Kristy
Woodson Harvey’s love affair with the Town of Beaufort, N.C., began when she
was in college, well in advance of her journey up-up-up the charts as a top
author. She wrote an essay that was published in Atlanta Magazine in
2018 that describes her first impressions of Beaufort. She begins:
“I
was 19 the first time I ever drove over the drawbridge into Beaufort. One look,
and I was absolutely smitten. The matching white rows of clapboard houses, the
wild horses grazing on the Rachel Carson Reserve, the gougères at Beaufort
Grocery Company that elevated my favorite pimento cheese to a downright
cultural experience.”
“Beaufort
had the look of New England and the soul of the islands, and after half an hour
of walking up and down Front and Ann streets, I proclaimed that, one day, I
would live in this charming town that time seemed to have forgotten,” Harvey
wrote.
“It
was an absurd thing to say. But as luck or fate would have it, several years
later, I married a boy who spent his summers in Atlantic Beach, right over the
bridge from Beaufort. He had a soft spot for the quirky, historic town too, so
we pledged to spend our summers there and bought a ramshackle house that had
been closed up for more than 10 years.”
“The
day we signed the papers, family and friends said that this house was our worst
idea,” Harvey wrote. “I just looked out the window at the sailboats coming into
the harbor and the red double-decker bus carrying tourists past my bedroom. It
would take at least two years to bring the place back to life. Maybe it was
crazy. But, then again, the best things usually are.”
“Continuing
my streak of impractical decisions, I indulged an idea I had for a novel. I
initially resisted it, but realized that if I ever wanted a good night’s sleep
again, I would have to get these characters out of my head and onto paper.”
That
first novel, “Dear Carolina,” was released by Penguin Random House on May 5,
2015 – “two months before my 30th birthday,” she said.
Harvey
returned to her hometown of Salisbury, N.C., for the book launch party, and
uncovered her report on an assignment from her favorite journalism professor at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“It
was, essentially, a list of pipe dreams,” Harvey said. “I had two. One was to
write a novel. The second was to buy a house in Beaufort, which seemed even
less attainable, if that was possible. My target date? My 30th birthday, which,
at the time, was the oldest I could ever imagine being.”
Somehow
for Harvey, those dreams that had temporarily slipped out of her memory bank,
not only returned but had come true.
“And
I knew in that moment that if those two absurdly unlikely things had happened,
surely the rest of life would fall into place.”
The
boy she married is Dr. Will Harvey of Kinston. His thriving dental practice now
has multiple offices throughout eastern North Carolina. The Harveys have a son,
also named Will.
Kristy
Harvey’s sixth novel will be introduced on April 22, titled “Feels Like
Falling.” She can hardly contain her excitement. The book launch celebration begins
at 6 p.m. at the Country Club of the Crystal Coast in Pine Knoll Shores, N.C.
Some
of Harvey’s most ardent supporters are fellow authors. One is Cassandra King,
who wrote: “Kristy Woodson Harvey cuts to the heart of what it means to be a
born-and-bred Southerner, complete with the unique responsibilities, secrets
and privileges that conveys.”
Harvey
refers to bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe as “her big sister,” expressing
thanks for “her guidance, advice, generosity and huge heart.” Monroe has in
turn commended Harvey as “a rising star of Southern Fiction.”
Harvey
says she is clearly a better writer and a better person because her life is
influenced by her book publicist – Kathie Bennett. Harvey refers to Bennett as
her “fairy book mother” –“a champion, a friend and the defender of all that is
good in the book world.”
Dagnabbit.
Maybe somebody should write a “fairy book mother” book. Maybe I’ll start it…and
hand off the wand.
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