Longtime Ellijay resident Bennett wrote ‘Side Trails’ at 80
A local author is excited that a TV series based on one of her novels could soon begin production.
Joyce Southern Bennett grew up in Ellijay and lived here until health reasons prompted a recent move to Pickens County. She still has a lot of family and friends in Gilmer County who’ve encouraged her writing through the years.
Bennett, whose Christian faith is prominent in her storytelling, has written several fiction and nonfiction books since her self-published 2012 debut, “Streams of Gold,” which includes remembrances of her childhood in the Roy Road area.
“I was raised out on Elford Road. Elford was my daddy,” she said.
A few years back, Bennett’s novel, “Side Trails,” was picked up as the basis for a possible TV series. Just recently, she found out that shooting
locations have been chosen and actors have been cast for the production.
“It’s an honor, and I’m blessed (that they are doing this),” said Bennett. “I praise the Lord for it. The Lord has really blessed me.”
“Side Trails,” an inspirational western, follows four siblings who are orphaned while traveling west and later befriended by a traveling preacher.
“A young preacher is headed out to Wyoming to preach to the miners, and he runs across these teenagers and a toddler whose parents have been killed,” Bennett said.
Blue Heron Films, a production company with offices in Talking Rock, is handling the project. The company has produced several movies including “Charlie’s Christmas Wish,” for which scenes were shot in East Ellijay.
Sue Ann Taylor, Blue Heron’s executive producer, said the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike will delay filming for “Side Trails,” which were initially expected to start by the end of this month. The company is still in talks with four television networks, including the Christian-themed Inspiration Network, which are interested in the show, she noted.
“We have a green light from two of them. We will have a contract before we start filming,” Taylor said.
The production company plans to film scenes for some of the 13 first-season episodes at Historic Westville, a mock 1800s village in Columbus, and a now-closed previous location of the historic attraction in the town of Lumpkin. Other planned shoot locations in Georgia include the town of Fitzgerald and Providence Canyon State Park, also in Lumpkin.
“They had (Westville) for 25 years in Lumpkin, then they moved to Columbus. I’ve shot many things at the Lumpkin facility, so I know that facility Some of the buildings I wanted for (the series) are still there,” said Taylor. “They’ve taken some of the buildings and moved them to Columbus, behind Fort Benning. Their plan is to eventually move all the buildings to Columbus.”
Bennett was in her 70s when she self-published her first book, which began as a way to put some of her family and childhood memories down on paper. She never thought she’d write anything but nonfiction, but Bennett persevered and “Side Trails” eventually took shape.
“I had done these inspirational (nonfiction) books, and I could see this crazy thing, this story, in my mind. I would pray and say ‘Lord, please let somebody else laugh at this too,’” she said. “I was going to an author’s meeting in Blue Ridge, and everybody would read little parts of what they were writing. I would read from my inspirational books, but make it comical. I told them, ‘I can’t do what y’all do, and one of the guys said, ‘Well, we can’t do what you do!’”
The characters and content of “Side Trails” appealed to Taylor, who’s worked 45 years in TV production, as a story that could translate well to the screen.
“I adore Joyce, and I love the characters,” she said. “There was a series of books when I was a child called ‘The Box Car Children,’ which was about these kids who survive without their parents. In the series, we lose the parents in the first episode. There are quite a few differences between the series and the book, which there always are. We pick it up at the end of the Civil War. The soldiers are coming home, and a family is moving west to restart because their opportunities have dried up.”
Bennett has written other novels since “Side Trails,” which came out in 2020. One of them, “Gentle Was Her Soul,” was based on the lives of Bennett’s sister and brother-in-law, Virginia and Clifford McClure, of Gilmer County. Another novel, “Gone With the Tide,” draws from time Bennett spent in Saint Joseph (Port St. Joe), Fla., which has a history rife with tragedy.
“We lived down there one time,” she said. ‘The old town had got blown away, but first yellow fever had come there, and a lot of people died from it. Years later, a tidal wave came and just blew the town away. The old town was right down there by where the new town is, and it sounds like it was just cursed.”
Now 84, Bennett said a small stroke has delayed her productivity as a writer, but she’s hoping to soon finish another novel called “A Long Time Till Evening.” She hopes to write more after that.
Taylor noted that not only is Bennett’s writing inspirational, so is her late-in-life calling as an author.
“One of the reasons I was so captivated (by ‘Side Trails’) is she wrote it at 80. As my generation gets closer to 70, looking at this woman who started writing books at 80 (is inspiring),” she said.