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Sharpwriters' ThoughtsPosted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 @ 10:08 PM)Way Too Long!
Obviously last August I intended to blog more often. Obviously, I did not. I won't make more false promises, but my intentions are to keep this a great deal more current.
In the car this morning, it took a radio host on the East Coast to tell me it was April 21, San Jacinto Day, here in Texas and wherever former students and fans of Texas A&M might find themselves. So tonight I found myself at my very first Aggie Muster. I've always had a great respect for Muster. But today it was special. My father, Sam R. Breedlove, died Christmas Eve. At his funeral, my Aggie son set it up so we could go out to the Aggie War Hymn played "Loud enough!" Daddy was a remarkable man. A poem I wrote about him, one published last year in Silver Boomers describes his past: Daddy, May I? They Call the Roll Thanks, Daddy. Sam R. Breedlove, June 22, 1915 - December 24, 2008. Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 @ 1:55 PM)I'll get something in here in August!
Where has the summer gone! Geesh! It does seem appropriate for me to post without a brand new book to plug. My summer has been busy and productive, and I do expect to have plenty of new books to brag about before the end of the year, but not right now. The other books coming soon from Silver Boomer Books include This Path, and anthology in the style of Silver Boomers and Freckles to Wrinkles; a book of magic realism stories by Becky Haigler that I'm having a wonderful time reading, and I expect you will as well; a book of Notes of Hope entitled Slender Steps to Sanity waiting permission to quote from an outside organization and otherwise in the last stages of sending out the "chip of a book" on the world's "oceans" - it's done by an anonymous author writing as OAStepper. We're working on Ginny Greene's delightful book of essays an poems on learning the ins and outs of a farm, including learning how to deal with goats who climb roofs, chickens who choose not to cooperate, and other such critters, and my book of verse responding the Ecclesiastes is back in active preparation again. See? Busy summer.
Jeffrey and Desireée both started new jobs a week ago, Dezi at two elementary schools in Denton, Texas, as a diagnostician, and Jeffrey as Database Coordinator for the College of Education at Grand Valley State University. David is plugging along, keeping long hours and still most of the time enjoying playing with his pixels, and Samantha's doing okay, manning the kitchen for two families with picky eaters, and getting appreciation and approval from them! I would prefer to sit here, but I've got a dentist appointment for a root canal in 20 minutes, and sitting here won't get me through the mess. At times like these I always bear in mind the wisdom of my old law mentor Bryan Bradbury, "Sometimes the best way out is through." So I'm through. Posted Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 3:42 PM)Big Event
Oops! It looks like I'm not blogging enough. The last post was a belated announcement of Silver Boomers. Now I'm announcing the imminent arrival of Freckles to Wrinkles!
Posted Saturday, May 03, 2008 @ 11:48 AM)Silver Boomers I've been dilatory in communicating my great news here. First, though, the history. In October, 2006, Ginny Greene and I stood in line for lunch at the Abilene Writers Guild annual workshop and luncheon, enthusiastic and eager to stretch ourselves after listening to Dusty Richards and imagining ourselves as prolific and creative as that great gentleman who last year won two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, the only person to earn such an honor. Yea, Dusty! Anyway, by the time we got to the serving table, we'd come up with two potential names and the concept of an anthology by and about baby boomers. The titles we thought of were Silver Boomers and Freckles to Wrinkles. Well, when I returned from Spain and Portugal the baby Silver Boomers was here--about three months late in birth, but we'll get to that part of the story. Freckles to Wrinkles right now exists in utero on my computer. Ginny and I invited a small group of writers with whom we fine tune our poetry to join us, as well as some other people, and after some winnowing, we emerged as a partnership of four people when Kerin Riley-Bishop and Becky Haigler joined us in what we call "The Quartet" but what is legally Silver Boomer Books, a Texas General Partnership. We put out a call for submissions and were pleased with the variety and quality of submissions. Setting to work to compile the collection, we came up with the idea of a continuous crawl line throughout the book, like the TV news. Streaming across the bottom of each page are words and phrases that capture the essence of the generation. And the pages are filled with essays, memoirs, poems, and reflections by and about baby boomers. It's a powerful book! Look at the comments we're getting on Amazon and Barnes and Noble!  We were proud of our work as editors and ready to turn it over to a publisher, but we ran into a problem, finding not everybody was as excited about the crawl line as we were. After setting out some feelers, we decided to do it ourselves, and that's when we became not only editors but publishers. And besides Freckles to Wrinkles we anticipate a number of other books, including a third collection along the same lines, This Path and other books including Song of County Roads by Ginny Greene, Slender Steps to Sanity by an anonymous author based on the 12-step program Overeaters Anonymous, a series of devotionals based on the steps. We have several others, but I'll not list them since the names may change on them, but we're in this for the long haul. We're not just the publishers of Silver Boomers but we're publishers. Kerin Riley-Bishop is a our publicity guru, and she's great, but we're all getting our feet wet in areas we're not comfortable, and I'm making here a blatant pitch. It's a neat book, and we'd love to sell you one, either on the Amazon or Barnes & Noble sites above or on our own website. Heck, we'll even autograph it! The four of us individually have copies we'll be glad to put in your hand as well. And writers, look at our call for submissions! We're ready to talk to you.
Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008 @ 4:20 PM)Look What Arrived While I Gadded! I'm jetlagged still, though functional today, and fully recovered from the stomach bug. And I'm absolutely chuffed with what greeted me at home: My newest "child," Silver Boomers! With three other great women, I (we) have become the new publishing company, Silver Boomer Books, and this is our inagural product. Read more about it at http://silverboomers.com and consider submitting for future anthologies or individual titles! Our next anthology, Freckles to Wrinkles, has some marvelous work submitted and will soon join it's sister on bookshelves and virtual book stores. You can order from the website or from Amazon.com and hopefully there will soon be a booksigning opportunity near you! Posted Monday, March 24, 2008 @ 7:30 AM)Home Again--Almost
We spent the night at a hotel near the DFW airport after a long trip from Madrid--part of which was marred by my experiencing my first encounters with the necessity of the air sickness bags. I don't think it was actually airsickness, though we went through some pretty rough air I believe, but perhaps some kind of food poisoning. I'm much better today. I've been up a while, since my body says it's 6 hours later, and the pictures are up and ready now--more than you ever wanted to know, but not all the pictures I took. www.sharpwriters.com/spainportugal.
Thanks for coming with me.
Posted Saturday, March 22, 2008 @ 5:40 PM)Heading home
I'm ready to get back to the land of real coffee. It's been a delightful trip, and I've not reported as well as I expected to. I've walked a million miles, though, and seen enough for a few lifetimes, and a few thousand years of history.
The pictures have been updated but are far from complete. I won't put all the pictures up--that would be a real challenge, but selected pictures from some sites are up and others will be added in days to come. The site for the pictures is www.sharpwriters.com/spainportugal. (as I send this, they're still loading.) Thanks for coming with me. |
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