Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

Arts & Photography

synopsis

Synopsis

We are the makers of subcultures. Of all our communities, where are we the happiest? As an award-winning Southern journalist, Dianne Poston Owens has learned a thing or two about people and community – that people want to know their lives matter, their pets won’t rat them out, and that they are not alone. An observer and recorder of people, places and things, she understands that every day is a new day, and each day is played out in tandem and in gathering. Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane is a collection of short essays intended to be read for inspiration and encouragement. Owens poses questions and offers photographs that allow readers the opportunity to reflect and pause before forging ahead. Written with charming wit, Southern twang and a deepness that is drawn out by nature, Owens explores what we see, say, and choose, and how we connect to the people we interact with in the “communities” in which we gather.

bio

Author Biography

Dianne Poston Owens is a former newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, serving rural communities in South Carolina for more than 30 years. Though she wandered from her roots, she now lives in the same neck of the woods that her family has lived and died on for more than 250 years ... Along with two goats, at least four chickens, two cats and whatever else lives in the woods!

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Author Insight

Keeper of old things

I'm the keeper of old things. Old typewriters. Bottles. Farm implements. My house is in some ways a museum of a slice of Americana. But I am enamored with technology, especially new technologies. I had a wireless telephone the minute one was available. My Mazda was outfitted with a speaker so I could drive hands free. It was crude by Bluetooth standards of today, but it was top-of-line, cutting-edge. I saw the beauty in communicating while traveling, then and now. Even old-school fax machines are magic to me. I put a photo in here, and it comes out there. The original is unchanged. A faux original exists elsewhere. Magic. The original text messaging system. With technology, life moves at no less then the speed of light and sound, 770 miles per hour and 900,000 times faster than that. Wow! I once heard someone say that we shouldn't get married to today's technology. If we do that, we can't move forward. At whatever speed we want to. Check out this excerpt from an essay in my book "Gathering, Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane."

Book Excerpt

Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

I am the keeper of old furniture and dishes, old pictures and a scrapbook that was my grandmother’s that dates to before the 1920’s. A 100-year-old scrapbook.

Some things don’t need digitizing. Some things need holding and touching.

I have an old hand mirror for primping in and old handkerchiefs for the sniffles. Old tackle boxes and lures. Old teeth, fossilized sharks’ teeth.

I am the keeper of many more old things.

One day, someone will say out with the old and in with the new.

I have old typewriters and new laptops.

I have Wi-Fi and communicate untethered, wirelessly.

I am guilty of pushing out the old for the new.

What is your favorite new technology?

What did it replace?

What would it take to do without it?

Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

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Dianne Poston Owens

Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Keeper of old things

Book Excerpt

Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

Comment on this Bubble