Feature I About the author

Write On! Butch Bailey

The author behind “Cinderella of the Bayou”

By Patrice Doucet

In this year’s Books Along the Teche Literary Flash Fiction Contest, centered around the theme Teche Tales, they don’t come more original than winner Butch Bailey’s “Cinderella of the Bayou,” a story of a prosthetic leg found floating on Bayou Teche.

From his home in Russellville, Ark., Bailey was “humbly proud” to hear the news that he won first place. It was a moment that he says brought affirmation that he could “write works that people would enjoy.”

A loyal follower of the literary festival, Bailey placed second in last year’s contest with his story “Fast Like Me.” Speaking to him over the phone, he says, “I find the Books-Along-the-Teche Literary Festival to be an interesting undertaking, and I like the direction it’s going, with a local flavor, yet covering different topics.”

With full intentions of attending this year’s festival, unexpected traffic from the followers of the solar eclipse prevented him from traveling.

Born and raised in north Louisiana, Bailey has connections to the state through his work as well. As a manager for Entergy for much of his career, he traveled often to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and drove through New Iberia many times. At one time he trained on the waters of Bayou Teche in St. Martinville for the Tours de Teche race.

“I got to know these areas and their folks,” he says speaking of his fondness for South Louisiana. “I love the food, of course, but also the diversity of the music; it has a sense of art. There’s a decency about the people and a focus on the enjoyment of life. And there are a lot of opportunities for creative exchanges there.”

In the last three years of his retirement, Bailey has been more focused and committed to writing, but talks about the difficulty of going in a different direction. “Making that hard turn after retirement is an interesting challenge and hard to do; it’s often a topic in my writings,” he reveals.

Sharing his writings with other authors has helped him refine his craft. The Facebook group 31 in 31 intended to encourage members to create or accomplish something, from art and writing to health and personal improvement, every day in January prompted Bailey to be more diligent about his writing. He continues to share his works with other writers in the group throughout the year.

The experience has led him to be open to the inspirations all around him. The idea for his winning story is based, in part, on a true account shared in a casual conversation. “I have a friend who’s a lawyer and in his off time, he dives in waters around the South for treasures and relics lost after big weekend events,” says Bailey. “He told me about the weird stuff he’s found, including a prosthetic leg. The more I thought about it, the more questions I had, like where did it come from? and what do you do with something like that afterward? We had a lot of laughs when I told him I wrote about the leg for this contest and about the creepiness of my character who found it.”

A James Lee Burke fan, Bailey gives a nod to the author with his character Deputy Jimmie Lee Burke, who takes writing courses on the side. “I love Burke’s work because, in everything he does, he is an incredibly decent person. I admire that quality in him and follow him on Facebook,” says Bailey who watched Burke online during his live presentation at the festival.

While Bailey’s “Cinderella of the Bayou” ends with no one claiming the mysterious leg, he says he’s interested in developing the story to reveal the woman to whom it belongs. “I might explore whether she threw it away intentionally and whether she reclaims it or not. And if so, does a relationship develop between her and its founder?”

In his largest work, the fiction writer has been working on a novel that brings together two of the most unlikely characters: one who thinks he’s become a vampire, after being bitten by one, and a TV evangelist who’s been outcasted from his church. As he tells it, “The vampire has faith and no religion, and the evangelist has religion and no faith. They become friends and tour the South.”

Bailey’s writing has crossed over into songwriting, leading him to a workshop given by famed singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell. He shares, “I’ve written two or three songs that have strong possibilities, but I haven’t submitted them yet. I’m working with a talented guitarist who is helping compose the tunes.”

In yet another genre, Bailey is also nearing finishing a book of cowboy poetry, centered around a fictitious town in the painted desert of Arizona. The central character in most of the poems is a sheriff who yearns to attend law school, but can’t make the change in his life. “It describes my own difficulty in going in a different direction, of writing, after retirement,” admits the winning writer. Write on, Butch Bailey, write on!