A Confession and a Surprise

I don’t usually read women’s magazines … but when I heard there was something about me in San Antonio Woman, I had to take a look.

The first article I read, of course, was Bookshelf, a monthly feature by Barbara Higdon. She had attended the Barnes & Noble New Writers panel I was on a while back, and she included photos and descriptions of the authors’ books in her column.

I basked in her complimentary words about Spring House: “a compelling story with romance, adventure and a slice of American history- what more could you ask of a book?”

Then I started flipping through the pages to see what else was in the magazine. And I confess – I was surprised and impressed.

The magazine is a thick glossy lifestyle publication – well-designed and well-written. And I enjoyed reading an article (beginning on page 193) about Demitra and Samanthe Peterson, the twin daughters of my friend of many years, Carl Peterson. I’m proud of these young ladies’ dedicated work for the San Antonio Zoo. They started volunteering as teenagers and now both animal-lovers work full-time at the zoo. 

And the entertainment section of the magazine, “Bravo! San Antonio,” included an article (beginning on page B-22) about planning a party, written by my long-time business associate Caryn Hasslocher, owner of Fresh Horizons Catering.

I suspect there are articles by or about other friends and associates, but I haven’t read all 200+ pages … yet.

If you’re in the San Antonio area and you haven’t seen San Antonio Woman, you ought to. It’s a great magazine – even for a man!

Subscribe to my blog

Known by various names, most commonly Real Simple Syndication, RSS allows people to subscribe to their favorite sites available in XML format. WordPress has offered RSS since long before I started using the software for my blog. However, many people didn’t have (or at least didn’t know they had) a feed aggregator, the software need to check sites regularly and assemble the updated information. Folks “in the know” used Web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and software designed specifically for Web feeds. But many people who don’t  keep up with the latest and greatest on the Internet didn’t have easy access.

Now Microsoft has made RSS feeds available through its ubiquitous Web browser. Internet Explorer 7 includes a button on the toolbar that lets you know if RSS is available on a site you visit. The button is grayed out on most Web sites and turns orange on any site that offers a RSS feed.

Click on the orange button to view the feeds and click on “subscribe” when you view the feed. In the options, you can choose how often you want the sites checked – anywhere from every four hours to once a week. Subscribe to Writing the Westward Sagas and never miss a post!

An Autographed Picture – of Lulubelle

If you’re read my bio, you’ll know that my best friend and constant companion is my yellow Lab, Lulubelle.

In preparing to publish Spring House, I hired a professional photographer. He shot photos of me in several poses, including the one planned for the book: me in a business suit alongside stacks of books, looking, I thought, very professional and “book-ish.”

However, when my editor saw the photos, she insisted the best one was a picture of me with my friend Lulubelle.

“Shouldn’t my author photo be more formal … serious …?” I asked.

“No,” she insisted. “This is perfect. Readers aren’t looking for an author who looks like a stuffy professor.”

I should have known. People always fall in love with Lulubelle wherever I take her. Now readers are falling in love with her picture. I thought readers would want to get to know me – the author – and get my autograph. No, they want to meet Lulubelle – they want her autograph!

Since I believe in giving readers what they want, I’m offering a free autographed picture of Lulubelle. If you order Spring House online, you’ll receive Lulubelle’s autographed picture along with your book. Or you can sign up for our mailing list – we won’t overload your mailbox and we will protect your privacy - and receive Lulubelle’s picture by mail.

Lulubelle is so popular, I’ve made her a character in Adam’s Daughters. Nothing in my stories will ever contradict history, but my imagination will create things that might have happened. Surely Peggy, Rebeckah, and Ibby must have had a dog growing up in Tennessee in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. So, I’m imagining they had a dog named Lulubelle that is an eighteenth century version of my modern-day Lulubelle.

I hope you enjoy Lulubelle’s picture and her antics - both the imaginary Lulubelle in my story and the real Lulubelle of today! She’s been with me every step of the way in writing The Westward Sagas.

I hope you’ll read my stories … and want my autograph too! When you order your book at Westward Sagas, your copy will be autographed, and you can even request a special inscription.

So with your order, you’ll get a story that has received acclaim from reviewers and readers, the autograph of the author, and an autographed picture of the inspiration for a character in Adam’s Daughters!

What’s in a Name?

Spring House, about Adam Mitchell and his family, was based on extensive genealogical and historical research. When I named Adam and Elizabeth’s children, I identified their third daughter as Rebecca based on the information I had at the time. However, in research for Adam’s Daughters about the three oldest Mitchell daughters, I found records showing a variety of spellings: Rebecca, Rebeccah, and Rebeckah.

Rebecca/Rebeccah/Rebeckah is my great great grandmother and the central character of Book 3 in the Westward Sagas. I wanted to spell her name correctly – but which was right? Finally, I found someone who has two different sources of lists of names taken from Adam Mitchell’s Bible. In both documents, the spelling is Rebeckah. Since her parents certainly knew what they named her and recorded the name correctly in the family Bible, I am spelling her name Rebeckah in Adam’s Daughters and future books and will correct the spelling in the next printing of Spring House.

Art, Books, and History

I have selected well-known artist William B. Bledsoe of Jonesborough, Tennessee to create the cover of my next book Adam’s Daughters, which is about the lives of Adam Mitchell’s daughters – Margaret (Peggy), Rebeckah, and Ibby - growing up in the glory days of Jonesborough ca. 1788-1820.

As with my first book in the Westward Sagas, Spring House, I chose to commission original artwork rather than using graphics for the cover. After spending years researching the true life characters of my books followed by months writing and editing the manuscript, I just couldn’t bring myself to use a cover created from clip art in a few minutes.

How I happened to find Billy, as his family and friends call William Baxter Bledsoe to differentiate him from his father with the same name, is quite a story in itself. It seems as if the ghosts of my ancestors are driving the direction of my books and the decisions I make to bring them to you, my readers.

Four years ago, after I finished my research for Spring House, in Greensboro, North Carolina, I decided to drive to Jonesborough, Tennessee. I tried to replicate as best I could the westward journey the Mitchell Family would have taken in 1782 over the Appalachian Mountains to what was then the western part of North Carolina.

As I drove down the main street of the historic town of Jonesborough, I spotted a bed and breakfast called the Eureka Inn that was established in 1792. Not having time to spend the night on this trip, I made a note to stay there on my next visit. It would be October 2003 before my next trip to Jonesborough. I arrived late in the evening and checked into the Eureka Inn. I would learn that Robert Mitchell, son of Adam Mitchell, sold the land for the hotel to Peter Miller to build it. Miller is the son of a true life character in Adam’s Daughters.

First on my to-do list the next morning was to find the Jonesborough Presbyterian Church (JPC) where, according to my research, Adam Mitchell had been one of the founding elders in 1790. When I opened my window blinds the next morning, there was the JPC – directly across the street from the Eureka Inn. After visiting the church I found the Christopher Taylor House next door, where it had been moved from its original location near the Mitchell farm. This house and its occupants play a major part in the story of Adam’s Daughters. Things were falling in place rather nicely. I completed my research and checked out of the hotel to head home, grabbing a very attractive brochure from the Historic Jonesborough Tourism Cooperative on the way.

This September I made my third trip to Jonesborough and spent a week there in my RV with Lulubelle, my yellow Lab. As I met with many people while finalizing my research, I asked for suggestions for a local artist who could capture an 1800 downtown Jonesborough street scene for the cover. The name Bill Bledsoe kept coming up.

I had been interviewing other artists for the cover and had sent each a photocopy of the Historic Jonesborough brochure as an example of what I wanted on the cover.

When I made contact with Bill by phone, I told him what I was looking for by describing the street scene on the cover of the Jonesborough brochure. There was a long pause before he said, “I did the cover for that brochure.”

You can see why William B. Bledsoe is creating the original artwork for the cover of Adam’s Daughters.