Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You
by LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Legendary rock, folk, and country music singer Lucinda Williams has been nominated for 17 Grammy Awards and has won three. She was named “America’s best songwriter” by Time and one of the “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time” by Rolling Stone. Earlier this year, her memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, was published by Crown-Penguin Random House. With the original manuscript written entirely by hand, her book tells many stories about her life, including her youth spent in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with her family. Featuring prominently in the book are her mother, Lucille Fern Day, her stepmother, Rebecca Jordan, and her father, Miller Williams, whose papers reside at the Ransom Center. A poet, editor, critic, and translator, Miller Williams is also remembered as the country’s third inaugural poet. He read “Of History and Hope” at President Bill Clinton’s 1997 inauguration. “There are many times I was wishing he was with me to help me; to be able to answer questions,” Lucinda said in an interview with Seth Meyers in 2023.
Excerpts from DON’T TELL ANYBODY THE SECRETS I TOLD YOU: A MEMOIR by Lucinda Williams, © 2023 by Lucinda Williams. Used by permission of Crown Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. [Read more…] about Lucinda Williams’s memoir reveals deep connection with her father, poet Miller Williams