Kathy Bradley announced last week that 30 years of writing a regular column for the Statesboro Herald was enough: she was retiring her regular observations. While the subject matter of her columns was different and her motivations for writing a particular column were ever evolving, Bradley said she always had a similar goal for each one.
“I want people to be curious about things,” she said. “And if I prompt them to think maybe slightly different … and the idea that you are a little more open to something you didn’t know before. That's what I hope to do.”
Bradley’s journey to writing for the public was a relatively long one, but she knew where her heart was at 7 years old.
“I've told this story many times,” she said. “In second grade I learned three new vocabulary words: college, scholarship and author. And they were my words. I decided in second grade they were my words. And that's all I ever wanted.
“By the time I was 17, I had two of them, but the author part I didn't get until I was 52. I went to law school because it was a good thing to do. I knew I'd be good at it, and it was stable, and it would enable me to have a good life. But you never get away from the idea that words are important once you figure that out. You're going to be a writer of some kind forever.”
Bradley is referring to the publishing of her first book – “Breathing and Walking Around” – to achieving her goal of becoming an author, but she started writing her Herald column before she turned 40.
And her column came about because of the comic strip character “Pogo.” Back in 1996, Bradley told several friends a funny story about her thoughts on the Georgia Legislature passing a resolution naming Pogo the official cartoon reptile of the state. She then shared the story with Larry Anderson, the editor of the Statesboro Herald at the time, who asked if she would turn her story into a written column that would be published in the Herald.
Soon after, Anderson asked if Bradley would like to be a regular columnist for the paper and so began her 30 years with the Herald.
“When I first started the column, I thought of myself as being kind of funny,” she said. “And so, most of them had an element of humor to them. Over time, the column developed into more of what I would call ‘thought-provoking ideas.’ But Pogo is how it got started.”
Also, Bradley saw humorous writing as keeping a little bit of distance between herself and her growing audience.
“Starting off in a more humorous vein was my self-protection,” she said. “I did not have confidence in what I had to say. So, my idea was to make them laugh. But as time went on, I just developed enough confidence that I thought, ‘you know let's expand our breadth here and see. Can I say something that might be actually important and not just funny?’”
Walking for inspiration
The 1996 Olympics in Atlanta also played a factor helping further develop Bradley’s writing. Bradley was selected to be a “community hero” and run a tenth of a mile with the Olympic torch in Bulloch County. She said she was scared to death she wouldn’t make it through that tenth of a mile, so she started walking – and she hasn’t stopped.
“It became such a part of my daily existence that now on days I can't walk, I'm just fit to be tied,” she said. “So, I got accustomed to doing that mostly at home on the dirt road. And there would, most days, not always, be something that caught my attention. It could be a particularly colored leaf. Or the way a sunset looked made me think of Mercurochrome. I remember that one, in particular.
“And I would either make a mental note, or later on, when I had a cell phone, I'd make a note of whatever caught my eye or a potential subject for a column if it came into my thoughts on a walk.”
For Bradley, nature became a focal point for much of her writing.
“I had fallen so in love with the natural world, with the senses, with just everyday things that we take for granted,” she said. “I had just so fallen in love with it that I wanted everybody else to experience it like I did.”
Like most writers, Bradley finds inspiration in the works of other writers. In particular, the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard had a profound effect on her writing, Bradley said.
“When I read that book, I remember thinking ‘she thinks like I do,’’’ she said. “And I had never felt the freedom to describe things like I saw and heard and smelled them until I realized that there were other writers out there who did that.”
Rick Bragg
From 2011 to 2014, “The Write Place Festival” was held at the Averitt Center, celebrating local and national authors. Bradley was an active participant in the 2011 and 2014 events.
One of Bradley’s favorite writers then and now is Rick Bragg, who was a presenting author at the 2014 festival. Bragg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of 11 books, including “All Over but the Shouting,” a memoir of his childhood and growing up that is profoundly sad, ultimately uplifting and filled with beautiful prose.
Bradley said meeting Bragg was exciting and “a little intimidating.”
“The thought of standing on the same stage with Rick Bragg just took my breath away,” she said about the event. “There were four of us (scheduled to read on the last night of the event) and he was the last one to read. I read a column of mine about peanut season – what it is like for the peanuts to be harvested and brought into town and so on.
“I finished and he was next. He stood up and he looked at me and said, ‘That was beautiful. That line about so-and-so, so-and-so, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to steal it.’”
Bradley said she can’t remember the exact line Bragg was referring to, but she does remember “nearly fainting when he said that.”
And, as a writer, Bradley believes Bragg has found a certain sweet spot in his writing style.
“But the idea that there are people who only want to read happy things or who only want to read uplifting things. I think, ‘no, no, you've missed the point.’ Life is both difficult and joyous. And when you find the place where difficult and joyous cross, that's real living. And that's what (Bragg) does.”
Post column future
While Bradley may no longer write a column every other week, she certainly will continue to write. As the author of three books and a three-time Georgia Author of the Year, writing is an essential part of her existence.
And her Statesboro Herald column always will be part of her soul, as well.
“(The column) has certainly been an important part of my identity for a long time. Sometimes I would write them when I was in the (District Attorney’s) office.
“When I first was hired at the DA's office, Joe Martin was the DA,” she said. “Joe basically told me, ‘Whatever you need to do. You have permission to do it on office hours or whatever.’
“I'm usually better in the morning, and I would sometimes go in a little early. And I would sit there and think in terms of I’d really rather be doing this than going to court at 9 o'clock this morning.
“It really was more of who I thought of myself as being than being the stodgy lawyer. So, I very much appreciate having had the opportunity to write a column for the past 30 years.”