Writer’s first novel followed storybook path to publication

Feature story for The Commercial Appeal

May 30, 2012

Courtney Miller Santo grew up in conditions fertile for a burgeoning writer, a conservative Mormon household with seven children where there was no television to be found. Instead, the large and close family told stories and created plays. They interacted in ways almost unheard of today. And they read.

“My dad was always reading, he would go to bed at 9, and he would always have a book,” Santo said of her father, an elevator mechanic.

Santo, the oldest of those seven children, describes her childhood just outside of Portland in Milwaukie, Ore., as “chaotic,” yet a bookish manner set in and has paid off for her in a big way as she prepares for her debut novel, “The Roots of the Olive Tree” (William Morrow), to be released in August.

The story is threaded along one olive-growing season, taking a look at the lives of five generations of firstborn daughters and Anna, the 112-year-old matriarch, who wants to be the oldest living human being in the world.

The story, set at Hill House and the family’s olive groves in northern California, centers on a geneticist coming to study the longevity of the family just as the youngest, Erin, returns home alone and pregnant.

It’s a combination that, the dust jacket of an advance reader copy explains, “ignites explosive emotions that these women have kept buried and uncovers revelations that will shake them all to their roots.”

It’s a novel with a road to publication almost as intriguing as the tale within the pages. Santo entered her manuscript in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award competition in 2011. Out of 5,000 entrants, she made it to the semifinals and the remaining 50 hopefuls. And then she was eliminated. But that’s only the beginning of the story because she was then contacted by an agent with the Janklow & Nesbit Associates literary agency who had read the manuscript excerpts posted at Amazon, and wanted to represent Santo … (read more)

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Freedom best part of summer parenting

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

May 24, 2012

The school year is over, and it was a good year with advances made, focus maintained and lessons learned. The grades are just beginning to roll in, and I could not be more proud. I’ve given myself a solid B-minus in School Year Parenting for 2011-12.

It wasn’t perfect (it never is), and I’m no show-off, but I did manage to prepare just north of 750 sandwiches since last August. I found socks, washed uniforms, located shoes and walked the kids to school. I napped. I read to my daughter’s kindergarten class once. OK, sure, it was only once, but one is more than none, and that’s good math. I also helped my kids with some math homework.

My weakest subject was probably handwriting. Specifically, in putting my handwriting on the many forms that Memphis City Schools requires for our kids to take part in any activities. There was a mountain of paperwork in my inbox, and no way to get to all of it, not with all of those sandwiches to be made. So some papers were late, and some never made it to school. Or they made it there, but were tardy.

There were forms for field trips, for projects due and projects done, graded homework, quizzes to be signed and notices of fundraisers. I put these things off, set them aside and forgot all about them.

The first rule is to always show your work. Well, here it is, beneath this pile on my desk, still.

There were tests, too. Spontaneous questionnaires by people I’d run into at Lowe’s or Kroger — “Papa quizzes,” if you will — and I was expected to know the answers. “Sixth-grade … baritone saxophone, Japanese and Spanish, soccer … 14 years old … TCAP … peanut butter.”

School-year parenting is different than summertime parenting, isn’t it? During school, there are rules and regulations to adhere to, time schedules, adults standing at the front of the room telling you what is and is not acceptable. But in the summer, I can do what I want, when I want. Mostly. As long as the adult at the front of the room says it’s OK.

During these 10 weeks of summer, we will sleep late and eat at all hours of the day. We’ll go outside when the sunshine calls and come in for television and naps when the shade begins to vanish. I will still make sandwiches, and I will still walk with my kids, but I won’t have to sign the forms to say they can go to the zoo, I won’t have to wake them before sunrise, and they can spend whole days with no shoes for all I care.

Summertime Dad will get an A-plus. I can feel it. I’ve been studying for this since late last year, somewhere around sandwich No. 220. I’ve memorized the formula, I’ve solved for X and found that X marks the spot. And that spot is poolside, where I’ll be with a cool drink in my hand and working on a passing grade at passing the time.

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Meeting client needs top priority for McManus Reilly

Feature in Special Emphasis: Financial Services for The Memphis Daily News

May 21, 2012

The laws surrounding estate planning and employee benefit and health care packages are complex and ever-changing.

With the upcoming presidential election and the potential changes to inheritance tax, among other issues, the financial planning industry is being kept on its toes more than ever.

But these aren’t necessarily obstacles, as Mike McManus of McManus Reilly Financial looks at it.

He said he sees the challenges ahead as an “opportunity.”

“We have some great clients and we enjoy working with the clients that we have, and that’s what gets me up and gets me going in the morning are the people I work with and my associates here,” McManus said.

The firm began in 2004 by McManus and Mike Reilly who worked side-by-side prior for Executive Financial Services. As partners with three employees, the boutique firm now manages close to $75 million in assets, and works closely with corporate clients from the worlds of medicine, legal, retail and manufacturing … (read more)

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Magnificent movie houses of 1920s remembered during Memphis Heritage program

Hidden Memphis feature for The Commercial Appeal

May 13, 2012

Between the years 1905 and 1925, Memphis city directories listed 30 storefront theaters. All had disappeared by 1929. These were nickelodeons — Idle Hour at 269 N. Main and Amuse U at 253 N. Main, among others, little more than storefront venues for showing silent films.

The palaces — The Warner and the Loew’s theaters — would be built specifically for stage and film. They would be lavish houses created for live entertainment and the grandest entertainment Hollywood had to offer.

Memphian Vincent Astor’s interest in these movie houses came from a visit to The Malco theater (now the Orpheum) to see the original “True Grit” in 1969. The gilded decor and opulent surroundings struck a chord with him, and a lifelong interest was born. Over the years, he worked for Malco in maintenance and played the organ “anytime someone would come in that needed to be impressed with the building.” He continued with the Orpheum throughout the 1983 renovation.

“I watched that building change from a semi-dark, unappreciated old movie theater … to introducing myself to Leontyne Price, who was going to try out the acoustics in 1984,” Astor said. “So I actually watched a dream come true.”

May is National Preservation Month, and to celebrate, Memphis Heritage wants to take you to the movies. Two lectures and an exhibit at Memphis Heritage’s home at Howard Hall will focus on movie houses of the past. The first lecture, “Before the Palaces,” focusing on pre-1920 theaters, is set for Thursday; the second, “The Gilded Halls (1920-1929),” is on May 24 … (read more)

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Volunteer early for getaway errands

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

May 10, 2012

Every parent needs to get away from time to time. We need to step out of our role as caretaker and the crushing weight of responsibility that comes with it. We need time for ourselves, time to clear our mind, a change of scenery. We need silence.

However, a weekend on the Florida coast or a Caribbean island might not be available to all of us. A trip to New York or San Francisco might interfere with soccer games, homework projects and sleepovers.

So what I do is, when I’m sent up to the Kroger on Sanderlin for a necessary dinner item or forgotten lunch staple, I take a little time just for me and stroll around the store. I sight-see and explore for things like fruits I’ve never seen or a new flavor of toothpaste. Perhaps I’ll run into someone I know or just sit and watch the lobsters for a bit.

It is the saddest vacation available in the Frommer’s travel guide.

There are times when a special item is needed and Kroger becomes a layover before traveling on to Whole Foods. This is the closest I come to visiting a foreign land. The foods there are exotic, the people concerned and the ambience organic. I feel, while walking around that store with no children tagging along, as free to range as their chickens.

There are other vacation packages available as well. There is the obvious choice of the hardware store. The aisles of Home Depot and Lowe’s are populated by fathers who have “run up to the store for a minute” for a box of nails or “a bracket for that thing I’m working on.” I see them wandering, clutching a roll of duct tape like it’s luggage and admiring a 12-amp reciprocating saw as though they were browsing the duty-free between flights. A trip like this could take an hour; in the spring, when the garden center is in full bloom, an hour-and-a-half. Bracket For That Thing I’m Working On would be a good name for some sort of VIP lounge if those companies were so inclined.

The trick, of course, is to buy your ticket early. Not too early — don’t look too eager — but claim it just before your spouse has the chance to volunteer picking up that pack of toilet paper or a head of garlic. It’s why I always offer first to travel to Gibson’s Donuts. It’s just something, I tell my wife, that I want to do for my family. I’ll get the dozen donuts and then get one just for me and a cup of coffee. It’s 10 minutes of “me time,” 20 if that train at Poplar, blessedly, delays me.

The trip home from any of these excursions should be a long, circuitous one. I’m the one you’re stuck behind and cussing as I meander just below the speed limit to take in the changing leaves or the progress my neighbors are making on renovations. I know they’re renovating because I see them at Home Depot all the time. The escaped parent finding himself alone in the car does not care about gas prices. He is not concerned (at the moment) with the environment. He is alone and at peace with the windows down and the dulcet tones of NPR to keep him company.

Being able to spend quality time with family is a gift we all should cherish. Being able to spend a few moments away from the kids and the television and the responsibility is like an exotic trinket from a far-away gift shop.

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