John Pruitt was the Georgia Writers Museum's (GWM's) Meet the Author speaker for October, discussing his new book, Tell it True: A Novel, a fictional story loosely based around the cold-blooded murder of African American U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, a Bronze Star awarded World War II veteran.
A TV news cameraman at the time of Penn's killing near Athens by known KKK members, just nine days after the passing of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act, Pruitt went on to become a longtime TV news anchor in Atlanta before retiring 12 years ago.
After reading the first few pages of Tell it True, then repeatedly stressing to an attentive GWM audience that his book is a fictional novel and in no way should be considered a historical accounting of what happened to Penn, Pruitt described his motivation for writing the book and a writing process that lasted a quarter of a century from inception to completion.
The initial idea, though, had formed much earlier in the midst of the civil rights era, he said, during his early time as a newsman.
"I'd always had the novel idea floating around in my mind because I was covering so many fascinating aspects of what was going on in the South," Pruitt explained after signing dozens of books for GWM attendees. "I actually sat down to write about 25 years ago when I had a little hiatus in my work life, and I wrote about a hundred pages and put it aside, had a little writer's block, which I could easily do because I was working and staying busy. It wasn't until I retired and I no longer had an excuse that I went back to those hundred pages."
Remarkably, Pruitt said most of those initial pages made the final cut--at least in spirit--as he changed the focus by adding the element of murder, which he believes greatly improved the plot.
"It was a work in progress and it was a very fluid process. In other words, it changed a lot," he said. "I think if you don't outline it and stick to it, it's gonna change. And I didn't outline. I simply put my characters in place and let them dictate the story."
The book debuted Oct. 4, just a week prior to Pruitt's GWM appearance, his first of many this fall. He called it an 'interesting' experience to be out promoting something he's literally thought about and worked on for decades.
"When you put that much effort into something, it really is entirely yours. It's your creation. It's something you dreamed about and worked on, and suddenly you have a book and you want it to succeed," Pruitt said. "You want people to read it and like it, but in order for that to happen, you have to reach people... and I believe I have a story to tell. I believe I have an entertaining novel and now I just want people to read it."
With his background in TV news, and especially as an on-air anchor, Pruitt displayed an affable ease while delivering his message to the GWM crowd, which included many old friends and colleagues.
"Yeah, I don't use notes or anything because I know what I want to say and I know what I want to talk about, so I just let it flow," he said before adding, "it also feels like a relief to finally be on the road with his own message and book tour. You know, I was just like a lot of writers who say, 'I'm gonna write a novel,' but they never sit down to do it. And I was determined to do it. It just took me about 50 years to get around to it."