My Literary Evening

Shell House, Ashley Hall, Charleston, SC

I've circled Ashley Hall school for girls countless times on my walks, but in all these years had never actually been on the campus until this evening. Even this picture of the Shell House was taken through the gate on Rutledge Ave.

I'd recently had a fun email conversation with the author Josephine Humphreys and when I read that she was returning to her old school to do a reading I thought I'd slip in the back of the room to listen and then see if I had the nerve to introduce myself.

She was terrific. She read the first paragraph from each of her books and told warm and entertaining stories in between. The Smithsonian had asked her to write an essay on her hometown and she talked about how unexpectedly difficult that had been. She jotted down pages and pages of ideas and things that should be included and then wrote the essay on Charleston, which she partially read to us.

To make things even more fun, I discovered I was sitting next to an old boyfriend of the author and I was introduced to the "Head of School".

I did go up to meet Josephine Humphreys and she kindly raved about discovering my pictures and blog in her research and then blew me away by saying that in all of her pages of notes about Charleston, my name had been written three times.

Wowsa! I walked home with a big grin on my face. What a neat thing to know and generous thing for her to say. It's a safe bet I'll be buying her latest book.