Peevish Pen

Ruminations on reading, writing, genealogy and family history, rural living, retirement, aging—and sometimes cats.

© 2006-2023 All rights reserved

My Photo
Name:
Location: Rural Virginia, United States

I'm an elderly retired teacher who writes. Among my books are Ferradiddledumday (Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin story), Stuck (middle grade paranormal novel), Patches on the Same Quilt (novel set in Franklin County, VA), Them That Go (an Appalachian novel), Miracle of the Concrete Jesus & Other Stories, and several Kindle ebooks.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Media Blitzed

For someone who is decidedly not a celebrity, I’ve had my picture appear in newspapers three times last week, my name mentioned in another article, and me appear in person on TV.

On July 26, Rex Bowman (The Blue Ridge Chronicles) and I were at Peggy Shifflett’s Cottage Curio. An intern from the Salem times Register stopped by. Her article appeared in the July 31 edition.

On July 27, as the new kid on the Franklin County Library’s Board of Trustees, I appeared at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Westlake branch library. The Smith Mountain Eagle ran the story and picture last Wednesday. So did the Franklin News Post. You probably won’t be able to tell which one I am in the back row, though.

This photo appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle.

Last Friday’s Roanoke Times mentioned the Franklin County Book Festival in its Laker section that goes to readers who live around the lake area. (Too bad the readers in Roanoke won’t get any Roanoke Times publicity about it. Downtown Rocky Mount isn’t all that far from Roanoke.) Anyhow, the story mentioned all of us who are reading.

Last Friday, Pam Palmer (the Westlake children’s librarian) and I appeared on Dick Shoemaker’s show, Rise & Shine on local cable channel 12 to plug the book festival. Pam’s father wrote one of the featured books.

For those who don’t know, the Franklin County Library, with a grant from the Smith Mountain Arts Council, will hold its fourth annual book festival on August 8 and 9. At 6:30 p.m. on Friday the 8th, the coffeehouse readings will be at Edible Vibe on Franklin Street, about a block from the library in downtown Rocky Mount. Dick Raymond and I will open the evening by reading some of our Bulwer-Lytton entries that were published in It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (Friday Press, 2008).


The annual Bulwer-Lytton contest spotlights the worst opening sentences for novels that haven’t yet been written, and gets over 10,000 entries annually (up from three in 1982, its first year). I won the 1996 Worst Western division as well as a miscellaneous dishonorable mention in 1999. Dick has won a dishonorable mention. Names of the 2008 winners were supposed to be released at the end of July. So far, they haven’t been.

Other coffeehouse readers—good writers all, not nationally ranked bad writers like Dick and I—are Dan Smith, Mike Allen, Pete Crow, and Peggy Shifflett.

On Saturday, August 9, two authors of Civil War books will speak. At 10:00 a.m., Robert Johnson (father of Pam Palmer) will discuss This Violent Land, based on the journals of U.S Army Major William Stone. At 11:00, Marc Leepson will discuss Desperate Engagement: How a Little-known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, DC, and Changed History. Civil War history is always popular in the county—especially if Gen Jubal Early is involved (and he is in Leepson’s book).

For more info, check out Keith Ferrell’s blog, Cultivating Keith.
~

Labels:

1 Comments:

Blogger Greener Pastures--A City Girl Goes Country said...

I see your little head back there, lol.

I need to know how you put those links in your posts. If you told me before, I forgot.

www.GreenerPastures--ACityGirlGoesCountry.blogspot.com

3:57 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home