Books Are Still In Demand

Books are a uniquely portable magic. ~Stephen King

 

That's obviously a magic a lot of readers are still looking for as they came out to the Kentucky Book Fair in large numbers yesterday to find some of those magical stories. And most of them did carry a book made of paper out the door with them. I did have a few are your books on Kindle questions, but I also had a great time signing books for readers to carry away with them. Some were buying them as Christmas gifts. Sometimes for themselves. Books are great gifts to buy for yourself.

I had a great time sharing a table with fellow Anderson Countian, Jennifer Johnson. Jennifer and I are here posing for a picture, but we both have some to learn about publicity photos. :) Note that neither one of us thought about making sure our hands weren't covering up the titles of our books. I took another photo with Virginia Smith and Allie Pleiter that was posted on Facebook. They carefully held their books so that their hands weren't covering up the titles or the cover. So live and learn. This was Jennifer's first Kentucky Book Fair even though she's been writing and publishing for a number of years. She enjoyed meeting readers and talking to her students and former students when they stopped by her table. She teaches seventh grade and actually has one of my granddaughters in her class this year. She was a great table companion. You can check out her books at her website.

 

 

I love Book Fair. I love meeting readers and talking to other book lovers like me. I like seeing the kids carrying around new books like they've been given a prize. I like how there are so many different kinds of books at the Book Fair. There were histories and mysteries. Travel books, calendars and kids' books. Inspirational fiction like mine and Jennifer's. Then you could take home some spooky stories by my buddies, Roberta Simpson Brown and Lonnie Brown, and ghost stories by storyteller and friend, Thomas Freese.

 

Thomas is also an artist with wood. Check out the neat pins he's wearing. Here's a close up of them for you. I love the mini-tombstone that reads, "I told you my feet were killing me." Thomas is always smiling and someday I'm going to get to hear him tell those stories in person. Here's his website link if you want to check out more about him. 

 

 

But back to the fair. Santa Claus was there and so was bestselling author, Sue Grafton. Coaches Rick Pitino and Joe B. Hall showed up to sign books. And of course there were UK books for the Big Blue fans. Dave Shuffett was there with his golden retriever. My grandkids, along with a few hundred others, got to give the sweet dog a pat. And then Woody, the dachshund writer who has a little help from his friend, Leigh Ann Florence, was signing books with his paw. I got to take a photo with Woody and it's on my Facebook page. I posted one of me with Santa too. I could have given him a long list from all the books I'd have liked to take home from the Fair.

 

So, from all appearances yesterday, it seems that books and readers are still doing fine in the state of Kentucky at the Book Fair.

"I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book." ~J.K. Rowling 

Jan Watson was at the Fair yesterday too. Remember, you can be in a drawing to win autographed copies of her latest releases, Skip Rock Shallows and Tattler's Branch by leaving a comment on a post here before November 27. Those are the books Jan had at the Fair yesterday and the people who carried them home are in for some good reads.

 

Meet Jan Watson and Win Her Books

My Friend, Jan 

"Watson's success lies in her ability to create characters that are endearing and timeless. . . ." Romantic Times Magazine.

 

One of the best things about writing in the inspirational market has been the friends I’ve made of other inspirational writers. One of those friends is Jan Watson who also lives here in Kentucky and writes historical Kentucky novels. So sit back and let me tell you a little about my friend, Jan

Jan Watson was a registered nurse and peri-natal loss counselor before she retired and began a second career as a writer. She got a great start by winning the 2004 Christian Writers Guild Operation First Novel contest for her first novel, Troublesome Creek.  She's won many awards since then including being voted 2012 Best Kentucky Author by the readers of Kentucky Living Magazine. Her books are set in the Appalachian Mountains and have a great mix of history, romance and suspense. Jan says that while she has always loved books, she never had the dream to write a book of her own the way so many writers, including yours truly, did. But then she remembered a story her grandmother told her once about a terrible flash flood that swept away a baby whose body was never found. Thoughts of this baby stayed with Jan for fifty years before she decided to save her, if only in a fictional story. 

Troublesome Creek and More

After she began to toy with writing a book about that baby, the first three sentences of what became Troublesome Creek came to her as she waited in a drive-thru line at McDonalds: “Girl! You’d better get to the house. If your mam catches you in that creek again she’ll skin you alive.” When the words wouldn’t stop coming after that and she was scribbling them down on any and every scrap of paper she could find, she knew she was going to write that story. Turns out, that story became more stories as she kept following her characters down their life paths. Her first series about that baby and her family include Troublesome Creek, Willow Springs, and Torrent Falls. I’m sure you’re noting the water connection in all the titles. 

Jan’s Loyal Writing Companion

Jan and I are both dog lovers. That gives us even more to talk about than writing. Her husband brought Maggie, a Jack Russell, home to her when the puppy was a few weeks old. Several months later, they realized Maggie was deaf, but that didn’t seem to slow her down much. Jan says Maggie understands doggy sign language, but if she doesn’t want to mind, she just turns her head and pretends not to see Jan.

Jan sometimes writes with Maggie sleeping on a pillow on her lap. But she says the best thing about Maggie is that she reminds her there’s fun to be had every day and that it’s best not to take life too seriously.

Jan’s Newest Series

In Skip Rock Shallows, Jan begins the story of Lilly Corbett, Copper’s daughter. Copper is the baby rescued from the flood in Troublesome Creek. But now we’re getting to know Lilly after she graduates from medical school and takes an internship in the coal camp of Skip Rock, Kentucky. Lilly is drawn to the stubborn, superstitious people she encounters in Skip Rock–a town where people live hard and die harder and where women know their place. You can follow Lilly down some romantic pathways in this Appalachian town as she begins to earn the residents’ trust.

Tattler’s Branch follows up Skip Rock Shallows. Lilly, married now, loves her life in Skip Rock and the people who are like family to her. With her husband away for a few months at a mining job, Lilly has her hands full with her patients and a younger sister visiting for the summer. Then an abandoned baby plunges Lilly into a struggle between what is right and what is safe. She must discover the strength of her country neighbors, her God, and herself.

Check out more about Jan’s books at her website, http://www.janwatson.net/

  

Win Jan’s Books

I have autographed copies of Skip Rock Shallows and Tattler’s Branch to give away to one lucky person. To throw your name in the hat, just leave a comment here with a way to contact you please. The giveaway is open to residents of the United States and Canada, but you must be eighteen or over to enter. Deadline to enter is midnight EST, November 27.

And if you don’t want to wait that long to read one of Jan’s books and you have an e-reader, Tattler’s Branch, is available right now through Saturday, 11/16, for the great download price of $2.99. Check it out at your favorite e-book distributor. Here’s the Amazon link.

Kentucky Book Fair Saturday, November 16

If you’re in the area, you can come meet both Jan and me at the Kentucky Book Fair at the Frankfort Convention Center this Saturday, November 16, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We’ll be signing our books there along with about 150 other writers including inspirational fiction writers, Virginia Smith, Jennifer Johnson, Allie Pleiter, Shelley Shepard Gray, and others. Of course, I hope you’ll come by my table way in the back to say hello.The fair is a great place to pick up some unique gifts for the booklovers on your Christmas list.

As a preview to the fair, Virginia Smith and I will be talking about our books and writing at the Frankfort Senior Citizen Center, 202 Medical Heights, Frankfort, KY, at 10 a.m. on Friday, November 15. The event is open to the public, senior citizens and younger citizens too. So come on out and get a jump start on the fair.

Discombobalated

Okay, so it's not Wednesday. It's not even Thursday, the day I usually remember I forgot to post on One Writer's Journal on Wednesday. But I've got excuses. A good writer should always be able to come up with excuses. Or reasons. So, I'm blaming those grandkids who were here a few days ago. By the time they left, I didn't know what day it was. Since I wasn't brave enough or energetic enough (the truth is I'm not young enough) to take the four kids to church, I felt like I was missing Sunday and who knew what day it was after that? If you don't have Sunday, the days just melt together. So you might say I was discombobalated.  Now there's a word that sounds just like it should. I looked up its meaning on line to be sure I wasn't discombobalated about that too.

Discombobalated or discombobalation is a word used to say that something confuses you or a word used to say that someone is a bit mental in their head. can be used as an insult!!

Don't you just love words? Without them, storytellers would be in a fix. Especially if they weren't good at being a mime or drawing pictures. Words are what I need. I've had a romance with them ever since I was a kid. Words spread across book pages carried me away on adventures, caused me to fall in love over and over, let me chase along behind people saving the world from the bad guys, and made me laugh and cry. Words were my favorite games in Scrabble and crossword puzzles and playing hangman with my sister on our chalkboards. I just did a guest post about having a romance with words on Romcon. If you want to check out the post and leave a comment there, you'll have a chance to win a copy of my new book. I'm also visiting on Katt Scribbles this week where you can leave a comment for a chance to win a book. Lots of those opportunities this month. Along with my own giveaway at my website.

It's always a kind of gift when the very right word comes to me from seemingly nowhere when I'm writing. Sometimes it will be a word I would never think to say in my own conversations, but somewhere in the murky depths of my writer's mind it's been buried, waiting for the right scene, the right character, to rise to the surface, waving its hand in the air, screaming, "Here, I am. Use me." A lot of the time, I'll pull out my ancient dictionary, not the on-line kind, but the open it up and flip through the pages kind, to make sure the word means what I think it does. Discombobalated was not in my dictionary. I had to go on-line to find it. Lots of new words have gained entrance into the book of words since my old dictionary was printed years ago. 

But it was the right word. I was discombobalated. It could be that I am discombobalated. But I do know it's Friday. I do know that I'm supposed to have my first book launch for Words Spoken True tonight at the Corinth Book Store in Frankfort. I do know that the weathermen are talking about a winter storm advisory starting at two o'clock this afternoon. It hasn't snowed but a skiff all year. The photo above is the bit of snow we had a couple of days ago. Not even enough to call off schools. By noon tomorrow, we're supposed to get an inch, maybe two, but the weather guys are making it sound like we're going to have a blizzard. A weatherman misses snow, I'm thinking. It would have to be the day I was hoping to meet and greet some readers that the snow would start falling. Oh well, maybe all of you have four-wheel drives and you want to test them out. If so, come on down to see me. I'm sharing the time with another local writer, Jennifer Johnson, with her book, Shoebox Surprise. 

Thanks for your patience with this discombobalated writer. I appreciate you dropping by. What words do you like? Which ones bring a feeling or thought to mind for you just from hearing it? Joy. Boisterous. Whisper.  Readers! That's one of my favorite words. :)