Book Festivals and Birthdays

It's a great thing to be two and have a cake that matches your dress and to blow out candles and hear everybody cheer. That has to be a great thing! And I get to help another granddaughter celebrate a birthday this weekend. I'm one blessed grandmother.

 ~~ It was a busy Saturday with birthday parties and the Redbud Festival. I always enjoy going to Barbourville and sitting on Writers' Row with so many friend writers. But the writers aren't the only creative people at the festival. There are craftsmen and women of all kinds. Dulcimer makers and players. Wood carvers. Gourd decorators. Jewelry makers. Somebody there was even making marshmallow shooters. I figured I'd be in big trouble if I got those for my grandkids. Marshmallows everywhere. Besides I always want to get the books. So many great books to entice me. But one of the highlights of the Redbud Festival is the quilts. Artists with needles. I didn't get the name of the artist below, but she had created some beautiful quilts. She told me the name of the pattern of the one on top in the middle. "Hearts and blooms." So pretty. So perfect.

 ~~ I know about quilting. When I was a little girl, my aunt made a quilt every winter. She'd set up the quilting frame in the living room by the coal burning stove and spend hours making perfect stitches. She let me make a few passes with the needle, but I'm sure she picked out my awkward stitches after I went home and did them over. I have a quilt she made for me the year I was born. I treasure it.

~~ I've never made a quilt and if I did it would just be pieces of cloth sewn in squares - on a sewing machine. Nothing to compare to the artwork you see here. Of course they do have machines that quilt now. I don't know if this lady used one of those or not, but just seeing her quilts hanging made my day at the Redbud Festival more fun.

 ~~ Spring is a busy time for book festivals. I'm going to be at Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green this weekend. They've got an impressive line-up of authors. Judith Viorst, author of many popular kids' books. Nicholas Sparks of Notebook fame. Jean Auel who wrote those Clan of the Cave Bear books. And I'm looking forward to seeing T.J. Stiles who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book The First Tycoon about Cornelius Vanderbilt. That might be a great birthday gift for somebody. It's fun having family members who love books the way I do. Of course I have a birthday every year too. Then besides the headliners, I'll get to see writer friends. We'll get to talk about deadlines and rewrites and editing and new releases. And on top of all that fun, I generally get some reading friends who stop by my table to say hello. That's the best part of all. So if you're in the Southern Kentucky area on Saturday, come by and say hello and make me smile.

 ~~ If you were organizing a book festival, what famous writer would you want to be there? And what question would you ask him or her?

Books, Writers, Singing and Grandkids

They're playing for the championship in basketball tonight. I'm not watching yet. I might later, but if my team had made it - and they didn't even get in the tournament (alas) - I'd be glued to the set. But I'm trying to catch up answering e-mails and such since the weekend was so busy I didn't have time to do any of that. I generally try to stay day to day caught up on e-mails so that it won't overwhelm me. Anyway, since the weekend was so busy, you're getting a rare Monday entry.

Saturday I got up at the crack of dawn - no, that's not right. I got up long before the crack of dawn to drive to Barbourville, KY to take part in Writers' Row at Union College for their Redbud Festival. That was fun, but we could have used a few more book lovers. A writer can always use a few more book lovers.

This festival had all kinds of vendors from candle and jewelry makers to bowl carvers and watercolor artists. Not to mention quilters. And lots of writers. I sat next to a Civil War history buff. Wayne Taylor had all sorts of Civil War relics from spent lead bullets to Confederate uniforms and canteens to Union money and bayonets. And since I have been researching the Civil War in Kentucky, the seating arrangement was great for me. I bought one of his books, The Terrible Time, that tells about the Civil War in Bell, Knox, Laurel and Whitley Counties. If you are a genealogist, he had a book listing names of the men serving in many of the regiments. You can check out his books at lulu.com. It was great talking to him and I look forward to using his book to help me picture how things were in 1862.

On my other side, I had the pleasure of talking to John Snell, an extremely talented photographer who has a beautiful coffee table book with pictures of the Red River Gorge. He showed me some of his prints and I wanted to buy a dozen of them. They were gorgeous. If you want to check some of them out, go to his website, http://www.johnsnellphoto.com/. He not only does the nature shots, but also horse racing photos. Besides that, he's just a super nice person and his story about getting started in photography is fun and interesting.

I also got to visit with my writing friend, Virginia Smith, who rode to Barbourville with me. We had a lot of fun comparing writing notes and commiserating about some of the challenges of meeting deadlines and figuring out how to best promote our books. Ginny has some great books out and a new one is hitting the market in a week. It's called Murder at Eagle Summit. I got a copy and look forward to reading it soon. I'll probably use her newest Revell book, Age Before Beauty as one of my next give-away books. I'll be posting details about that soon on here and on my website. You can check out Ginny's books at http://www.virginiasmith.org/. She usually adds some humorous touches to her books that are sure to keep you smiling.

Then after driving two plus hours home I went on to the Patriots' singing in Frankfort and enjoyed talking with new and old friends there. We didn't get home till almost midnight and I was bushed. Early Sunday morning my son calls and they're getting ready to go to the hospital. We thought sure we were going to get to celebrate Raegan Elizabeth's entry into the world, but she decided she wasn't quite ready after all. So we're still waiting. But the other kids went to church with me and we enjoyed a beautiful Sunday afternoon outside playing in the big dirt piles from where we're adding a room on to the house. Nothing like a big dirt pile to keep kids happy. Late in the afternoon we hiked to Panther Rock to see the wildflowers. The only problem with that was the little granddaughter got tired, so then I got tired carrying her back to the house! Still it was fun. And we beat the storms home. Got back to the house in the nick of time. That was really good.

I'm busy proofing the galleys for The Believer. So far I've found very few problems. I hope readers will agree when they start doing their own sort of proofing as they read my new story.

A special thanks to Elizabeth in Ontario who talked up my books at a Christian bookstore there to a group of church librarians. Wish I could have been there to hear what everybody said.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.