Clarksville, TN – Nashville’s Parnassus Books recently announced – Join us on January 25th, 2024, as we celebrate the release of Sharon Mabry’s Humorous Memoir Collection, The Blue Box and Memories that Live in the Bones.
Mabry, who spent all her life in music, retiring from Austin Peay State University (APSU) in 2022 after 52 years of teaching freely admits she has always probably been a writer. She kept a diary when she was growing up. When she was in music, she wrote articles for the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She also wrote two books on music during that time. All her writing time was spent on music.
“At the same time I was traveling around America and Europe, singing, I would always take a journal with me,” Mabry said. “To pass the time I would write stories, or jot down ideas that could become a novel. That actually turned into the novel that I published last year.”
Mabry published her first novel, “The Postmaster’s Daughter” in 2022, a mystery novel set in East Tennessee.
“I’m happy to say it just won an award,” Mabry said. “It was a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards. We just found that out. The book has done very well, and I’m thrilled. It’s a mystery about two powerful families who have lots of secrets. There are murders, and it has a surprise ending.”
Mabry started that book in 1992. “My accompanist and I were traveling to do some concerts in Virginia,” Mabry said. “We were staying at the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon, VA. I had just started that book. She was reading a mystery, as she always did. She said, ‘read me some of what you’re writing’.
“I had written like a chapter, I read it to her and she said, ‘oh, you have to keep writing this’. So, I did, off and on, but I was busy doing other things, so it took me thirty years. Once I retired it actually happened pretty quickly.”
Ed Irwin, a professor at APSU, had the opportunity to read the book 15 or 20 years ago. He also encouraged Mabry to do something with the book.
“It was pretty much finished at that point, but it went back in the drawer because I was really busy,” Mabry said. “There were some little things that I’ve tidied up and changed in the last few years. My Writers Group friends kept encouraging me to do something as well.”
Advice from the editor of Mabry’s last music book pointed her in the direction of an independent publisher.
“Thorncraft Publishing had been recommended to me by a few people who thought they do a great job, so I looked into them,” Mabry said. “I was particularly interested in the fact that they were only working with women writers. I had spent a lot of my career promoting and recording music by women composers. I sent a query letter, told her what the book was about, and asked if she (Shana Thornton) was interested.
“I sent her excerpts, and she quickly responded, saying she would like to read the whole book. I sent her the book, and a week later, she got back to me and said, “I want to publish this’. We’re a good fit. She’s from the south, and it’s a southern story. It came out in October, 2022. We had a release party at the Customs House Museum, and it has done very well. It has gotten great reviews. Parnassus is carrying it, and has sold a lot of copies.”
Mabry just received the first printed copies of her new book. “It’s a collection of stories, its called The Blue Box and Memories that Live in the Bones,” Mabry said. “It’s a collection of stories about my growing up in East Tennessee and all the shenanigans of my 56-year marriage. It’s dedicated to my husband, and he has approved it. He has wanted me to publish this for a long time.”
The book contains 18 stories and a prologue. Mabry said, “I guess I’ve always approached life with humor, and so the book is primarily humorous. It’s witty. It deals with some serious subjects. The Blue Box is one of the longer stories in the book. It’s about my mother and her last years of life. I had to take care of her. I drove to Newport,Tennessee every weekend to see after her.”
Mabry has been working on these stories off and on for about ten years. “When you belong to a writers group you have to bring something to read, every time. It was a good opportunity to work on this. The group has been encouraging me to publish, and I thought it would be a good next project. Shana also liked these stories. She told me she laughed out loud for hours.
“These are all absolutely true stories from my real life, and I’m so excited to share them. Now we’ve been invited to have a book-signing/launch at Parnassus on January 25th, 2024. It will be on a Thursday at 6:30pm. We’re thrilled. It is an honor to have the signing there. I think my first book has done well for them, and Shana has a good relationship with them.”
Mabry is thankful that the reviewers “got it.” She continued, “They understood that it was humorous. Some of the subjects are frivolous, but some are quite serious.” She also praised Ann Patchett, saying, “She has done a wonderful thing for Nashville, bringing back the local bookstore.”
Mabry says music and writing both require having definite goals. Writing a piece of music or a story requires a certain amount of solitude.
“You have to be in a place where you can think and write,” she continued. “Has my music influenced my writing, I don’t know. My husband, George, has written a song that goes with one of the characters in the new book. He plays in a bluegrass band and wants to be on the Grand Ole Opry.” The song will be in the audiobook when it comes out. Also, in this book, there is a hilarious story about my husband singing at my father’s funeral. You wouldn’t think that could be, but it is.”
Mabry says when she was singing, she would practice every day at 10:00am. But doesn’t set aside time for writing each day. “I wish I were that disciplined, but im not,” Mabry said. “I tend to write in the afternoon. I’m not good at writing at night. I write when I have ideas. What I’ve always done is keep notebooks of ideas. When I get enough together that I think it’s going to turn into something, I start writing a story.
“I’m working on another novel that I’ve been developing for about two years, “The Diva Diaries”, it’s about two singers who solve crimes. They say write what you know. (laughter) I have about ten chapters. I never know how long a book will be. You never know until you get into it.”
Mabry starts with the characters in mind. She starts to flesh them out and then figures out what she want them to do. “They do take on a life of their own,” she said. “It’s about a 12-year-old girl who has a dog, and her sister gets murdered. It’s not told through her eyes, but she is always in the background. She is one of seven, right n the middle, but feels as if she doesn’t belong. I try to draw on things that feel familiar, but the story is total fiction.
“I come from upper East Tennessee in the mountains. I felt I needed to set it there. I understand the characters and the people who live there. With my stories, I describe a lot of those characters. My mother is extremely eccentric. She is a person who would take $20,000 to the gas station and pay for her gas. She was a strange person.
“I just hope people will enjoy the humor, and that they’ll be able to use this way of looking at things to find some lightness, even in the most serious things. My parents were not overtly humorous. I was unlike them, totally.”
The new book comes out on Jan 25 the day of the launch. It can be pre-ordered now at Parnassus, or Amazon. “The Postmaster’s Daughter” is available at Amazon, Parnassus, and the Customs House Museum.
Mabry says she was shocked to be one of six NIEA finalists. She has been busy with lots of book clubs this past year. “I’ve spoken at about ten book clubs, and the local library association,” Mabry said. “It’s interesting to speak to people who have read the book, and listen to how they think about the characters.
“This experience has been quite different than music. I’ve met a lot of people I would not have met, that’s for sure. I wish I had had time to start sooner.”
She hopes to finish the new novel by the end of summer. “But, you never know,” Mabry said. “Some days I get lots of ideas and write forever. Some days it’s horrible trying to get out one paragraph. Some days it flows, some days it’s like bumper cars.”
“… it’s the type of book you want to curl up with in front of a crackling fire with a hot cup of coffee. Cozy, comforting, amusing, and brimming with heart. Mabry’s prose absolutely shines. Though she doesn’t shy away from hard things, her stories fill you with a warm glow and the desire to delve into your own anatomy for the memories that live there.” Anna Lee Huber is the USA Today best-selling author of A Fatal Illusion.
