The Joys of the Electronic Age and Booksignings

Hi, everybody. Thanks for stopping by. But this post is late since my phone lost its dial tone all weekend. The repairman just called a few minutes ago to say our phone was working again. Somebody dug a fencepost hole and cut the cable. I don't know who was fencing, but it wasn't us. Anyway, out here in the sticks where those of the slower electronic age reside, a person can’t reach out to talk to people on the other side of the country without that nice little hum in your ear when you pick up the phone or that melodious growl in your modem when you hit the connect button on your computer. Now and again we talk about checking into satellite internet, but I’m the one dragging my feet, thinking it’s just too much trouble to switch over. I’m the kind of person telephone companies, etc. love because I just don’t want to go through the hassle of changing it all over to a new company. I’m loyal as a puppy dog or maybe I should say as an old dog that doesn’t want to bother learning new tricks.

Of course land lines don’t seem quite as vital to most people as they used to be because we all have cell phones these days or so it seems from the way everybody at the grocery store has a phone chatting away as he or she picks up some groceries. Or how half the people who come through a stoplight have telephones pressed against their ears. We are a nation connected. And some can connect to the web on their cell phones, but not me. I figure I’ll hang back on that modern advance a bit longer. Besides I don’t have anything earth-shaking to say. Certainly nothing that you can’t wait a few more hours to read. I put all those kind of words (the kind you have to read right away) into my books. At least I’d like to have those kinds of words in my books.

Virginia Smith and I had our booksigning at JosephBeth Booksellers in Lexington on Thursday night. Thank you to all my friends who came by. And Ginny’s friends too. We didn’t do a reading as we had planned because somehow the contact at the store thought we weren’t speaking and so we ended up just talking to everybody one on one. Ginny kept telling folks I was going to entertain by dancing the two-step or soft shoe or something. That would have had people laughing, but I’m not sure about entertained.

I missed out on the dancing gene, although I used to have a dog that would dance when he came to greet me whenever I’d come home. I have done a few doggie dance steps with him just to encourage him. Tate’s passed on to dance in doggie heaven now. He’d also smile, but the dancing was what everybody liked to see him do the most. Or maybe they just liked to see me doing those dog steps. Anyway, there weren’t any dogs dancing at JosephBeth’s so neither did I. Laughing – that we did do. Even signed a few copies of The Outsider, Orchard of Hope, and Summer of Joy too. Ginny’s book, The Taste of Murder, is hot off the press, just released last week. To her delight, she’s already spotted it in Wal-Mart. She set the book in Owensboro, KY where they have the great barbecue. At least I think that’s what I overheard her telling people. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But she does have a newly designed website, http://www.virginiasmith.org/ where you can check out all her books. She says she posted a picture of us on there too, but I haven’t had the nerve to go look at it yet.

Also several local papers in Kentucky picked up the article Don White, who used to be the editor of our local paper, wrote about me. Don's writing human interest pieces now about people he meets who have some kind of Kentucky connection. Believe me, he's written about a lot more interesting people than me. You can check his stories out at www.thekytraveler.com. I saw the article about me that was in the Danville Advocate, but he says maybe twelve or thirteen papers across the state picked it up. Not the local paper here in Anderson County. I think they’re tired of printing articles about me. They did a piece on me back in February when Summer of Joy came out.

I never could get them to do the article about my Hollyhill books that I pitched to them. Since I based so much of Hollyhill on my local town, Lawrenceburg, I thought it would be fun to really zero in on that as a hook, but the newspaper reporter wasn’t a long time Lawrenceburg resident and he just didn’t see the appeal to that. I still think it would be a fun article. “Lawrenceburg Stars in Author’s Hollyhill Stories.” Or something along those lines. Oh well. Maybe they were afraid I'd made everybody in Lawrenceburg sound like they were from Jupiter like Wes. If you haven't read my Hollyhill books you won't know what in the world (or Jupiter) I'm talking about. Sorry, you'll just have to read the books to find out.

And now the Shakers are the stars in my new books. I’m knee deep in making a few changes to keep my editor happy with my new Shaker book, The Believer. Nothing major, thank goodness. Just a tweak here and there. And I got the proof of the final cover last week. It’s sort of like the last one with the girl and guy in the front with some Shaker buildings in behind. I like it. I’ll post it on my website as soon as I know a publication date. I’m thinking next summer, but I don’t know that for sure yet. Guess I should ask. Sometimes I just expect to get all the info without ever asking.

The next week is a busy one. Aren’t they all anymore? And can you believe it’s almost November? You realize what month comes after November. I’d better be marking off some time on my calendar to go shopping for all those grandbabies. But this week the Patriots are having their Homecoming on Friday and Saturday nights. That’s always fun. If you’re in the area, check out their website, http://www.patriotquartet.com for more details. And then I’ve been telling people I’m going to be in Indiana on Saturday (a booksigning at Heaven Help Us Bookstore in New Albany at 11:30 a.m.), West Virginia on Sunday (the baby dedication day for the twins at my son’s church), and Tennessee on Monday (a trip to the mountains with Darrell’s brothers and sister and spouses – we’ll have a blast.) Actually I’m not usually so busy. But this all sounds like fun. Hope all your busiest days are fun. And if they are tell us about them. I enjoy reading your comments and I like getting e-mails from you readers. You can contact me privately from my web page if you want.

Oh yeah, and I’ll be drawing for the winner of my Hollyhill books on Halloween day. Guess it’ll be a trick or treat time. So if you haven’t signed up for the drawing, send me an e-mail in the next couple of weeks. I have a dial tone now so I'll get your messages. Thank goodness. I was worried I was going to have to call that machine woman at the telephone company again. You know, the one with the soft voice that says please say yes or no in answer to all my questions. Of course, she does usually ask easy questions. Yes? Or no?

Book Readings and Signings

My booksigning/reading went well on Friday night. Thanks be to the Lord for family and friends who are ready to support a writer in need. There is absolutely nothing sadder than an author at a booksigning when nobody shows up to get a book signed. Actually I haven't done many booksignings like that. I did have one signing back years ago when my first books were out. My aunts and mother came. I can't remember whether they bought any books. The rest of the time I just chatted with any customer who got within shouting distance. Most of them had no idea why I was sitting there behind a stack of books. The large posters you see at many booksignings are there for a reason. "See me. I wrote this book! Honest!"

I didn't have to do that kind of shouting Friday night. Everybody was very gracious and kind and they even bought most of my books. So it was fun. I love talking to people and I like having book discussions. A reporter from the Anderson News was there. I've been trying to talk up a human interest article about how I used what I remembered about Lawrenceburg in the sixties for Hollyhill in my books and how I zeroed in on the importance of a community newspaper by having Jocie's dad be the editor, but I don't think that idea went over with the reporter. (I'll bet Jocie would have written it up the way I wanted.) So we'll just have to wait and see what he writes. I'm hoping I didn't say anything too stupid. It's amazing the stupid things a person can say when a reporter is listening. It may not sound all that bad at the time you're saying it, but after it's written down and and printed in the newspaper for everybody to read, the words spin around and sound way different. Any of you ever had that experience?

Next weekend I'm off to South Carolina to the Book Festival in Columbia. My daughter, Tarasa, is going along and we're making it a several day trip to celebrate our birthdays. We both hit one of those years that have zeroes last year so we have to do something to celebrate that kind of milestone. The book festival promises to be interesting. I'm on two panels. One about Faith in Fiction and the other about the importance of place across genres. I'm trying to think wise thoughts, but maybe I'll just listen to everybody else's wisdom. I'm looking forward to sitting in on some of the other panel sessions and hearing what those authors have to say. If you're in the area, come check the festival out. My panels are at 10 a.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Then I'll be signing my books for about an hour directly following the panels.

Also watch for my new and improved website in the near future. And let me know what you think.

Next week, I won't be posting until Tuesday since I'll be on the way home from S.C. on Monday. Hope all of you have a good week and that you notice all those ordinary everyday blessings that make life so good. We can even do some counting. I can count my booksigning and my friends and family being there. That's not an everyday kind of blessing, but it's definitely a blessing. For the everyday type, I'd say the smiles of my Christian brothers and sisters at church this morning. My pastor's good sermon. Visiting my mom and sister. Walking with my dog, Dub, and my neighbor dogs, Roxie and Baby. They love to walk with me. Talking to my daughter on the phone. Finishing my page edits way before schedule. Watching basketball. And so many more. Tell me some of yours. And that will be a blessing too.