Signature: Contemporary Southern Writers--Bobbie Ann Mason

While the bane of most author profiles is that they adopt the straightforward talking-head interview format, this episode in the Signature: Contemporary Southern Writers series is a full-blooded documentary, in which the interview is just one component. Combining archival photos, interviews with critics, family members, and Mason herself, as well as scenes of the author at work, play, and reading from her novels and short stories, this fascinating portrait is as much a story of the person as the writer. A shy, timid girl, Bobbie Ann Mason grew up on a farm in Kentucky (where she lives today). Dissuaded by her high school literature teacher, Mason nevertheless pursued a writing career--albeit in an unusual fashion. After college, she took a job in New York writing for TV Star Parade in the early 60s, but left later on to pursue her doctorate. Her dissertation on Vladimir Nabokov became her first published work. Trying her hand at fiction, Mason started sending stories to Roger Angell at The New Yorker. Although they were rejected, she persevered (not by sending them elsewhere, but by writing another story and sending it off to Angell). Her 20th effort bore fruit; shortly thereafter an agent discovered her, and today she is the respected author of such works as Shiloh and Other Stories, In Country, and Feather Crowns. A natural for library collections, this is highly recommended. The two other titles in the series are: Ed McClanahan and Marsha Norman.