LOCAL AUTHOR EVENT

Our Literary Guild (that used to be a Friends of the Library till they disbanded and reformed due to a conflict with the system library director at the time who is no longer in charge; in fact, our county formed our own separate system) put on an event to benefit local authors yesterday and invited twenty authors to participate. I was happily one of them. They set up tables at the Casino atrium for each of us to display and sell our books, furnished lunch, and generally catered to us for the four hours we were there. It was a lovely experience, easily one of the best put-together of its kind that I've attended.

Here are some pix. Yours Truly is in the first as we're setting up. I am fortunate my guy's done stuff like this. He made up the boards and set up the table and did all that. All I had to do was sit there. (Of course, since he practically forced me to participate since I am the shy, retiring type, I guess he felt like he had to make it easy.)

Then here's Dr. Christina Johns on the right. She's written a fictional semi-memoir.

Finally, here's Buzz Bernard. His book Eyewall, the story of a hurricane hitting St. Simons hit too close to home for me.

A fun day. Thanks go to all the volunteers who worked so hard to make it successful!

PD James Book

Prowling through the Village Bookstore the other day, I found an old PD James I hadn't read. I am almost through with it.

Though I like her, it seems to me she's gotten wordy over the years. I'm wondering if this happens when writers become big names. I noticed it with others like Elizabeth George and Anne Rivers Siddons. Their first few books were easy reads but gradually, the books got bigger and bigger. Not plotwise. Wordwise.

It's so hard to find a new author I really like, I hate to give up on the ones I do find but sometimes that's the case.

Maybe it's not the authors. Maybe the editors are overwhelmed and can't edit like they used to. Or maybe the author's allowed more leeway once s/he gets a following. Or maybe there's a demand for that kind of writing.

Friend's Ebook Out Today

Gonna promote a friend's writing today.

Nan D. Arnold's second ebook, PESTO PACKING MAMA, comes out today.

It's a light entertaining read from Champagne Books. Nan calls her work Quirky Fiction for Boomers. I think it's more like hen lit. She's one of those strange people I talked about in an earlier post, but a real doll in spite of it.

You can visit her site by following the link on this blog. She's also being interviewed June 22 at http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/

Drop in if you get a chance!

On Heroes in Books Written by Males

I finished a thriller by Harlan Coben last night but it revived a question I've pondered before.

I do not understand how middle-aged, out-of-shape heroes always manage to get younger, gorgeous women to fall for them.

Is it because middle-aged, out-of-shape male authors are writing the books?