I love having hometown book launches the way I did today. First off, I get to see people I haven’t seen in months. We live in the same town but the only people I see are those on the same grocery store run schedule as I am. Does that happen for you too? You see the same group of people over and over and never see the others. In our little town, Kroger and Wal-Mart are the great meeting places.
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And the library too, of course. That’s where I met my reading friends today. And some of them are big UK basketball fans like me. Yet they left the game while it was still touch and go and came to my book launch for Angel Sister. It must have been that chocolate I’d promised them. I did have chocolate – brownies and candy too. Along with lemonade. And door prizes. As someone said, I’m not above a little bribery to make a book talk more fun.
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We did have fun. I talked about how I got started writing and some of the good things and bad things along my writing road. My first book was published in 1978 so you can see I’ve been on this writing road a long time and I’m hoping I still have some miles to journey on a while longer. I want to have some more hometown book launches with my reading friends here in my town. I’m not exaggerating when I say that each time a new person showed up, I felt as though I’d been given a gift. A gift of friendship and love. The best thing is that these hometown friends are such an easy group. They laugh when I try to say something funny. They don’t hold it against me when I get something wrong. They just do some more laughing with me. They carry my books home with them and read my stories. I am blessed.
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I drew for the winners of my Angel Sister Celebration last week. The winner of the “everybody who enters” drawing was Mary of MN. Kelly of MD won the “I never win anything” drawing. So now she can’t say that any more. Connie of KY and Susan of SC won the “tell me a sister story” drawings. Connie told me about how her sisters-in-law have been the best “sisters” she could ever imagine and that they’re always there for her when she needs a helping hand. Susan told me about how her sister always does so many things to make their family better that she is truly an “angel” sister.
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I also decided to give a bonus prize of an autographed book to the person who sent in the most touching sister story. There were several really great stories, but Laurie E.’s story of how her little sisters were answers to prayer won out. There were lots of different stories from funny to inspiring. I enjoyed them all. I hope to highlight some of them Wednesday night.
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Thank you for reading. And I hope you are feeling like a winner tonight and that you have been blessed with sisters to love.
