Sharpwriters' Thoughts Blog Archives - Archives - July 2001 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 June 2007 August 2007 September 2007 December 2007 March 2008 May 2008 July 2008 August 2008 April 2009 September 2009 October 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 June 2010 Current Posts Monday, April 11, 2011 Flashlight Memories Flashlight Memories has arrived and been sent to our authors. It's a delightful book, a fun one to do, one that affirmed how much we are alike no matter who and where we are. Many many readers mentioned Nancy Drew, specifically The Secret of the Old Clock, the first of the series. Others talked of Louisa May Alcott, Heidi, the Hardy Boys, the Poky Little Puppy - so many of my own old favorites. I was amused that, in setting up the book, as I just willy-nilly set poems where they fit, length-wise, into the page structure, that my poem about reading Heidi followed immediately after my friend Betty Thomason's prose account of her love for the same book. I first became aware of the juxtaposition when we sent out author proofs and Betty was concerned that my loneliness, reading the book when I was new to Quanah and felt that everybody knew each other and I knew nobody, might reflect on her own story, and she wanted to put in about her family there on the farm. I'm proud of Flashlight Memories, our sixteenth book and fifth anthology. I'm proud of each and every one of them, and they're all my favorite while I'm working on them. The next one, though, really is. It's my book! A Cloud of Witnesses - Two Big Books and Us is by Barbara B. Rollins with OAStepper. Like my book A Time for Verse - poetic ponderings on Ecclesiastes, it responds to a biblical book. Verse has found a place in many bedrooms as a devotional book. Like OAStepper's Slender Steps to Sanity - Twelve Step Notes of Hope, the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous comes in to play and the poetic responses are to both the book of Hebrews and the Big Book. It's been a challenge, but an exciting one. I'm hoping to have it out this month, but the practical side of me says it will be May. In the meantime, if you'd like to remember your childhood reading experiences, check out Flashlight Memories. Here's my Heidi poem: Curled on an Aqua Couch Copper-toned mounds resemble Swiss Alps not at all, less than mesquite “trees” rival tall firs played like strings by mountain winds — West Texas gales, though, hold their own, bluster past old-world kin. The loneliness of a young girl plucked from familiar, moved to strange, resonates across centuries, continents. A girl finds home amid goats and goatherd, gruffly kind grandfather, loving blind grandmother, and Heidi. Share | posted by Barbara Rollins @ 4:34 PM 0 Comments: Post a Comment Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] << Home