book Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture came out in 2011. A lot had changed since 2003. I was a more mature scholar and while I was open to the designer’s interpretation, it turned out that I needed to weigh in on this decision.

Because there were hundreds of songs written about the South by Tin Pan Alley lyricists, there was an equally large number of sheet music designs from which to draw from. The art of Tin Pan Alley “Dixie songs” were, as you might expect, rich in color and design. Like a book cover, the sheet music art was intended to convey the story told by the song, so the designer had plenty to draw from.

Some of the covers, however, should come with a warning: “Beware of racist caricatures!” It should be implicit, really, but for some reason the initial design for this book actually drew from one of those racist covers. That was when I said “hold up!” The designer clearly misunderstood the implicit message.

The revised design got it right, because this was a book about how the South had been romanticized in American popular culture prior to the advent of television. Here’s Miss Southern Belle strumming her banjo, sitting on some oversized cotton bolls and gazing out on a bucolic southern landscape. Even the clouds look like cotton. The art work is adapted from the sheet music for the song “The Whole World Comes From Dixie (When They Play That Dixie Tune).” No problems with seeing my name here.

My latest book, which presumes there’ll be another out in the ether, is Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. It comes out in October, but I’ve already got a jacket design, because marketing! (Speaking of marketing. . . reviewers, book bloggers, librarians, and other avid readers can now request to see the galleys on NetGalley.)

It’s a true crime story that drew on my skills as a historian, but it is written to be accessible to a broader audience. Set in Depression-era Natchez, Mississippi, it offers insight into the decline of the Old South and southern families, but also about the Jim Crow South and the racial justice that sent an innocent woman named Emily Burns to one of the most notorious prisons in the region at the time, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman.

This book is very personal to me and so I really wanted the cover to reflect something of the southern gothic drama that unfolded that year, which resulted in national headlines. I also wanted to recognize Emily Burns, who family members called “Sister,” since she was the other victim in this crime. She had to be on the cover. It had taken me five years to find a photograph of her and, more to the point, up until now, community memory had virtually erased her from the story.

First take on the design? No Emily. “It didn’t work. It was confusing. Looks like she was the one murdered,” I was told. “We can put her on the back cover.” No, no, no. This perpetuates her place in the story as being in the background. No. I also worried about the font of the title, so I pushed back. Next take: New font, Emily, and two of the other principals in the case. Much better. Then I gave consideration to the original font design, because I was wrong. It was right on the money, because the font had been adapted from a ticket to Goat Castle (also known as “Glenwood”) in the 1930s. You’ll have to buy the book to learn why there were tickets to Goat Castle.

The final take on the design pushed all of the buttons–southern gothic, image of Goat Castle, the two white principals Dick Dana and Octavia Dockery, but Emily “Sister” Burns was there, too. There was also the font that drew from the ticket. Success!

I’m not suggesting that an author be involved in design. In my case, I’m a historian and so just as I wouldn’t want a designer to correct me about history, it works the same in reverse. At the same time, the book represents you and your work, so when the situation merits your involvement, I believe that you can and should have a honest conversation with your press. Be willing to compromise, however, because your press is responsible for marketing your book.

Feel free to share your own experiences in the comment section below.

Tag: Writing

When the Universe speaks, listen

Book Covers, Design Choices, and the Author?