They’re playing for the championship in basketball tonight. I’m not watching yet. I might later, but if my team had made it – and they didn’t even get in the tournament (alas) – I’d be glued to the set. But I’m trying to catch up answering e-mails and such since the weekend was so busy I didn’t have time to do any of that. I generally try to stay day to day caught up on e-mails so that it won’t overwhelm me. Anyway, since the weekend was so busy, you’re getting a rare Monday entry.
Saturday I got up at the crack of dawn – no, that’s not right. I got up long before the crack of dawn to drive to Barbourville, KY to take part in Writers’ Row at Union College for their Redbud Festival. That was fun, but we could have used a few more book lovers. A writer can always use a few more book lovers.
This festival had all kinds of vendors from candle and jewelry makers to bowl carvers and watercolor artists. Not to mention quilters. And lots of writers. I sat next to a Civil War history buff. Wayne Taylor had all sorts of Civil War relics from spent lead bullets to Confederate uniforms and canteens to Union money and bayonets. And since I have been researching the Civil War in Kentucky, the seating arrangement was great for me. I bought one of his books, The Terrible Time, that tells about the Civil War in Bell, Knox, Laurel and Whitley Counties. If you are a genealogist, he had a book listing names of the men serving in many of the regiments. You can check out his books at lulu.com. It was great talking to him and I look forward to using his book to help me picture how things were in 1862.
On my other side, I had the pleasure of talking to John Snell, an extremely talented photographer who has a beautiful coffee table book with pictures of the Red River Gorge. He showed me some of his prints and I wanted to buy a dozen of them. They were gorgeous. If you want to check some of them out, go to his website, http://www.johnsnellphoto.com/. He not only does the nature shots, but also horse racing photos. Besides that, he’s just a super nice person and his story about getting started in photography is fun and interesting.
I also got to visit with my writing friend, Virginia Smith, who rode to Barbourville with me. We had a lot of fun comparing writing notes and commiserating about some of the challenges of meeting deadlines and figuring out how to best promote our books. Ginny has some great books out and a new one is hitting the market in a week. It’s called Murder at Eagle Summit. I got a copy and look forward to reading it soon. I’ll probably use her newest Revell book, Age Before Beauty as one of my next give-away books. I’ll be posting details about that soon on here and on my website. You can check out Ginny’s books at http://www.virginiasmith.org/. She usually adds some humorous touches to her books that are sure to keep you smiling.
Then after driving two plus hours home I went on to the Patriots’ singing in Frankfort and enjoyed talking with new and old friends there. We didn’t get home till almost midnight and I was bushed. Early Sunday morning my son calls and they’re getting ready to go to the hospital. We thought sure we were going to get to celebrate Raegan Elizabeth’s entry into the world, but she decided she wasn’t quite ready after all. So we’re still waiting. But the other kids went to church with me and we enjoyed a beautiful Sunday afternoon outside playing in the big dirt piles from where we’re adding a room on to the house. Nothing like a big dirt pile to keep kids happy. Late in the afternoon we hiked to Panther Rock to see the wildflowers. The only problem with that was the little granddaughter got tired, so then I got tired carrying her back to the house! Still it was fun. And we beat the storms home. Got back to the house in the nick of time. That was really good.
I’m busy proofing the galleys for The Believer. So far I’ve found very few problems. I hope readers will agree when they start doing their own sort of proofing as they read my new story.
A special thanks to Elizabeth in Ontario who talked up my books at a Christian bookstore there to a group of church librarians. Wish I could have been there to hear what everybody said.
Hope you all have a wonderful week.