SweetSpot: Now and Then Promotion Includes Fannie Flagg’s Success

Like our protagonist in SweetSpot: Now and Then, noted author Fannie Flagg didn’t start out as a writer. Some may remember her as an actress and game show co-host. But like our protagonist, Fannie dreamed of becoming a bonafide writer one day. Her first novel, published in 1981, debuted without much fanfare. It took until midlife before she enjoyed significant success as an author.

I met her at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference after Fried Green Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Cafe had put her in the literary limelight. In this short video I filmed of her at the 2018 conference, she talked about the roots of her storytelling. This clip also mentions her B.F.F., bestselling author Mark Childress who agrees with her about the process. Their beliefs match mine. Click here

A subplot of this novel covering one tumultuous year in our protagonist’s life revolves around reaching for a goal in her middle years that Darlene Robinson was unable to reach in her young years. Becoming a published author. With nudging from her boss, she begins making progress on that goal by attending her first writers conference soon after her story opens. As it happened, it was the same conference Fannie Flagg attended during her first years of learning craft except Darlene didn’t know that in 1999 when her story opens. Back then she only knew that if she was serious about becoming a writer, there was no time to waste. That reality drove her to do all that she did during that year that led her to where she is now when this story opens.

Like Fannie Flagg, many writers have traveled other roads before finding our way into this writing life. Darlene Robinson was one of them.