Q. How do you feel about being labeled a southern writer?

Bragg

A. If you think about it, people could say a lot of things I guess but, the truth is, it is kind of flattering. When it came time to pick and choose what kind of books I was going to write I picked the Deep South and I picked the foothills of the Appalachias and more than that I picked my own people. I write and happen to be a southerner. There are southern writers who don't set their theme and their setting. I couldn't any more be worried about being called a southern writer than I could come back and beat on Larry McMurtry and tell him "you write too much about Texas." I kind of embrace that.

Q. Who are some of your favorite writers?

A. Pat Conroy. Robert Morgan from Gap Creek. I read an awful lot of Charles Dickens. If I want to read a mystery, then James Lee Burke.

I always hate to do this because when I get off the phone I always think of about 15 or 20 people that I really enjoy. I don't give them credit in something like this. I will be reading something that a high school or college student was forced to read twenty years ago and I didn't get it at the time.

And I love them. People say that you appreciate them more and I guess that is true. I love to read books about other cultures other than the South because it is a way of traveling.

And I know how hard it is to find time to read. I don't have a three year old trying to crawl up in my lap when I am trying to read, but I can imagine what that is like and can see my friends trying to squeeze out time to read a chapter. When you are in an airport and get to a really good place in the book and they start yelling on the loud speaker that you have to change your gate.

Q. Which do you like best, writing books or working as a journalist?

A. They are both completely different and it is really hard. I am not sidestepping this question. The book that I did about my grandfather was the most fun I ever had writing.

The book I wrote about my mother was the one thing I wrote that was closest to my heart.

But then I think about the power of newspaper writing and the chance it has to do some good. Sometimes to explain something or bring to someone's eyes a hardship or tragedy, and show the value of life. There is nothing better in those times.

Q. How long did you spend working on "All Over but the Shoutin'?"

A. Writing that was about a lifetime, I think. It was something that I thought about doing all my life. I didn't want to do it and go into it half-planned.

I was always working, always writing. I went to a writing seminar in Kentucky and there were a lot of students from West Virginia. They said they saw their own grandmother in the story.

We certainly didn't set out and say, 'Let's see what can we do here with "It's All Over But the Shoutin'" and "Ava's Man" that will help capture the Deep South.'

Now in "Ava's Man" it was a conscious decision, because I wanted to build me a grandfather and the only way to build me a grandfather was to recreate the world he grew up in. That was about as much fun writing that I have ever had. I just love the idea of talking about him. Talking about the way he looked like, the way he talked, the size of his hands. I also loved talking about the place and the kind of people. He had it hard.

When they told me about my grandfather biting that guy's finger off during that fight I was just like I was seven or eight years old. I was hanging on every thread. I just love that stuff. I spent a long time writing it, just sitting by myself and laughing, chuckling and grinning. Only when I couldn't get the grin off my face, that is when I know that people would see the value in the humor, and also see the strength and character, sacrifice, courage, and great sadness.

Q. Do you have any plans for future books?

A. Yes, we are going to do two book deals with Random House. I don't want to do another book about family, that is tightly tied to family, because I think I have done that. I do want to do another book about the place. There is a cotton mill in my hometown. It ran for 100 years and shut down and laid off 250 people. The place had changed. There was a time when a layoff just crippled a town. The mill became kind of timeless. They devoted their life to it and it gave them a blue-collar respectability. You earned every penny that you made. I have always wanted to do a story about the soul. And then we are going to do a novel.

Q. You wrote a lot about the political uprising in Haiti and the turmoil of the Oklahoma City bombing. Obviously, we have a big anniversary coming up. What is your perspective as a journalist? Should we be writing about it or what do you think we should be doing for the anniversary (of Sept. 11)?

A. I know what I am going to do. I will probably think a lot about what happened. I was in a hotel room in Chicago. I had been up late writing a story. I got a call from New York to turn on my TV, the world has just changed. I saw the second of the planes crash into the World Trade Center, just like so many other people did. There are going to be an awful lot of organized remembrances and an awful lot of organized memorials. I feel very strongly that what I will do won't be to write anything. I think probably what I will do is think a lot about it, what it cost and what it meant. I am like everybody else, I still can't believe that it happened, even after writing about it for months, after going overseas and seeing the hatred that led to that disaster.

Q. So you have been overseas since then?

A. I was in Pakistan just after we began our bombing campaign in Afghanistan, right off the border. My job was to write about the behaviors that led to that bombing.

Q. You are going to be here for the festival next month. Are you going to be giving a talk to everyone there?

A. Yes. How could you not want to do that? How could you not want to talk to people who read your books?

To contact staff writer Regina Davis, use e-mail or call 348-7936.