Brownies, Blog Tours, Book Parties & More

Okay, so I took my camera to my Hometown Book Launch today and forgot to take even one picture to share with you, my cyber friends and neighbors. I could have at least taken a picture of those brownies I baked for my reading friends. But I was too busy talking to think about pictures. So you get a picture of Spring instead. Soon we'll have flowers like this blooming in the warm sunshine. March is mere days away and the flowering time of the year won't be far behind.

It was fun having a book party with my hometown friends to celebrate Words Spoken True. I started doing these hometown book events when The Scent of Lilacs was published in 2005. Since that book's setting was my hometown back in the 1960s, I thought the least I could do was have an event for my local readers and friends. We might not be able to actually go back to the Sixties to party, but we could gather in the antique portion of the public library and celebrate me having the book published and Lawrenceburg getting a little book time. Of course, I did change the name of the town to Hollyhill. As I tell my Lawrenceburg friends, the Lawrenceburg series just doesn't have that pleasant roll off your tongue sound that Hollyhill has. 

Once I started the book party tradition, I enjoyed it too much to stop. Before The Scent of Lilacs was published, I wrote for several years without any publishing success, so now I want to celebrate every time I'm blessed with a new novel out for readers. Plus, it's just plain fun talking about my books with friends. Where I used to quake and tremble at the thought of standing up in front of a group of people and talking, now I love it. I feel as if we're having a conversation. I do end up doing most of the talking, but I'm always ready to pass the microphone off if a friend has something to say.

I had some new friends show up today and some of my regulars, who have shown up for nearly every book party I've had, didn't make it. Maybe they've heard my story enough. Words Spoken True did have an interesting path, and a long one, to publication. Maybe that can be next week's post.

As I told you last week, Words Spoken True has been flying around the internet gathering reviews like my little cockerspaniel used to go out on the farm and pick up sticktights. The reviews have flooded in. Most of them have been positive. Some have withheld a few stars.

Here's one of the nice ones. I have a couple of reasons to like this one. First she says nice things about my book. Second, in these days when authors are often pushed to establish their brands, she doesn't mind my books being different. I've always wanted my brand to be "storytelling."

“Ms. Gabhart has seemed to carve a nitch for herself in writing  deeply moving and emotional stories that touch on faith and on  your soul. WORDS SPOKEN TRUE is a beautiful and enlightening  read that I highly recommend.”                      —Marilyn Rondeau, CK2s Kwips & Kritiques http://www.ck2skwipsandkritiques.com/2012/02/14/ review-words-spoken-true-by-ann-h-gabhart/ So at my book party today, we ate the brownies. We talked books. I enjoyed seeing friends and family.  I looked over some of the  reviews coming in when I got home. I wrote this blog post. I  counted my blessings and you're in the number.  Thanks for reading.

Fun Book Event

It's Sunday night and my book event this afternoon at the Anderson County Library went great. Thanks to all of you reading friends and family who came out to hear me talk about writing about the Sixties in Small Town, America. In my case, that's Lawrenceburg.

When I decided to re-invent myself as a writer for the third or maybe it was the fourth time, I went back to basics and tried to write about something I knew really well. That turned out to be growing up in a small town back in the Sixties. A lot of the people who came to my book party today had already read some of my Hollyhill books so they knew that I had used how Lawrenceburg looked back then as the model for the town in the books, Hollyhill. I told them I had to change the name of the town because the Lawrenceburg Series just doesn't have the same ring as the Hollyhill Series.

I think my Lawrenceburg readers enjoy trying to figure out if I based my characters on any specific persons, but I never do that except for maybe a minor character here and there. Still, as I told them today, writers take what they discover about everyone they meet along with what they know or feel about themselves and put it in a stew pot on a little stove in the back of their head that's warmed by their creative fires. From those combined and cooked together characteristics come all our characters. This character might have somebody's ill temper or sunny smile while that one might have somebody else's fear of spiders or love of lilacs. I always feel as if my characters are totally a product of my imagination, but yet at the same time they become real enough to me that I sometimes think it might be nice if they would come by and have a cup of tea with me. Of course I wouldn't invite the rude or mean characters in to stay long. At least not until they changed their ways or gave me some new plot ideas.

But back to my book party. I do appreciate everyone who came. I love to talk about writing and about my books. Oh, let's face it. I just love to talk. And I love getting to know people. You know, so I can add all their fun characteristics to my pot of character stew for another book down the road. I gave away a lot of doorprizes and we played some just for fun Sixties Trivia. We focused in on some Lawrenceburg things, but we also talked about the Beatles and going to the moon. While some of the people there couldn't exactly remember about the Sixties since they hadn't discovered America by then. You know - been born. And some others of them were mere babies. But there were plenty of the rest of us who have been around a few decades and we had fun doing some remembering. Do you know what year the Beatles were first of the Ed Sullivan Show? What did the first man on the moon say? Stuff like that.

I've got a busy week ahead with a church workday Monday and my granddaughter in WV having a big fifth birthday. She was born on tax day, so her birthday is easy to remember. Then this weekend I'll be going to the Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green, Kentucky. If you live in the area and make it to the Book Fair on Saturday, please come by to say hi. I'll be on a panel about My Old Kentucky Home Revisited; Novels about Kentucky at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Janna McMahan and Laura Benedict will also be on the panel. That's sure to be fun. I was on a panel with Janna in South Carolina. She's a great writer. I haven't met Laura yet, so I'm looking forward to that. You can check out other authors there on their website www.sokybookfest.org. Harlan Coben and Mitch Albom are their headline authors. So come enjoy a fun day of books.

May you have a blessed week.