Wednesday, September 22, 2010
{The Blue Banner}
Page 7
Local author entertains crowd with stories
Sarah Hinson
SBHINSON@UNCA.EDU
STAFF WRITER
From deep depression to laugh-out-
loud encounters with crazy Southern
characters, award-winning writer
and syndicated Asheville Citizen-
Times columnist Susan Reinhardt
lives and tells her stories, using her
writing to entertain as well as to heal.
Reinhardt entertained listeners with
personal anecdotes about humor and
hardships on Sept. 14 as the first guest
speaker for Ramsey Library’s regional
author talks.
“Thanks for taking a risk having me
here knowing I’m a PG-13-type of
speaker, and not the type that can tell
you what to grow in your yard and eat,
though I wish I could,” the author said
as she gathered books and papers for
her presentation.
What followed were stories about
everything, from an alcoholic cat to
her sister’s opossum fur coat to the
“mee maw” panties Reinhardt acci
dentally left behind at her Hollywood
hosts’ house.
Reinhardt may focus on the funnier
aspects of life in her books and col
umns, but writing, she said, has always
been a way for her to heal from life’s
challenges. She said her work some
times takes on a darker tone.
“Even growing up, when I’d get
upset. I’d go write,” Reinhardt said.
I ve always used writing as a means
of making things right in my mind, and
I’ve been writing humor for maybe 20
years or more.”
In her second book, Don't Sleep with
a Bubba: Unless your Eggs are in
Wheelchairs, Reinhardt chronicles her
journey through depression following
her divorce from her first husband. Af
ter the hospital stay where she met her
second husband, Reinhardt turned to
writing humor again.
“Humor helped heal me,” Reinhardt
said. “I can find something funny in al
most everything.”
Erica Abrams Locklear, an assis
tant professor at UNC Asheville who
teaches courses on Southern and Appa
lachian literature, has read Reinhardt’s
column for several years, and said Re
inhardt often takes deeper, more dis
turbing subjects and writes about them
in an entertaining way.
“The thing that Susan does is she’ll
take those darker topics and twist them
a little bit so that you’re slightly un
comfortable, but you’re laughing, and
Sally Garner/staff photographer
Author and columnist Susan Reinhardt entertained listeners at the
first regional author talk Sept. 14 in Ramsey Library. Reinhardt draws
from personal experiences in her writings.
then you feel guilty about laughing
at something that’s really serious,”
Abrams Locklear said.
Reinhardt said there is no shortage
of material in the South, and her sto
ries frequently depict her family mem
bers’ eccentricities as well as the crazy
Southern characters she encounters.
“Half the people in the South are
insane, but they’re benignly insane,
they’re colorfully crazy, and you don’t
have a limitation of material, you
just venture out and you find it in the
South,” she said. “I think that our col
orful crazy characters do wonderful
things for people, and they have very
compassionate hearts, but they also
have that ‘touched in the head’ effect,
in a good way. When I find somebody
who’s a little off-center. I’m all over
them.”
Abrams Locklear said some South
ern writers, including Reinhardt, are
good at pointing out specific qualities
of the South and poking fun in a way
that makes readers laugh rather than
offending them. Though humanity as
a whole is a little crazy, she said, the
way craziness manifests in the South
might be more peculiar or exciting to
read and write about.
“Something else she really hones
in on is gossip, that sort of communal
nature in small town life, and that’s
not contained to the South, but South
ern writers have written about that for
See author Page 81
Campus
radio
station set to
relaunch
Jeremiah Reed
JJREED@UNCA.EDU
STAFF WRITER
After nearly two years of silence and
countless hours of work from students,
UNC Asheville’s student radio station,
the Blue Echo, is set to return to the
air this fall.
Ian Hayes, a disk jockey and tech
nician for the Blue Echo, has been
a part of the station since he came to
UNC A four years ago as a freshman.
He said the hard work and commit
ment of students made it possible to get
the Blue Echo back up and running.
“It’s been more organized in the past
year than it has ever been, and we’re
not even on the air yet. So once we
get started, I think everything will run
smoothly. We’ve got a lot of people
really committed to making this hap
pen,” said Hayes, a senior multimedia
arts student.
According to those close to the Blue
Echo, a lack of commitment led to the
station’s demise.
Rick Brophy, associate director of
UNCA’s Student Activities & Inte
grative Learning department, said
students were always eager to sign up
for a DJ slot, but the follow-through
was a constant problem.
“Once the ’students figured out the
amount of work required, they didn’t
want to do it,” Brophy said. “They
thought it was just getting in there,
picking your favorite record and hav
ing fun, which it is, but there’s a lot of
work that goes into everything ahead
of time.”
Brophy.also said once a large portion
of the station’s staff and DJs graduated
or left school, nobody stepped up to fill
those positions and the station slowly
began to decline.
Since then, attempts to revive the
Blue Echo have been mostly the vol
unteer efforts of a few students dedi
cated to bringing radio back to the
Asheville community.
Caitlin Halloran, a junior mass
communication student, has invested
See echo Page 8