GONE FROM THESE WOODS: DEDICATIONS

Today is day 20 in our countdown to the publication, August 25, of Gone From These Woods. In honor of today, I'm going to talk about the dedications page. Here's what it says: "This book is dedicated to the memory of my second-grade teacher, Dycie Hancock Schneider. Also to the memories of her first husband, William Campbell; her nephew, David Hancock; and my uncle, Terry Bailey -- three men who left this world too soon."

All four of the people I dedicated my debut novel to are dead. But they are remembered here in the Athens area where I live. Dycie Hancock Schneider was Mrs. Campbell, my second grade teacher at Oconee Street Elementary School. I remember her encouraging smile, pats on the back, and those Friday Bingo games in our classroom. She was the kind of teachers all kids should have. A few years after I was in her class, I heard that her nephew, David Hancock, had accidentially shot and killed her husband, William Campbell. That's all I knew about her real life tragic story until I visited her after my book was written and purchased by Random House, about three weeks before she died (at age 90). I had used the tiny bit of her story that I knew before that visit as a "jumping off point" or a spark to ignite my own fictional tale of Daniel Sartain, an eleven-year-old boy who accidentially shoots his beloved uncle, Clay.

The other person on my dedication page, Terry Bailey, was my own uncle who died at age 34 from complications of an automobile accident. Terry was suffering from terminal cancer at the time of the accident, which may or may not have been accidential. No one knows for sure. Several years earlier, when Terry was 23, he had survived a near-fatal bike accident on Baxter Street in Athens. I grew up with Terry, who became a counselor and assistant director of admissions at Columbus College. Since he was only five years older than me, he always felt like an older brother.

All these years later, I still miss Uncle Terry. What would he say about Gone From These Woods? What would Dycie, William and David say about Daniel Sartain's story? We'll never know. But I do believe they're all in my book in spirit. And I hope they approve.

Dycie Hancock Schneider, My Second Grade Teacher and One of my Inspirations

My forthcoming children's middle grade novel, GONE FROM THESE WOODS, is a fictional story set in a North Georgia rural community very much like Winterville, Georgia, the small town where I live.

My fictional tale of a young boy, Daniel Sartain, was inspired by a real story I heard growing up. What happens in my book is similar but not the same as what happened in the family of my second grade teacher, Dycie H. Schneider. She was one of my inspirations.

I took this picture of Mrs. Schneider on a May 2008 visit to Morningside, a retirement home where she lived. During our hour together that day, she retold the sad story of her first husband's accidential death. She also talked about how happy she had been in her second marriage many years later (she had been a widow for about a year when I visited her), and she talked about attending Tuckston School on Lexington Road in Athens as well as Gaines School the first year it opened.

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks after that visit, Dycie had an automobile accident and died several days later from her injuries. She was 90 years old.

Dycie knew before she died that I had included her name on my forthcoming book's dedication page and she was looking forward to reading my book. I am thankful I got to visit with her for about an hour on that day in May. It was a special time for me and she seemed to enjoy the visit, too.