Joshilyn Jackson, My BFF
Some people get giddy when they meet a Hollywood star. But having lived in L.A. for ten years, it takes a bit more than that to get my heart racing. Now put another writer in my path and you’ll find me stumbling for the right words to say.
Last week, I met best-selling author Joshilyn Jackson in Oxford, Mississippi. Joshilyn (author of the newly-released The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Between, Georgia, and gods in Alabama) and I were doing a radio gig together — the famed Thacker Mountain Radio show. It’s a live program with at least 200 human bodies in the audience.
The really nerve-racking part of it is that you are carefully timed. I had precisely 12 minutes to talk about my book — no more, no less. And there’s no big clock in front of you carefully guiding you through your allotted time.
I thought I was the only one feeling nervous, anxious, sweaty, clammy. After all, I was the novice, the Thacker Mountain Radio virgin so to speak. But just minutes before the official hand signal queing me to take my place on stage, I thought about walking right out the back door. Who would even notice if I was gone? Heck, probably most everyone there had come to see Joshilyn anyway.
But then I saw her pat her chest with her hand as if she was trying to calm a racing heart. Ah, I thought, I love this woman!! This beautiful, clever, witty writer, whose books I adore, was just as nervous as I was!
We had bonded, friends for life, sisters in the sorority of authorial women. Now Joshilyn may not be aware of the importance of that connection, that singular moment in time but that’s not really important. Afterall, it’s just a matter of perception, and from where I’m sitting, looking through my rose-colored glasses, we are best friends forever!
And by the way, I did my 12 minutes right on time with no clock, no mess-ups, no fainting and no projectile vomiting!
Leave a Comment