GOOD NEIGHBORS: AMY MANGAN
Pockets Of Joy Amy Mangan’s latest book is a smaller view of life in larger ways. BY JAMES BLEVINS
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Photo: John Jernigan
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hen last seen on the highway of her writing life three years ago, Amy Mangan had just published her first book, a memoir entitled This Side Up: The Road to a Renovated Life, an intimate chronicle of how Amy and her family endured the economic crash of 2008 and the next 10 years of hardship and renewal that followed. Shortly after arriving at this significant publishing milestone, Amy admitted candidly that she wasn’t entirely sure where her writing life would take her next. She assured her readers that she needed to drive down her own private road a while longer to find just what her heart needed to say. “For me as a writer it’s more of an organic process,” confesses Amy. “I don’t think about it in terms of, ‘What’s my next book?’ I really just see where my path takes me. So when I completed the memoir, which any type of memoir is going to be really intensive, I just set out to enjoy a different form of writing.” But not long after returning to the Ocala Star-Banner, humming along the highway of her beloved column, she suddenly spotted a figure fast approaching over the unwritten horizon. It was, as it turned out, her sister Julie, thumbing with an idea
Amy and Mike Mangan
Amy couldn’t resist. “She kept saying that she thought I should publish a collection of my essays,” remembers Amy, 56, of her older sister’s suggestion. “And I thought, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting, because it would really be kind of an homage to my father.’” Amy’s late father, Sherman Yeary, wrote four non-fiction books in his lifetime, all self-published well after he had turned 60. These books—The Story Pole, A Time of Summer, Main and Magnolia, and The Courthouse Square—detailed his thoughts on his life and legacy, his time spent in Ocala, and the lives of his dear family and friends, as well as touching on many relatable topics familiar to anyone who grew up in a small town.
OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
“My children love Papa’s books,” states Amy of her son, Griffin, 26, and her daughter, Gillian, 24. “So, I thought, ‘You know what? If the only readers are my children, and it gives them the same thing that my dad’s books gave to me, you should do it.’ And that is where the journey took me.” THE JOURNEY TOOK HER, finally, to her latest book, Accent Pieces: Collected Writing and Moments that Decorate Our Lives, published in mid-June by Black Rose Writing and described on her website as “a personal homage to creating the life you want right where you are…[a] collection of essays [that] makes sense of life, home, love, heartache, and friendships, all while sharing a decorating tip or two.”
