Mystery Photo Contest - New Chance to Win

You know I just remembered last week that I've celebrated every Hollyhill book with a giveaway involving a mystery photo. So I can't let the re-release of Summer of Joy slide by without some of the same kind of fun. So here's mystery photo number 1. I'll post another one or maybe two on Sunday. If you want to be in the running for the prize of one of my Heart of Hollyhill books and a book by another Christian author (How about a choice between a Dani Pettrey book or a Julie Klassen book?), just leave a guess or a comment saying you have no idea. Either will work as an entry. Each new mystery photo I post will give you the chance to guess again and get another entry into giveaway.

Last time I did this, you guys were great at guessing. So since some of you are so smart, it will be more fun for everybody if you guess first and read the comments second. No fair changing your guess then! :) We'll play this mystery photo game for a couple of weeks, so the deadline for entries (comments on one of my blog posts) will be March 18. You have to be eighteen to enter, and please do remember to leave a way to contact you. I had several entries in my last blog contest that didn't leave a way to send them a message.

I've heard from all my winners (Jocie still hasn't heard from the winner on the Heart of Hollyhill blog) and will be sending out the prizes by the end of the week. I also got a couple of great ideas for what I can ask for my Love Comes Home Celebration coming up in June. But first I'll have to come up with prizes.

I'm going to do a Book Talk at the Casey County Public Library Thursday, March 6. If you're in the area, come on out and we'll talk books together. I love libraries. I owe a lot of my writing success to libraries. First, the books I was able to check out when I was a kid fed my love of stories. I would have never been able to read so much without those weekly trips to the library. Second, when I started writing, the library was a gold mine of resources both about writing and about the historical events I wrapped my stories around. There was no internet then. If you wanted to know something, you went to the library and looked it up. And I was blessed with the most helpful librarian ever, Ann McWilliams. She even made me appreciate my name more. Said she liked being plain Ann, and so I thought maybe I should too.

Libraries are no longer just books and card catalogs. Now there are banks of computers and movies and audio books and kids programs. I like that a library can supply so many resources for a community. At the same time, I don't visit the library as often as I used to. I have a huge stack of books waiting for me to have time to read them. I do some of my research on the computer and some from books I own. But I know the library is there when and if I come up with a different idea. Then I'll go search through the card catalog that is now on computer and carry home a pile of books.

Do you like libraries? Do you visit yours now or did you when you were a kid? 

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to guess the mystery photo and watch for another one on Sunday.

Book Talks and Dub's in Trouble Again

Here I am with the Butler County Librarian, Kenna, after my booktalk yesterday in Morgantown. I appreciated those who were able to come and hope they enjoyed hearing about how I started writing and kept on writing. Sometimes the kept on part is harder than the start part. But perseverance generally pays off and it has for me since I now have books to talk about to readers.

-I love libraries. I owe a lot of my own reading education to my hometown library and then when I started writing there was a wonderful librarian here in Anderson County named Ann McWilliams who always went out of her way to help me find whatever research material I needed for my historical novels. She was the best and in large part because of her energy and drive we have the beautiful library we have today that is dedicated to her memory. I was in our library this afternoon to return an audio book and the place was hopping. Almost every computer was busy and there were even some people looking at books. At the Butler County Library, Kenna says the inspirational fiction is very popular and that the library patrons are reading my books, too. That's always music to a writer's ears.

-Well, poor Dub is in doggie jail again. Not the pound this time, thank goodness. This time the doggie jail is our basement. And he's there through no real fault of his own. He has itching problems and in trying to scratch his itch, he did something to his ear that made it swell up. The vet had to cut it open and drain it out. So now the poor old dog has on one of those Elizabethian (or as someone else said satellite dish) collars and he's not a happy puppy. He keeps looking at me as if to ask why I'm torturing him like this. And it's also torture for him to be confined. He's a farm dog. He's used to being out there smelling all the smells and watching the deer eat the apples off the tree. He doesn't bother the deer. He just watches and hopes they'll leave one of the apples for him. He's going to have a long three weeks.

-Next week is going to be very busy around here. I've got another book talk on Tuesday. They'll have to be polite and listen to me that day since it's my birthday. (And by the way, that's the day I'm drawing for the winner of my giveaway - two books to some lucky winner for my birthday. So you've got one more day to put your name in the drawing.) But we're also going to be at the National Quartet Convention in Louisville every day. If you're there come by the Patriots' booth and say hello. Their booth is in aisle ten or eleven. It's more fun if people stop and talk and I'll have my books there if anybody wants my autograph. Then next Sunday I'm hosting my family reunion. My daughter and her husband are coming in and maybe my son and his family so I might get to see the WV grandbabies.

-On top of all that, this is the week they announce the winners of the ACFW books of the year in Denver. I'm not going to be in Denver, but I'll be represented there by my agent just in case the unexpected happens and they announce Summer of Joy as winner of the long contemporary novel category. That would really be neat. But it's already neat that my book was a finalist. I did really enjoy writing my Hollyhill books and it's a blessing that readers have taken my Hollyhill characters to heart and enjoyed those stories as well as my Shaker stories.

- Oh yeah, and today is Grandparents Day. One of the kids at church asked what treat I'd bought to recognize the grandparents the way we do the Moms and Dads on Mother's Day and Father's Day. I told her grandparents didn't need a treat. They already had the best treat anybody could have - grandkids. I put this quote in the church bulletin today. "What a bargan grandchildren are! We give them our loose change, and they give us a million dollars worth of pleasure!" I don't know who said it, but I know a lot of grandparents who might have. Hope if you're a grandparent you have fun with your grandkids this week or maybe if you have a grandparent you had fun with them.