St. George Book Festival Recap

It's Saturday October 19th and the St. George area community begins making its way into the Lexington Hotel Ballroom. It's still early as authors are setting up their tables to greet, talk and sign books for eager lovers of the written word...and it's only 9am. The day is just beginning. David W. Smith and VS Grenier welcome those who have begun to show up. It's time to get the Book Expo underway and all the exciting events Smith and Grenier have planned for the day.

Guest speaker John Sebba shares some poetry with our gathered audience before winners of the 2013 Youth Poetry is announced.

Author and poet Lin Floyd steals the show as she announces the 2013 Youth Poetry winners. Many of the winners are present to not only receive their award, but also to read their poems to all in attendance.

Now for a bit of fun. David W. Smith and VS Grenier have added another fun treat to the St. George Book Festival this year beyond the Charity Dinner Friday Night (Oct. 18th) and combining the Youth Poetry Contest. Not only did all those who attended the book festival receive a free goodie bag when they entered, but they also found a FREE...

raffle ticket inside. Not to mention for every book bought at the book festival gave you a voucher for 5 more raffle tickets. Those from the community that came learned raffle drawings will be happening every 20 minutes and prized ranged from signed books from the guest authors/speakers at the 2013 book festival to movie tickets or from $25 dollar gift cards to Outback Stakehouse to day passes at the Washington Community Center. Let the fun begin!

We next had the opportunity to listen to some amazing talent from our very own Vista School. Mr. Nicols did a wonderful job bring in talent from choir, to the piano and four string quartette.

As the music and talent filled the room, soon our community found it was standing room only. We all felt the energy. We all found a little something new and no one left without something in hand.

Now it was time to once again share some words of wisdom and the love of the written word. Carolyn Howard-Johnson not only addressed those who have been published, want to be published, but also those who have a story to tell...and that is everyone.

After listening to Carolyn share her thoughts and wishes for those attending the book festival it was time once again to roam the room, talk to authors and learn about some newly release (and not so newly released) books. The St. George area community found over 30 authors waiting to share, talk and sign books.

As the day came to an end, everyone was ready to go home, put their feet up and relax. It was a packed day from beginning to end. Now to rest up, take note of the few suggestions and comments given, relook at how thing played out and plan for next year.

VS Grenier and David W. Smith

co-chairs of the St. George Book Festival

Interview Friday with Author Maggie Lyons

Maggie Lyons was born in Wales and brought up in England before gravitating west to Virginia’s coast. She zigzagged her way through a motley variety of careers from orchestral management to law-firm media relations to academic editing. Writing and editing nonfiction for adults brought plenty of satisfaction but nothing like the magic she discovered in writing fiction and nonfiction for children. Several of her articles, poetry, and a chapter book have been published in the children’s magazines Stories for Children Magazine and knowonder! VS: I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today, Maggie. To get things started can you share what you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Maggie: Very fortunately for me, I’m retired and my son left the nest some time ago. That doesn’t mean I have no other commitments, of course. In fact, I’m very busy as a freelance editor, but I do have the privilege of being able to control m...

Interview Friday: Author Sands Hetherington

Sands Hetherington credits his son John for being his principal motivator. Sands raised his son as a single parent from the time John was six. He read to him every night during those formative years. He and young John developed the Crosley crocodile character in the series during months of bedtime story give-and-take. Sands majored in history at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and has an M.F.A. in creative writing and an M.A. in English from UNC-Greensboro. He lives in Greensboro. VS: I want to thank you for being my guest here on The Writing Mama today. To get things started, Sands, what do you do to help balance your writing life with your family life? Sands: Hi Mama and thanks for having me over. Actually, my family life was part of my writing life. I was a single (male) parent of a six-year-old son. We always did bedtime stories. One night John invented a red crocodile named Crosley for an after-lights-out companion. This evolved directly into...

Writing Prompt Monday: The Challenge

The idea is too basically express yourself on paper, learn how to use your five senses, or build upon an idea. Think back to when you were in school, it used to only take your teacher saying, “Write a paragraph or one page composition on any subject you want.” This was all it used to take to get those creative juices flowing, but what about now? If you are like me and most writers I know, you have most likely experience the dreaded word “Writer’s Block” from time to time. Getting past this wide-eyed, blank page stare can be hard, and the flashing cursor does not help matters. What is a writer to do? Well it does not matter if you are a New York Best-selling author or an aspiring author, we all need a little creative boost from time to time and that is where my Writing Prompt Monday comes in. In my search for a writing prompt for this week, I came across a great site called Creative Writing Prompts . They have over 300 writing prompts to get your creative juices flowin...

VS Grenier ~ Award-Winning Author, Speaker & Podcaster

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