Book to Launch

My debut historical novel, The Shifting Winds, is about to launch. As you may have seen in the sidebar, I have a couple of book signings scheduled already. The first launch party will be at the Elkton Community Education Center (ECEC) library in Elkton, Oregon, better known as the butterfly place, on Sunday afternoon, March 6, from 2 to 4 pm. Less than two months away now. This is the same place I launched A Place of Her Own two years ago, and everyone there helped me make that a wonderful sendoff for Martha’s story. I look forward to another great beginning this year.

ECEC

The photo above shows the ECEC library building. Elkton is about seven miles from my home on Martha’s Century Farm.

My next party will be later in the week at the Douglas County Museum in Roseburg, Oregon, Thursday evening, March 10, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. At this event I will offer a tribute to the late George Abdill, former director of the county museum. George offered me considerable information and inspiration for The Shifting Winds, which portrays one of his favorite periods of history when fur traders and pioneers came up against each other on the American frontier of the mid-nineteenth century. And I did have a lot of fun putting this story together.

900.DCMuseum

The Douglas County Museum, shown above, is at the county fairgrounds just south of Roseburg’s downtown.

ShiftingWinds cover jpegI hope many of my local friends will be able to attend one of these opening parties. We’ll have refreshments, readings, signings, and plenty of conversation with book-loving people. In addition to The Shifting Winds, I plan to have copies of A Place of Her Own available.

In the coming days I’ll be adding more events around Oregon and beyond. Those will be listed on the right-hand sidebar as they’re arranged and also on the “Events” page, where you can see not only where we’re going but where we’ve been.

Cheers!!! 🙂

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Friend’s Book Launch

My friend, A. Lynn Ash, launched her second book Sunday, Vagabonda: Solo Camper Out West, a memoir of her travels camping alone through the western US. Lynn and I belong to a small group of writers, mostly from the Eugene area, an offshoot of the Mid-Valley Willamette Writers. We get together for mutual support and the occasional critique. And several of us traveled together to the Women Writing the West Conference in early October. See “Conference Across the Mountains.”

An enthusiastic crowd came out to Lynn’s launch party at the lovely home of Vic and Linda Martin in Eugene.

Lynn read a short segment describing a stormy evening in the mountains with only a nosy bear for company. She seemed dubious about the bear’s intentions, and left us with a cliffhanger.

A happy Lynn shows off the cover of Vagabonda  as she prepares to sign more books. She took the cover photo herself on one of her solo treks. That’s her shadow in the lower left corner. And she has more travel photos inside.

Lynn signs another book and shows a bit of appreciation for cover and book designer Seho Chon.

Lynn’s first book, The Route From Cultus Lake, led the reader on earlier jaunts across the country, while Vagabonda continues her travels, with details gleaned from the extensive journals she kept en route.

With the gift of her background in geography and years as a birder, she shares her adventures with depth and humor.

In naming the book, she saw herself as a female vagabond, thus Vagabonda.

I feel honored that she asked me to do the back jacket blurb.

Congratulations, Lynn, on launching your new book. A big day for a writer. Cheers!

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