Hi Y’all from Middle Tennessee-Linda Thorne

Tennessee is not where I was born, raised or even lived the longest, but Hermitage, a suburb of the state capital, Nashville, is where my husband and I relocated 10 years ago with plans to make this our final stop, our last hometown—our last hurrah.

 Since we are transplants, I’ll give you a quick update on where we’ve lived. I was raised in Arizona, my husband in Ohio. We’d both moved to Denver, Colorado where we met and married. Fifteen years later job opportunities took us to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, our first taste of Deep South living and the place I chose as the setting for my debut novel, Just Another Termination. After eight years on the Mississippi Gulf Coast another job opportunity took us to the Central Valley of California.

I worked in human resources at a manufacturing plant that was closing its doors at about the same time my husband’s job was ending. We knew we wanted to return to the South, but Hurricane Katrina had completely changed the Mississippi Gulf Coast we’d come to know. 

Okay, so where to begin about our life in the volunteer state? Do we start with Gatlinburg or perhaps Dolly Parton's Dollywood? We could hang out in downtown Nashville and take a ride on the Trash Nash tour bus, be entertained, drink wine, and visit places like the Country Music Hall of Fame or go down Broadway and stop in at famous honkey tonks like Tootsies. Buy Titans or Predators souvenirs. 

 

Take a trip down Printers Alley, go to the Ryman Auditorium or visit the Men's Room at the Hermitage Hotel (seriously, google it). On the edge of town let’s visit the Parthenon. Then there’s Music Row. So that's where Elvis cut his records. Going to the outskirts of town lets go to the Grand Ole Opry.

Ever hear of Granville, Tennessee? This bustling metropolis - population 424 or 15 people per square mile is an hour’s drive east/northeast of Nashville and has been compared to Mayberry, the fictitious community of the Andy Griffith show. Granville runs along the Cumberland River and will take you back to the 1800s. The main store is named T.B. Sutton that, although renovated, holds its old country store history and charm.

On the opposite side of Nashville, to the west, is the famous Loveless Café. The café serves southern style cooking, and is most famous for its biscuits and country ham. Carol Fay Ellison, locally known as “the biscuit lady”, showed off her southern cooking on many television programs. It's a hangout for celebrities many of whom have left signed photographs which are neatly displayed on the restaurant walls.

Our home in Hermitage is located between Nashville to our West and Mount Juliet to our East. The Nashville suburb was named after the plantation called The Hermitage, the historic mansion and grounds of our seventh president, Andrew Jackson. The mansion was restored and a museum added to this amazing 1120 acre estate. Below is a picture of the bridge in Hermitage over the Cumberland River along a couple of Fall Fest held at The Hermitage last year. I’m in an author’s tent in one of them.

While Nashville is also called the Music City because of its country singers, entertainers, and song writers, there’s also a huge writing community. We have the famous Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference which I attend every year since 2009.

Below is a picture of me on one the author panels at Killer Nashville this past August.

We also have the Southern Festival of Books each October.  I felt fortunate to get assigned to an author panel.

And there’s more. Middle Tennessee has a Sisters in Crime chapter. I also discovered the Nashville Writers Meetup group, either the largest or close to largest one of its kind in the United States. Meetings on different aspects of writing occur almost every day. In 2011 this group used a blind selection process to gather short stories from members for a group anthology. I submitted six of my stories and four were selected and included in Soundtrack NOT Included published in 2012.

I didn’t know about the amazing network of authors when I first moved to Middle Tennessee. What a perk. The community facilitates writers, fosters their growth, and provides avenues to publication and success. All I can say is, Life is good in Middle Tennessee.

For those who comment, you will have a chance to win both Soundtrack NOT Included and Just Another Termination along with some mementos from the Nashville area. Leave a form of contact with your comment.

And here’s links to my work:

http://www.lindathorne.com/  

https://books.google.com/books/about/Just_Another_Termination.html?id=gTj1sgEACAAJ

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/just-another-termination-linda-thorne/1122591166?ean=2940150803367

(all info provided by author)