Rainy Events

One lesson I've learned the past few weeks, rain rules.

No matter the preparation, the anticipation, the equipment, it's the rain that's in control. Even with postitive thinking and sunny day attitudes and casual jokes and rain-rain-go-away sing songs, rain reigns.

Outdoor book events do not do well in rain. The dampness seeps into even the most tightly snapped plastic bin. The pages absorb, swell, push back their covers. Not a pretty sight. Neither is the mud splashing on posters. Or the tent sagging under the weight of trapped water. Or even the additional shower down the neck when that trapped water is jabbed from beneath with the crook of an umbrella.

But.

Sitting in a confined space under a tent with a group of writers. Priceless.

Tossing out ideas. Laughing. Commiserating. Are we having fun yet? Priceless.

Spending extra time with people who stop in for shelter and end up sharing their life stories. Priceless.

That's how I celebrated the Fourth of July week, 2013. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but I sure had fun.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Adverbial Days

I've been at the Red, White and Bluegrass festival all week, practically drowning in music and rain. More about that in a later post.

But today I'm guest blogger at another site, Southern Writers. Click on over and visit!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Red, White and Bluegrass

What better name for a bluegrass festival during the Fourth of July week than Red, White and Bluegrass!

What better way to celebrate freedom than sitting under open skies, listening to music that comes from the heart of American life. 

What better place to be with my Lessons Learned book than in the heart of Burke County where the story is set and with the people who are real live characters in the book.

What better group to share five days under a tent with than fellow writers.

What better attraction to entice the festival crowd to our tent than the wonderful Sweet Things Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor! YES! They will have tempting cookies and cake slices and oh, my, chocolate chip cookie sandwiches.

Join us every day, beginning today at eleven, all the way through the fireworks on the fourth. Enjoy the bluegrass music (the lineup of musicians sounds fantastic). And drop by our tent.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Called to the Mountains

I can't seem to get away from them.

Mountains.

I was born in a town in the Alleghenies. I went to school at Appalachian State University, can't get much more mountain than that. I live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. My daughter lives in the shadow of Taos Mountain in New Mexico and soon I'll be sitting on her back deck sipping a cup of steamy hot tea as I watch the morning balloon launches in the Rio Grande Gorge, flat top mesas in the background. Aah!

I wrote about a school in the South Mountains in Lessons Learned: The Story of Pilot Mountain School. I wrote about a boy moving to the tree farms on the mountain slopes of North Carolina in the yet to be released but coming soon, When Christmas Seems Like Home.

Now...

Ta-Da...

Presenting my newest book! Set in the mountains, go figure.

Called to the Mountains: The Story of Jean L. Frese.

Only this time those mountains are the Smokies, the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. And there on the cover is the subject of the book, Jean Frese, also known as Lorraine. What a story she had. What a witness to faith and determination.

This is her memoir, her voice. I changed very little of the recorded interview during the transcribing to writing process. She's my mother's cousin, raised by my grandmother, so I look on her as my aunt, Aunt Lorraine, despite the subtitle of the book. Her name change from Lorraine to Jean was only a small part of this faith story. It's a story of her life at the Salvation Army Mountain Mission in Shelton Laurel, North Carolina. It's a story of answering God's call, her call to the mountains.

Available now on Amazon.  Kindle version will be available later this week.

The call to the mountains runs deep in our family.

Catch of the Day,

Gretchen

Author Visit to Salem Ruritan Club

A day in the life of a writer...Sit in front of the computer for hours and hours, writing a book proposal, researching books in print, more writing, more researching, you get the idea.

Then a break, a joyous break. I was speaker at the monthly meeting of the Salem Ruritan Club. Ruritan National is a civic service organization designed for small rural communities. Their motto "Fellowship, Goodwill, and Community Service" came through at last night's meeting at their clubhouse near Salem School in Burke County.

I felt right at home during the fellowship time and even more so when I realized the menu for supper included as the main course, livermush. I thought perhaps they had selected that as a courtesy to me and my Lessons Learned mention of livermush. But no, this was the "poor man's country fried steak," as the cook for the night explained to me, and one of their favorite meals.

Since this club is a part of the community where Pilot Mountain School was located, every person there was familiar with my book. I had not interviewed any of these particular men because none of them had attended there, but they recognized every name I mentioned in my speech. Their children's pictures were in the book. Their wives. Their former teachers.

I was preaching to the choir only this choir knew more about the school than I ever will.

The greatest discovery about the night? Not the new friends I made. Not the books I sold. It was the stove in the kitchen where the livermush was fried.

One member of the club who was present last night was also a member of the club the day the school closed. He was with the other members when they bought the stove from the school system and installed it in the clubhouse where the meeting was held last night, the very stove in the very cafeteria I had written about, lived with in my brain for three years.

Strange experience, eating livermush cooked on that exact stove. I felt, no, it's more like I tasted and smelled a connection to the children of that school like I had not felt during those years of fact finding research.

A powerful night. I was humbled.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Big Bang

One of my favorite shows on television is The Big Bang Theory. I enjoy the mindless humor, mind challenging though it might be. One episode in particular struck home with me, the Halloween episode from this past year, which just re-ran last week. Halloween in May.

Here's a part of the CBS description:

Wolowitz is back from space and won't stop talking about it, which drives his wife and all of his friends crazy. Bernadette confronts him and he gets dejected.

There, did you catch the "won't stop talking about it" comment? He (Howard Wolowitz) lived the experience of soaring into space and could not stop talking about it, in fact, did not want to stop. Further into the episode, Wolowitz connected every statement, every action, every possible hook to "that reminds me, when I was in space..." and off he'd go telling yet another space story.

I feel his pain.

That would be me and the Pilot Mountain School project I lived with for three years. During the interviewing process, the researching, the writing, and especially since it has come out on the market, I could connect everything to the story. Everything. Just like Wolowitz.

Marbles? yes.

Mollypops? of course.

Carrot Cake? yes.

And when the Big Bang friends baited Wolowitz tossing out words to see how he could possibly connect them to his trip in space, he didn't disappoint. That set me to thinking. I grabbed an Our State Down Home in North Carolina magazine, pointed to a word at random, wildlife, and immediately connected it to the school's story. Of course there was wildlife. This was a mountain school, after all, surrounded by wildlife. Plus, there was the recess game, Fox and Hound, where two boys ran so far into the woods from the "hounds" they were late coming back to class.

Next word, furniture. Easy. The furniture was built by the NYA, National Youth Administration boys, who also helped build the school.

Driver? Bus drivers, of course.

Hot dog? The story about the girl who ate her first hot dog ever in the school cafeteria. Thought she'd died and gone to heaven. Her words.

Throne? That one stumped me until I thought of the outhouses behind the school and the first year of the indoor restrooms. Sure, I can connect throne.

Even Big Bang...The day the eighth grade class heard a still blown up by the revenuers and one boy commented, "There goes my family business."

So forgive me in the writing of these blog posts as I go off on tangents. I have too much to share to stop now.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Home from Blue Ridge Bookfest

I only have one question after spending two days at a western North Carolina, mountain book event. When can I do this again???

What a cloud nine experience I had.

Oh, yes, believe me, I was in the clouds for two days, literally, with the high elevations and the unforgiving rain. Inside the conference center at Blue Ridge Community College the presenters, the authors and the reader visitors remained dry and entertained, my cloud nine. 

I shared a display table with one of my critique partners, Sandra Warren, and her multiple books.

We filled in for each other, shared each other's books with interested readers. We took notes, collected ideas, and talked out plot lines during the lulls.

On my opposite side, Golden Gate Rabbit Park owner, Loretta Hayward, and her multiple bunny books.

And along the side tables, a fellow SCBWI children's writer, Ann Eisenstein, with her best selling book.

Think we had a great day? You bet. Readers meeting authors, no better way to spend a Friday afternoon or a rainy Saturday.

Lessons Learned held up with the best of them, but the most exciting moment was when a lady bought a copy for the library collection in her bread and breakfast inn. Several visitors to my table were amazed at the concept of a collective memoir, one even wanting to review it for a magazine. I felt like a proud mama standing there beside my book. Mostly I was proud of the community I wrote about, how they endured the struggles and what they had accomplished in the years after the school closed. That's the real meat of the book, the theme, the reason I couldn't wait for people to go home, snuggle in from the dampness outside, and open to page one. 

It's enough to make a mama proud.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen