A short Road Trip

Life is fun and life is busy these days. 

CAROL CRAWFORD, POET AND WRITER

I went up to Hendersonville with Carol Crawford, director of the annual Blue Ridge Writers Conference in Blue Ridge GA Thursday to speak to Senior Friends, a delightful group of people in my age bracket. 

Carol is a dear friend and was one of my mentors when I started to write and publish poetry sixteen years ago. She read from her poetry book, The Habit of Mercy, a touching and funny collection of poems about mothers and daughters. After the meeting we sat up in my room and ate popcorn and talked. I think I did most of the talking, but Carol is a wonderful listener. I could hardly believe her girls are in college now. Her guilty pleasure is knitting and playing online scrabble with her girls.

On Friday before leaving town we dropped in to meet Valerie Welbourne, owner of the Fountainhead bookstore.

 Hendersonville is only two hours from where I live, and I plan to go back soon just to browse the shops along Main street. Of course I indulged my guilty pleasure and bought more books, not only there, but I couldn't pass by Waynesville without stopping at the Blue Ridge Bookstore there. Now I have to try to find a book or two to give away so I have room for the new ones.

I was asked to read and teach and I hope I also motivated  and inspired.

I very much appreciate both of these independent book stores  stocking Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, anthology of WNC writers and poets, edited by Nancy Simpson. The Fountainhead bookstore sold two copies just before we stopped in.

Also, this week, I received Susan Snowden's new novel in the mail. Southern Fried Lies. Valerie said she couldn't put it down, so I look forward to diving into it soon.