Forty-five years ago, Chuck Conner and I met at a writers’ conference held at Epworth-by-the-Sea on St. Simons Island, Georgia. We were both working full-time jobs and trying to write on the side. Chuck attended Emory at Oxford College and was accepted into Emory University School of Medicine on a full scholarship and graduated with his medical degree in 1962. Dr. Connor began his residency at Emory in the Department of Psychiatry and later served on the faculty. When we met, I had already graduated from the University of Georgia. I then went on to graduate school and graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Temple University in Philadelphia. Through all these years, Chuck and I have stayed in touch. He retired and he and his wife, Lisa Thomas Connor, moved to Buckhead, Georgia outside of Madison, Georgia where Lisa has worn many hats in the Steffen Thomas Museum of Fine Art, created by her mother to honor her father. 

The museum is only forty minutes from Athens, so I would drive down to visit and participate in the museum activities. Chuck was writing. I was writing but not fiction. Chuck was writing his memoir, Eating Dirt. This book is about how he grew up with his four siblings in extreme poverty after being deserted by their father. The story takes place in rural North Georgia during a time of great strife in the Deep South and is set against the backdrop of post-Great Depression recovery, the great home-front war machine of WWII, and the drive-in craze of the 1950s.
As the boy becomes a man, a choice must be made—one that could take him far from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

Both of us would talk about our writing when we got together. He has now written three books and has been lauded all over the area for the stories he is telling. Lisa came to my book launch back in April 2024. She took home Spancil Hill and gave it to Chuck to read. Today he finished the book and then called to tell me how much he enjoyed reading the book. He didn’t text. He didn’t email. He didn’t write a letter. He picked up the phone to tell me personally. Thank you, Chuck.