Stone Soup, Etc.

I've been busy the last few weeks.

 One of the highlights of this week is Friday's trip to Waynesboro for a Kids' Avenue Event. I'd been invited by Mary Katharine Froehlich, proprietress of Stone Soup Books, a bookstore/cafe combination. After I'd done a reading of Ferradiddledumday at Kids & Sew On, I could return to the store for a complimentary dinner and music. I could also bring a guest, so I invited Linda Layne of Cedar Creek Publishing to join me.

Before I went to Kids & Sew On, I stopped by the bookstore where I spied this gigantic tree stump. Notice the little flowers growing in the crevices?

 

When I arrived at Kids & Sew On, I quickly sat up my display. I was assisted by the owner's two charming daughters, who loved the snoring horse that decorates my table.

As the audience assembled, Mary Katherine played her dulcimer. We also worked some of her playing into my reading.

When Linda and I arrived at Stone Soup, the Scruffy Murphy Band was already playing Celtic music outside. They were excellent.

Inside, Mary Katherine had put down her dulcimer and started preparing food.

The bookstore area is very close to one of the dining areas. You can see lots of books behind me.

During dinner, Linda and I talked about publishing. Looks like my middle grade novel Stuck just might be coming out from Cedar Creek in early 2011.

In the bookstore's front yard, I sat down with a lion and a lamb.

I arrived home very late and very tired, but very well-fed. 


What other writing-related things have I been doing this month? 

On May 5, I lunched with the Roanoke Valley Pen Women at Mama Maria's in Salem, where our guest speaker was William Spillman, the winner of the 2009 Pen Women's Poetry Contest. He read us some of his poetry, which was superb. You can read his winning poem on the Pen women's blog.

The next evening, I traveled back to Roanoke for the meeting of the Valley Writers Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, and on Saturday, May 8, I performed Ferradiddledumday at the Moneta/SML Library. (I've already blogged about that—here.)

On May 10, some of the Lake Writers and I met for lunch at the Westlake Country Club where we did the final judging for the Lake Writers Essay Contest. (The winners will be announced soon. I know who they are, but I can't tell you yet.) The following Thursday, I attended the monthly meeting of the Franklin County Library Board of Trustees, and became vice-chairman. On Friday, May 14,  I went to Lake Writers at the Moneta Library, and on Saturday, May 15, I attended a Board of Governors meeting of the Virginia Writers Club that the Hanover Chapter hosted in Mechanicsville.

This past week: I visited a World Folktales & Literature class at Ferrum College on Tuesday, did a Ferradiddledumday performance at the Forest Library on the eastern end of Bedford County on Thursday afternoon, hurried to Roanoke to address the Roanoke Valley Reading Council Thursday evening, and then popped into the last half hour of a Valley Writers meeting.

On Friday, I traveled to Waynesboro—oh, I already told you about that! (If you go to Waynesboro, you have to visit Stone Soup!)

~