By the River with Holly Jackson

My name is Shannyn Hall.

What readers can expect from The Summer of Songbirds is a romantic tale filled with lots of friendship drama that is very intense and riveting, and you're gonna be wanting to know everything that goes on next.

Kristy's writing style comes off to me as very personal and very diary like.

It feels the entire time that I am understanding these people from their own perspectives.

Every character you might see is written from their perspective in a different way, and they all feel very organic.

You're getting a very refined stream of consciousness.

It's really beautiful to see these honest reactions throughout.

This book helps you understand southern culture by giving the experience I think many of us have gone through going to camp.

First of all, it's very integral to the story and the friends you make there, there's nothing quite like it, and even if you haven't experienced it, it pulls you in and you can understand exactly what it might feel like.

I'm Holly Jackson, join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established southern authors as we sit By The River.

opening music Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

For more than 40 years, the ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

>> Well, it is another beautiful day here at our waterfront studio in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Thank you so much for joining us here By The River.

It's part of our love letter to southern writing and we're bringing you powerful stories for both new and established southern authors, and this season we're focusing on unexpected southern stories and writers, and today we are joined with the author of Summer of Songbirds, Kristy Woodson Harvey, and I'm especially excited about this and I know a lot of times I start with that.

I'm so excited about this because, but this one is a little unusual.

So it was, I think it was on the set last time that you and I met for the first time.

Well, we thought we met for the first time.

>> Yep.

<Holly> We may have met when we were like 9 or 10 years old because it was revealed that we attended the same summer camp as children in Asheville, North Carolina, and so I had to have you here to talk about this book The Summer of Songbirds because it's all centered on the summer camp experience, and we'll talk about what I wanna say in a minute because there's a lot of these code words that come up and I'm like, you know.

Anyway, so first of all, for the audience, kind of set the scene of what the book's about.

>> Okay.

Well the book is about these three women, Lanier, Daphne and Mary Stewart, who met as children at summer camp and started doing each other's hard things, which is something that you learn more about in the book and have continued doing that on into adulthood, but they're about to face a year that even in their very practiced state, they are not prepared for.

Our protagonist, Daphne is an attorney and she finds out something about her best friend, Lanier's fiance that is protected by attorney client privilege and something that her best friend really needs to know before she walks down the aisle to this man.

So she has to decide whether she's going to tell her best friend who has done a lot of really incredible things for her in her life, or if she is, you know, if she's going to get disbarred and or she's going to carry this big secret.

So it's, a big choice for her.

It's a big decision, but Lanier has some secrets of her own that Daphne does not know about, and when one of those comes to light, it is going to change the way that Daphne feels about the entire situation, but they have to put all that aside because their beloved Camp Holly Springs that is owned by Daphne's, Aunt June, is in danger of closing, and the women don't know if they can save it, but they sure are going to try.

So this is really a story about the innocence of childhood summers and that feeling of kind of enduring sisterhood.

and really, I love what you were just saying about a love letter to southern writers.

This is really a love letter to the people and the places who make us who we are.

<Holly> Very nice.

Let's go back to where this all began and it probably is your own summer camp experience, and tell me how the idea came about during the pandemic and how you kind of landed back at summer camp yourself.

<Kristy> Yes.

Oh my gosh.

So in the summer of 2020, my son was supposed to be at summer camp.

It was supposed to be his second camp, his second year at Camp Sea Gull in North Carolina, and of course they couldn't have camp and so they came up with this idea of family camp and we could all have a different cabin.

We could be, you know, isolated enough.

We were outdoors a lot, so... they were really able to kind of make this work, and I'm a camp girl, so I was like, yes.

Let's do it.

Let's go.

<Holly> Yeah.

>> So we had a group of friends that went and we all took our families and had already been toying with this idea of maybe writing a book about camp because it was, you know, it was 2020.

We were all stuck inside and I truly, I had just finished writing The Wedding Veil , which was a historical novel about the Vanderbilts.

...and so I've been doing a lot of research for that book, and it was, you know, very, a real deep dive into that history, which was, I loved it, but I was like, I just, where do people wanna go right now?

Like, we're all stuck inside.

Where do I wanna go?

I wanna go to camp, and so it was like just this wonderful, just serendipity that I was actually able to go back to camp and I truly just felt like these stories were coming out of the walls of this, you know, summer camp that's been around for generations and a happy coincidence, though it might not seem like it, but two of my friends and I got stuck in a sailboat.

We did not have a radio.

We were sailing, sailing, sailing and the wind just died, and we didn't have a radio.

We didn't have our cell phones and we were like, okay, well eventually someone will realize we're missing, we hope, because, of course, the kids were all scattered about doing activities and our husbands were fishing.

So we were like, okay, well hopefully someone will eventually realize we're gone, and so I told them I was thinking about writing this book and we were stuck there, and so we sat and told all of our camp stories and by the time I went home- <Holly>Did you have a pen and paper at this time?

Because I mean, this is your research material.

<Kristy> I wish, right?

>> Yeah.

<Kristy> That would've been so great, but some of the stories were just so great that they really ended up in this book.

So it, anyway.

It was great.

By the time I got home I was like, I know The Summer of Songbirds.

I've got this, and I started writing immediately, like the night we got home.

<Holly> I love that.

Okay.

So you had just come off of a boat that included a whole lot of real research.

<Kristy> Yes.

>> But with this one, you're kind of digging back into your own past trying to remember some of these things, I mean even page one, whenever it talks about unpacking the trunks from - the trunks from the backseat.

I'm like the trunks.

<Kristy> Yes.

>> I had forgotten about the big trunks.

<Holly> The big greens go at the end of the...bunk beds.

<Kristy> Yeah.

<Holly> Then the blob makes it.

<Kristy> Yes!

<Holly> I love the blob.

I started thinking about the blob and these are things that I had forgotten about, but as soon as they come up, you're like, you know, you stop and you're like, ah, and reminisce.

So the book might take a while if you're a summer camp person because you're gonna stop and you're gonna call an old friend and say, "Remember the blob?

Remember this?"

But, so tell me about, did you reconnect with any like old camp friends to kind of, okay, let's talk about this.

How did this go or?

<Kristy> Oh my gosh.

>> Yeah?

Yes and I have the best story for you.

<Holly> All right.

>>So, of course, I went back to photographs because I had tons of photographs of our Hollymont days and some of us, you know, and they, some of 'em were labeled and then... <Holly> session B, session C <Kristy> Session A, or whatever, you know, we were that time, ...and so I went back to all these old camp photos and I had this picture of my best friend and I at the time and we were wearing these shirts and they said M.O.P.

and they were in like puff paint and we had clearly made them and I remembered the shirts and I remembered we were counselors in training, but I couldn't remember what M.O.P.

was, and I just racked my brain and racked my brain, and finally I called her and she was like, make out patrol.

We were make out patrol at the camp dance.

<Holly> Oh for the dance.

Oh my gosh, that's awesome.

>> So, like little things like that I was like, Oh my gosh, that's totally gotta be in the book.

<Holly>> Yeah.

>>Cause these are just things that, I'd completely forgotten about, but <Holly> Right.

<Kristy> Are kind of a part of that camp experience.

Like all the C.I.T.s getting together and laying out our t-shirts and using the puff paint, and it's so funny because you learn so much at camp and you know, the skills as we called them at our camp or you know, whatever you call those, but I think it's really those, like little in between times, there are those memories that you just don't forget.

There are those little things that you're like, oh, that was so fun, or just that sense of childhood freedom, and I think even if you didn't go to summer camp, I'm really hoping that this book evokes that feeling of nostalgia in people of whatever it was for them in...those childhood summers that made them feel kind of free.

You know, that's really what I'm hoping people take away from it.

>> Okay so imagine, what if... you could tell that younger self at camp on the hall that, "Hey, in 20 years you're gonna write this book "about this experience."

I mean, do you think your younger self would believe any of that?

<Kristy> Oh my gosh, no.

<Holly> Was that a dream, like to be a writer at that point?

>> I don't think so.

I always liked to write.

I was always like scribbling in notebooks and, you know, telling little stories and things.

But I, I never even imagined being a writer.

I loved to read, I was a very avid reader, but I just don't think that was even on my radar.

I didn't know people who wrote books.

I never, this sounds crazy now, but I never really thought about the people writing the books.

I was just thinking about... <Holly> They're there.

<Kristy> They're there.

<Holly> They magically appear somehow.

<Kristy> They're there, but it is amazing how there are so many things when you start writing and when you start kind of delving into these stories, these little bits and pieces of your own history just work their way in there, and a lot of times there are things you've forgotten, and that to me is just so magical, and so writing a story like this, So, I mean The Summer of Songbirds, obviously, but just to give you an idea of how our subconscious works, I did not remember that at our summer Camp.

<Holly> Hummingbirds.

<Kristy> We were all named after birds.

<Holly> Right.

<Kristy> I did not remember that, and so when I titled this book The Summer of Songbirds, and then I went back and I was looking at stuff on the Hollymont website...again, <Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> just jogging my memory.

<Holly> Hummingbirds, Cardinals.

<Kristy> Yeah.

<Holly> That's wild.

<Kristy> There's Blue Jays and the Blue Jays were like the oldest, but um.

Yeah so I didn't even remember that until, and then of course I put that in the book, but it's amazing just those little snippets of things that you don't even remember until you remember.

<Holly> Aha!

I love that so much.

Okay.

So, I'm amazed at how fast you write.

Tell me about what this writing process was.

You said you got back from this trip and it, you started that night almost, right?

<Kristy> I did.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think about what the timing was like for that.

I guess I had just turned in, actually I don't think I had, I turned in The Wedding Veil very early.

The Wedding Veil came out in March of 2021, but I was done with that very, very early on.

<Holly> Okay.

>> I actually ended up writing Christmas in Peachtree Bluff in between just as a, just I wanted to.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> Like it was Christmas and it was, I just wanted to write it.

I thought it would be fun.

I actually think I was writing these two kind of simultaneously.

<Holly> Ooh, okay.

I've never had an author tell me this.

<Kristy> Yeah.

<Holly>I want to talk more about that, how that goes.

That must be tricky.

<Kristy> Well.

Yes and no.

I mean, Christmas in Peachtree Bluff was the fourth book in a series, and I knew those women and those characters and that town so well, that they were so well formed in my mind that I don't, I don't think it really mixed me up too much.

<Holly> Okay.

<Kristy> Because I was so just, I knew them so well that it was okay, and I didn't have to, I mean, my deadline wasn't such that I had to, it was just, this story was all of a sudden the story that I knew.

and so I just wanted to write it, and again, you know, this was 2020, summer.

We weren't, I mean, things were a little bit better, but we weren't back in action.

We weren't traveling.

We weren't, I wasn't on book tour.

I mean, all the things that were these huge parts of my life I wasn't doing.

So I wrote.

<Holly> Yeah, right.

<Kristy> Just wrote.

<Holly>...and so do you... wake up and you're like, okay, "Today I'm in this book, or today I'm in this one?"

Do you like assign yourself a certain book that you're.

<Kristy> I wish, >> writing on that day, <Kristy> I wish that I, yeah.

I mean, yes, at some point.

I have to.

When the deadlines get close I have to be like, okay, we're doing this and that's it and we can't think about anything else, but you said the exact right thing because I, almost every day I wake up with a story of some, some sort, like it might be something I'm working on.

It might be something I'm editing.

It might be something.

Sometimes it's just something very random.

The other day I woke up and I was like, that's a poem.

I don't write poetry.

What am I gonna do with that?

<Holly> Maybe I do now.

>>I'm not sure it was a good one, but it was, definitely a poem.

I was like, that's bizarre.

That's never happened before, but I usually do wake up with something on my mind and it's incredible too, how I can have this like, sort of big problem in my book, and it's like my subconscious is just always working on it, and I don't know, like this morning I woke up and there's a part of the book that I'm working on now that it just wasn't quite right and I was trying to solve it and I just woke up and I was like, oh, that's the answer.

You know, and it just, it's really bizarre how your brain's always working on it, even when you aren't thinking about it consciously.

<Holly> Yeah.

That's cool.

All right.

So you're a mom and your son as we speak is 11.

<Kristy> Yes.

>>So, is he at the point now where he can be like one of your readers or not quite yet?

Or this might not be his genre?

(Kristy laughs) <Kristy> Yeah, you know, he probably could, you know, my books are pretty clean.

<Holly> I'm just wondering about summer camp.

<Kristy> Yeah.

>> Did you kinda like, have to poll him about some stuff or?

<Kristy> Oh yeah, I definitely asked him questions and there were things, he's a really good sailor and I'm not, but one of my best friends is also a good sailor, which is I mean like a really expert sailor, which is great because she fact checked this book for me.

<Holly> Oh good.

>> To make sure all the sailing stuff was right.

<Holly> This is, she's the one who got the shout out in the beginning, right?

<Kristy> Yes.

She doesn't know it yet.

<Holly> Oh, oh!

<Kristy> Oh no, it's fine.

<Holly> She knows it.

<Kristy> Yes, she'll know it.

She'll know it.

Yeah.

She'll know it soon, but yeah, so he read those parts for me to make sure I had like all my terminology right, and you know, he'll do things like that, but a lot of times he's listened to my books.

<Holly> Okay.

<Kristy>...it's so funny cause I remember one time.

<Holly> Is he a cri-?

Like how would you, is he a critic or is he a fan?

<Kristy> So his favorite thing is to pick out what he recognizes.

He'll be like, I know where that came from, or I know who that is.

Or even when he was like three years old, he'd be like, well that sounds like, and I'd be like, "Shh!

(Both laugh) <Holly> "Don't tell my secrets."

<Kristy> Don't tell anyone.

>> Right.

<Kristy>...and it would be so funny because a lot of times he and my husband would listen to them and I might not be with them and my husband would be like, oh, we're at this part.

I'd be like, skip the next chapter.

(laughter) >> You can't listen to that one.

<Holly> He can't go to school with that story.

That's great.

Okay.

So are you anticipating any...campers coming back with like, oh wait, that was me in there?

Or did you like disguise some stuff enough where they wouldn't name themselves or be able to figure out it's them?

<Kristy> Oh, no, they're definitely, some people who are gonna know themselves.

<Holly> They're definitely gonna...

Okay, and everything's gonna be okay because, you know, that drama you talked about in the beginning, I'm about to start sweating.

This is good.

That's some big time stuff, and you know, how deep is that friendship?

So.

Yeah.

<Kristy> Yeah.

No, some... of this stuff, you know, and some of the camp crush items.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> Some of that was sort of based on not my stories, but someone else's.

So, that will be very evident.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> But, I had permission.

>>I have permission.

<Holly> You have permission.

>> It's not gonna be a surprise.

<Holly> Right.

I always like to hear how those other ones go down whenever it's revealed.

<Kristy> No, no.

and if I ever tell someone's story, I ask them first, very specifically, and usually... <Holly> That's very kind of you.

<Kristy> Yes...and it's, always, you know, fiction and real life don't often work out exactly the same.

So the narrative usually changes a lot.

But there were definitely, you know, when you're asking for people's real camp stories, you do get some good material.

<Holly> Yeah.

So yeah.

Okay.

Tell me how you believe that like summer camp shaped you as a person and why do you kind of believe in it?

Obviously you do because you're sending your son too.

<Kristy>Yeah.

>>How do you think that it helps like later on in life or you in particular?

<Kristy> Well, that's another thing that I had never thought about until I wrote this book.

I never thought, "Oh, that was so great."

I was so lucky that I got, I mean, I knew I was lucky that I gotta do it.

I don't mean that, but I never really considered how much those experiences really shaped me.

But I do think there is something to kind of what I have said before, but there's something to having this place where you have a little bit of freedom, and I think even more for this generation than for our generation.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I definitely still had a little bit of that like, "Okay, go play, but come home at dinnertime."

I don't feel like our kids get that as much as we did.

<Holly> Right.

>> So I think having that place where you are free within some safe confines.

<Holly> Yeah.

>> You know, and so you're, you know, you're learning things.

You're being taught by people who you know are the age that you think is cool and you wanna listen to, and so you're learning these not only these new skills, but you're learning these incredible life lessons.

You're put in uncomfortable positions that you have to work your way out of.

Most of the time, you know, you're with people that you don't know, that you've never met.

You have to learn how to build those new relationships.

You have to learn to work together as a team as we had to do at our camp.

<Holly> Right.

<Kristy> I mean, I just could go on and on.

I think in retrospect the lessons were just incredible, but I think just from a point of childhood nostalgia, just the feeling of like, wow, like, you know, we're eight years old and we can just walk over to the tennis courts and then we can go to the stables... <Holly> We can eat candy bars at 10 o'clock at night... <Kristy> Yeah.

Whatever.

<Holly>...and nobody's mad at us.

<Kristy>Yeah, and somebody made us like cookie dough without raw eggs so that we could just go eat it whenever we wanted to.

I mean, you know, just like these little things that like, you just, you could wear the same shorts three days in a row but no one was going to say one thing to you.

<Holly> Right.

Right.

That is so true.

Okay, so tell me about your writing process.

We've talked about how... you have that magical skill of, of juggling two books at a time, which is really cool, but I mean, do you treat it as like 9 to 5, you're writing and weekends off like... a job would be?

<Kristy> I...need to.

<Holly> Okay.

<Kristy> That's actually something that.

<Holly> This is what I love.

I've heard you say this like two or three times now in this short time.

So we like to call ourselves creatives.

It makes me feel better, but it's like, we know what we're supposed to do, but we just can't do it like that, and so your mind's just going all hours, right?

<Kristy> Yes, and I, you know, I do.

I always am like, okay, this is my real job.

I have to take weekends off, but especially when I'm working on a new manuscript, I just can't, because if I take two days off, then I'm like, wait, what was the story about?

Who am I writing again?

<Holly> You've gotta stay in the groove.

<Kristy> Not literally but you know.

<Holly> A little bit.

<Kristy> You're working through so many minute details that a lot of times as a reader you're not even really noticing, but as the writer, if you're not noticing them, then the whole book falls apart.

So if I ever take a day off when I'm writing like that, then I kind of have to read everything again to just get myself back in that really specific head space.

Maybe not a day, but definitely by the time you've taken two to three days off, like you're really having to kind of read from scratch.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> I really, I know this sounds kind of funny, but I like to give myself the reading of the book as the reward at the end when I've finished writing it.

So I really like to write the whole thing before I go back and start reading again.

Now my perfect world doesn't always exist, because sometimes I'll be in the middle of a manuscript and like I'll have to put it away and get edits.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy>...for another book.

but actually... <Holly> That's the desire.

That's what you'd prefer to do.

<Kristy> Yeah, yeah!

but actually that kind of can be fun too, because it's like you're coming back to the story with fresh, brand new eyes and you get all these new ideas.

So it works either way.

>>So do you find yourself adding more or taking away a lot?

<Kristy> Oh, absolutely.

Editing for me takes probably at least twice as long as writing.

<Holly> Really?

<Kristy> Yeah, and I love, again, in a perfect world, I don't always have the timing for this, but if I can, I'd love to write a first draft, to go through it once or twice and then literally put it away and not read it for like two months and come back to it with fresh eyes and I just get all these ideas.

<Holly> Wow!

You're saying, there are a lot of commonalities whenever I talk to authors, but you're saying stuff that I haven't heard, which is really cool.

I really like this.

<Kristy> I guess that's good.

I don't know.

<Holly>This is good.

I wanna backpedal a little bit to go back to summer camp cause of something that was in my mind.

So we're talking about like the growth.

A lot of growth happens over the summer anyway, no matter if you're at summer camp or not, because you're not focused on school, and I have to think back, like, you know, you come back from the next year, you are like, whoa, that person changed a lot.

<Kristy> Yes.

<Holly> Like, they're really into this now or they look different or whatever, but I know in chapter two, like it starts off, I think like maybe the first sentence or two is, you know, I feel closest to God whenever I'm at...camp.

<Kristy> Yes.

<Holly> There is some kind of something about that.

<Holly> You know, whether it's a Christian camp or you know, has any religious aspect at all.

There's just some kind of like connection.

<Kristy> Yeah.

<Holly> Because you're away from your family.

<Kristy> You're with nature.

<Holly> So can you speak to that a little bit, like...your own experience with that?

<Kristy> Yeah!

No, I definitely think there's something about being kind of in nature more than you would be when you're at home that sort of makes you feel more connected to, you know, God or the earth or whatever you wanna call it, but you, it definitely gives you kind of that like connection, I feel like, and I mean, you and I did go to a Christian summer camp and I've, I mean, I will never forget like all those voices in that chapel in the morning.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> Like that's just one of the most beautiful things sometimes.

<Holly>...those songs still ring in my head all the time.

<Kristy> Yeah.

I was like wondering.

<Holly> As the deer panteth for the water.

I liked that one all the time.

<Kristy>Yes, yes, and it was just so beautiful.

All those little voices in that, you know, expansive, beautiful stone space.

<Holly> Had that one guitar.

at the top of the front.

<Kristy> Yeah.

It was just incredible, you know?

But...I don't know.

Yeah.

It's... there's just that feeling of like kind of being also elementally like your own.

You know, your mom's not there, Your dad's not there, your brothers and sisters probably aren't there.

At least they're probably not in your cabin with you.

<Holly> Or don't wanna talk to you or probably not identifying with you that week.

<Kristy> Right.

They're pretending that you have never met before.

<Holly> Right.

<Kristy>...and so there is something about kind of having to get a little bit in touch with who you are, and like a little bit more deeply.

So, Yeah, I don't know, but I do think especially, you know, I really based a lot of the, the landscape of this camp on Camp Seafarer, which is where we went to family camp, and there's something about just like the river and the green and just those like raw wood cabins kind of blending in.

You just feel like you're very much a part of nature in like a very real way, and there's no distractions, there's no TVs.

There are no phones.

There's, which of course, we didn't, we weren't worrying about any of that really anyway.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> But I just think it's a different kind of thing.

It kind of brings you back to who you are in your roots.

<Holly> All right.

Let's go ahead and talk about what's next for you.

<Kristy> Okay.

>>Are you taking a breath and like taking a break or are you already back at it?

There are no breaks.

<Kristy>There are no breaks.

It's not even like that, there are no breaks.

It's just there could be, and they'll always say, "Do you need a break?

"Do you want a year off?"

And,...I have this story that like, my brain is erupting.

<Holly> If you're in the groove keep it going.

>>Yeah.

Like, strike all the irons hot right.

<Holly> Yeah.

<Kristy> So yeah, I have a book, I hate to tell you the title because I'm not exactly sure what it's going to be, but it is actually a story I will tell you, it's actually sort of based loosely on something that happened in my own family, and it's a story that's been percolating in my mind for like five years.

<Holly> You've gotta get it out.

<Kristy> I sat down to write it and it just like poured out of me.

I was like, oh, this is great, but it kind of took on a little bit of a different shape than I thought it was going to, which happens a lot, but I haven't ever talked about this book before, but in an sort of, in its essence, it's about a granddaughter who has to go back and sort of clean out a family home that her mother just sort of left after her parents tragically died.

So it's, she's sort of uncovering who they were and then also who she is, sort of by virtue of that.

<Holly> Then can't speak to them about it, so she's having to.

<Kristy> Yes, exactly.

So she's having to kind of piece back together who they were, and then we're seeing them in the past also.

So you're getting to know these grandparents too, and what actually happened to them.

<Holly> I'm intrigued.

All right.

It's already time to close.

I have so enjoyed talking to you again.

It's a pleasure each time and I just love all these little like aha moments that I learned through this interview because like I said, it's something different, which is cool.

And thank you everyone always for joining us here on By The River.

I'm your host, Holly Jackson.

We'll see you next time right here By The River.

closing music Major funding for By The River is provided by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina for more than 40 years The ETV Endowment of South Carolina has been a partner of South Carolina ETV and South Carolina Public Radio.

Additional funding is provided by the USCB Center for the Arts Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB and the Pat Conroy Literary Center.