Going Plaid in a Solid Gray World
Wilson’s book to benefit Corner Table
Tammy Wilson of Newton has partnered with Redhawk Publishing to compile a collection of her local newspaper columns to benefit The Corner Table soup kitchen in Newton.
Going Plaid in a Solid Gray World, Collected Columns offers 135 short slice-of-life essays that have appeared in local newspapers since 2015. The book, to be released later this month, is being published by Redhawk Publications, an initiative of Catawba Valley Community College, that publishes and distributes textbooks as well as artistic and academic contributions from CVCC and the community at large.
The book, priced at $20, may be purchased at The Corner Table or through Wilson’s website (www.tamrawilson.com) as well as the Redhawk, Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites.
A portion of proceeds will be given to The Corner Table, that provides free meals through the soup kitchen in downtown Newton, as well as to-go bags each Friday. The agency also coordinates the countywide backpack program for school children and prepares and distributes frozen meals throughout the county to individuals in need.
The Foreword was written by Summer Jenkins, executive director of The Corner Table for which Wilson has been an honoree of the Baker’s Dozen Women’s Society to raise awareness and funds for the agency.
Wilson’s columns deal primarily with Catawba County, but readers across the area and beyond have anticipated her writing every other Tuesday in The Hickory Daily Record, Observer-News-Enterprise and Lincoln Herald as well as her blog on tamrawilson.com
Her views of the ordinary that are often amusing as she explores such topics as the dearth of CD players to the annoyance of greeting-card glitter, and why we shouldn’t wear white shoes after Labor Day.
Going Plaid was named from a 2017 column that related the difficulty of replacing plaid loveseats in a world upholstered in gray, beige, white and black.
“Regardless of how the country is divided politically and socially, everyone has shifted to neutral when it comes to interior decoration,” Wilson wrote, and not following the herd can be difficult and expensive.
Several pieces deal with fashions or lack thereof, such as taking cues from Walmart.
“COVID has done that to us. House dresses came into fashion in 2020 because we had few places to go other than the drug store drive-up and Zoom meetings” she said.
Wilson explores weightier trials too, such as ice storms, slave narratives and war casualties. Interspersed throughout are slices of humor that feel as if you’re chatting over coffee.
Much of her focus is being a transplant from the Midwest.
“I’ve lived in this area for 42 years, but I don’t dare call myself a native. I’m a hybrid with one foot in the South and another in Illinois,” Wilson said.
Wilson, spent most of her career in writing, editing and public relations and served in PR roles for Lenoir-Rhyne University, Catawba County Schools, Catawba County Library System and elsewhere. She is author of Dining with Robert Redford & Other Stories and was co-editor of Idol Talk, the first published anthology of teen idol essays by female writers (McFarland, 2018).
Wilson, a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, holds a master of fine arts degree from the Stonecoast Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine. She has published widely in literary journals and anthologies and has served as a Road Scholar presenter for the North Carolina Humanities Council.
