The Rose & Thorn Goes Live & Louisiana Book Festival

Isn't their poster gorgeous! The Louisiana Book Festival by Lorraine Gendron. Character based on The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, text 1992 by John Scieszke. Original Illustration ©1992 by Lane Smith. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, A Division of Penguin Young Reader Group. All rights reserved.

My friends! I am on my way to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the Louisiana Book Festival!

If you are in the area, here is where I will be-- on a panel with a Louisiana author (Chris Tusa), and signing books:

Schedule 1 PM – 1:45 PM

House Committee Room 3

Book Talk: Troubled Girls, Lost InnocenceTwo Debuts: One Urban, One Country
Book Signing 2 PM – 2:45 PM

AND! The Rose & Thorn Journal is going live today! Our new R&T newsletter should be on its way to you; if you have not signed up to receive the quarterly newsletter and would like to receive it, please go the the Rose & Thorn and sign up HERE. Angie Ledbetter and I are excited, to say the least - and we both want to give a big shout out to two stand out staff members: Managing Editor/Sr Poetry Editor Cynthia Toups, and Newsletter Producer Susan Kramer -- I am astounded at how hard they both worked, and very appreciative. Our thanks goes to all the staff of R&T for their work. They went above and beyond the call!

I am writing this in such a hurry because I must get on the road. While I am away, someone else will sit on my porch in our cove and rock in my chair. Someone else will take our Big Jake and out Little Girl on their walks. Someone else will wake up in our little log house to crisp fall mornings and coloring leaves! Ah, lucky them....my mountain will wait for me to return.

So everyone, check out the new look of our baby: the Rose & Thorn Journal, and support the writers and poets there.

Wish me luck at the Festival -- *muwah!*

On the road again; just can't believe I'll get on the road again....

My friends - I am off to attend a writer's conference. My poor Good Man Roger is so wonderful and supportive; I am lucky and I know it (clap my hands!). I didn't think I could, or should, make this conference since I'd been in Texas so long and had emailed to say I'd not be there after all; however, I've decided that since I'd told people I'd be there, I should honor it, even though I know they'd understand if I couldn't - but....still *smiling*

So, look out for the Boop-mobile again! If you see it, give me a honk and a wave.

I'll be back to say hello and what's happening at the conference, and etc., later.


It's hard to leave my mountain so soon after I've arrived - when I see the mountains become distant, recede in my review or side mirrors, I always become sad and wistful; yes, every time. I always hate to leave my mountains. One day I'm going to be the country granny who never leaves. I'll have my books on the shelf and I"ll look at them and smile, and I'll fold my hands on my lap and I'll be very very very old and all my stories will have been told and all the pages will be filled, and I will be filled. I will be a very old mountain granny, sipping dark black coffee, remembering, smiling a small smile that smooths some wrinkles and makes others - and it is all well and fine. I will eat a tomato and let the juice stain my arm and no one cares, least of all me. My mountain will accept my ashes one day and I will settle in, right into the mountain soil I once walked on with joy. One day, yes, that's true, I will not leave ever again. This makes me smile as I write it.

But, there is the Right Now, the happy side: I will see friends that I love and adore. I will be around writers and readers - library and bookstore - yes...!

I'll leave this thought with you: Today do something for you and only for you. Let me know in the comments what you did ONLY FOR YOU....whether small or large, do something that is for You. Tell me about it so I can smile.

(ps - I wrote this last night to post at 9:AM knowing I was leaving quite early this morning, as I am - it's 4;30 AM -- I'm gathering to leave in a bit, to drive in the mountain dark, the curving roads unseen until I get to them in many cases - it's a strange and eerie beautiful thing - and I will see the sun tip and spill over the mountain ridges - but, I had a dream that this post was already posted and someone commented about what they did for themselves and it was so wonderful! It made an impression on me, enough that I note it, but I can't remember the details at all, darn it! I wonder who you are and what you did, for it brought happiness to more than the one who did for themself...smiling....namaste)