What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
Fiction novels with an inspirational thread. Stories set in the Appalachian Mountains in Eastern Kentucky. Family oriented stories with a hint of mystery and a faith thread. A smiling author who loves to talk to readers.
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
I like to talk to all comers. People who enjoy clean reads with Kentucky settings and Kentucky history threaded into the stories along with a Christian worldview might enjoy reading my books. I try to make my stories entertaining with great characters readers can identify with and cheer for as they read their stories.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
I got the dream to be a writer and share stories when I was kid growing up on a tobacco farm in the central part of Kentucky. I never let go of that dream and have gone down many story roads through the years.
The Song of Sourwood Mountain is my 39th published novel. One of the characters is a girl named Ada June who is something of a wild child who likes to sleep in the woods. Her mother died when she was five and she has never known a father. The mountain people see to her basic needs, but she feels unloved except for her dog, Bo. She desperately wants to learn to read and so Mira, the schoolteacher in the story, is something of an answered prayer for Ada June. Ada June’s character was inspired by seeing the name, Ada June, on our church’s prayer list. I knew I wanted to write about a child named Ada June.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to the most? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
I have been part of many Kentucky Book Fairs and now Festivals. I’m guessing between 25 or 30 since I went to some of the Book Fairs in the 1980s amd then have been to every book fair since 2006 except last year’s when my application went astray on the internet. My favorite experiece at any of the festivals is meeting readers and talking about reading and books with them. It is always fun when repeat readers show up at my table year after year looking for my new titles. I also enjoy meeting the other writers and buying their books for myself and for my family. Such a great place to purchase one of a kind Christmas gifts.
