Southern storyteller offers ‘salty to cut the sweet’

Sophie Hudson writes like she talks. Others tell her it sounds Southern. 

“I write everyday stuff in everyday language,” she said. “To me, it’s not distinctive. It’s the job of everyday life — family and friends and faith and fried chicken and TV — whatever I am thinking about.”

Writing feels like talking to a small group of friends for her, but it is no longer contained to the journal she started at age 15. You’ll find her humorous voice on The Pioneer Woman’s website’s entertainment posts, speaking as an emcee for LifeWay’s DotMom women’s conferences and occupying the pages of her two books. 

Her blog, boomama.net, guarantees laughter with a side of warm, fuzzy feelings about the South, faith and family, but if it weren’t for this story, you might not know that she’s your neighbor (she’s been an Inverness resident for eight years) and has spent her days just down the street teaching English at Briarwood Christian High School for 13 years.

Her late-night daily journaling habits transitioned to blogging in 2005. 

“I downloaded things at the end of the day,” she said. “That’s what I am still doing.”

As to her blog name, her now 11-year-old son Alex, whose nickname is Boo, was born in Baton Rouge, where Hudson said people tend to the leave the possessive “s” off of words. So she became Boo Mama, and so did her blog. 

Soon, she connected with what she said felt like a small community of bloggers writing about family at the time. The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, would later write that Hudson “is hilariously appreciative of her very Southern roots” and “writes as if you’re sitting on her front porch drinking a tall glass of sweet tea.” Ann Vosscamp, author of New York Times bestseller One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, calls Hudson “Jerry Seinfeld in a skirt and a huge heart for Jesus.”

The BooMama blog has an audio facet as well. She and her friend, Melanie Shankle, who writes thebigmamablog.com from her home in San Antonia, had long talked on the phone every afternoon, and after overhearing them, Sophie’s husband, David, suggested they start a podcast.

“It cracks me up that people will listen to it,” Hudson said. “It’s not about anything. We don’t plan it.”

As she continued to blog, Hudson had an idea for a book but never thought it would become reality. That changed in the fall of 2011 when a publisher approached her. A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet came out in June 2013. Others have called it a love letter to her family. 

Hudson grew up around a lot of family in Meridian, Miss., and someone was always telling a story. Her mom and grandfather were the best storytellers, she said.

 “I was thinking about nephews and nieces and son and how they were not growing up in the same way, surrounding by family,” she said. “I wanted to document where they came from, and who they came from.”

What Hudson wrote resonated with her mom. The first four or five times when she visited her mom after A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet was published, her mom was reading the book.

After A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, Hudson fell in love with the process of book writing. A few months later, she was driving down Altadena Road when the idea for her next book came to her. Home Is Where My People Are releases on Feb. 2. Its stories center more on her friends around a theme of home.

“I have learned that home is about where your people are and how the Lord uses every stop in the road for a specific purpose,” Hudson said.

Although she doesn’t mention it by name, one chapter recounts her and her husband’s journey to becoming members at the Church at Brook Hills 11 years ago. They had both grown up Methodist and previously been part of an Episcopal Church — but never a church with contemporary worship.

“As much as we couldn’t see ourselves there, we couldn’t get over how much we were learning,” she said.

The bookend chapters focus on a place she said she is “borderline obsessive” about, Birmingham. It’s the first place that felt like home for her little family, she said, after living in Starkville and Jackson, Miss., and Baton Rouge as an adult.

 “When we moved here, we didn’t know a soul, and we didn’t know why we were moving here,” she said. “Now looking back I can name 100 reasons why I think this is where [God] wanted us.”

Hudson is already talking with her publisher about her next book idea.

“It’s exhausting, but it’s so fun,” she said. “I start to miss the puzzle of what connects stories. There is something sweet about that process. It’s a tender thing for me how the Lord is so faithful in that process. It’s not easy but it’s worth it.”

After all, days dedicated to writing are “big time fun” to her.

To get regular dose of Hudson’s writing or learn more about her books, visit boomama.net. Her books are available from all major retailers, including Amazon, Books-A-Million, LifeWay and Barnes & Noble.