Author returns to Alabama roots, sets latest book in Demopolis
Alayne Smith is a native of Alabama but has lived and worked in Georgia for decades. She earned a degree from the University of Georgia and became a media specialist, starting a broadcasting program in Gwinnet County schools.
In spite of all her time in the neighboring state, “I’m astounded by the fact that as long as I’ve lived in Georgia, I come back to Alabama when I write,” said the author, who grew up near Marion. “When I decided to write, it was all Alabama.”
Smith was the guest author Friday at the historic house museum Gaineswood. She spoke about the three books she has published, the one on the way and her inspiration for the stories.
Gaineswood itself is the setting for her second book, Educating Sadie. Smith recalled the first time she toured the home and the effect Gaineswood and other plantation homes had on her.
“As a child, I loved these homes,” she said. The antebellum houses struck a chord with her hidden romantic streak. Her home in Lawrenceville, Ga., happens to be across the street from one of those magnificent homes.
Smith visited Gaineswood again just after her first book was published. “I knew that I wanted to include in my story the Vine and Olive Colony because it fascinated me.”
Educating Sadie, set just before the turn of the 20th Century, centers around a first-year teacher named Amanda from the fictional Alabama town of Marshall. She comes to Demopolis to teach in a two-room schoolhouse. Here meets Sadie, a sharecropper’s wife who wants badly to be educated.
“Amanda devises all these ways to help her…escape from a lot of abuse and poverty,” said Smith.
Amanda proves to be a very creative teacher, especially with a lesson she calls “All Aboard.” She lined up chairs in serpentine manner for the students to sit in and then “visited” Cahaba and Demopolis on the imaginary train rides.
Smith’s other two books, and the one coming out in October, are about Ellen, an aspiring journalist, set in mid-1990s. They draw from the author’s own professional background.
“All my books except for Educating Sadie have a huge broadcast journalism thread,” she said. The first even includes a broadcast journalism textbook.
The author used her experience in developing a broadcast journalism curriculum for young adults that taught them how to write script, camera shot angles and movement, composition, interview skills, editing and lighting.
But the books for young adults also include suspense and mystery.
“A lot of what I write centers on the stories I heard growing up,” Smith said.
When Smith and her husband, L.C., retired, she told him, “We need to write our life story for our children,” starting from birth to the time their first son was born. During her research she recalled her Aunt Zena, “the real lady of mystery,” the wife of a sugar plantation owner in Cuba. Smith decided then she would write fiction and “springboard it off” her aunt’s story.
The second book in the Ellen series was published last year. The third Ellen book is due out in time for Halloween. It is a mystery that involves one of the antebellum homes in Marion, a former bed-and-breakfast, and a mint julep cabinet that actually is in the home.