Friday, October 02, 2009

Another Month, Another Blog Post...

by Jennie Bentley

As you can probably tell from the heading, I'm having a hard time finding something to blog about this month. You'd think with a single, lousy day a month to be pithy and interesting, I ought to be able to do that, but it isn't always that easy.

Anyway...

It's October, finally. My favorite time of year. The leaves are starting to turn. The heat of summer has broken and it's finally getting cooler. (Not that I'm complaining. We haven't had a bad summer at all this year. I don't think I moaned about the heat more than a handful of times. Heck, I don't think we went up above ninety for more than a week or two at a time!) The kids are back in school, which was always an exciting thing for me at that age. New friends, new teachers, new crushes... Halloween is coming, too, and so is my birthday. (No, I'm not going to tell you how old I'm going to be. Let me just keep the illusion going for another year or two, all right?)

Before all that happens, the second weekend of the month, we here in Tennessee have the Southern Festival of Books to look forward to. 300+ authors and 30,000 readers, all crammed together in downtown Nashville. Mostly outdoors. It's hellish when it's raining, but lots of fun when it isn't. And the best thing? It's all free.

Well, not the books, of course. Those are for sale, and I hope people buy a lot of them!

(Which reminds me, "Fatal Fixer-Upper" has gone into a second printing. Thanks to all of you who bought copies!)

But everything else is free. There are panels and workshops for three days straight. There are musical performances, childrens' events, cooking demonstrations... you name it, we've probably got it. Last year I got to be on the radio, broadcasting directly from War Memorial Plaza and the festival. The TV stations usually send people out to report on the festivities too.

In case you're thinking of stopping by, you can find me in room 30 on Friday the 9th at 4:00 PM - Emyl Jenkins and I will be holding forth on Whodunits and How-To's: Cozy Mysteries. And on Saturday, you can find me in room 16 at 3:00 PM, along with Chester Campbell, brother in crime and illustrious president of our local SinC chapter. Also on the Sisters in Crime Panel: the brilliant JT Elllison, who writes the bestselling Taylor Jackson thriller series for MIRA books, Beth Terrell, local vice-president of Sisters in Crime, and Margaret Fenton, visiting SinC member from Birmingham, Alabama, debut author ("Little Lamb Lost" - Oceanview Press) and arranger of the wonderful Murder in the Magic City. We'll be talking about researching the mystery; Where Does It All Come From? A good time should be had by all.

I hope to see some of you there. If not, I'll see you in a month, for my regularly scheduled appearance on the first Friday of November. By then, hopefully I'll be able to report that the first draft of DIY-4 is in the bag. I'm at 56,000 words currently, with 30,000 or so to go. Wish me luck!

Until next time!

5 comments:

Annette said...

Good luck on those last 30,000 words. I'm down to the last 3 chapters on my wip, so hopefully we can both celebrate in November.

Have a great time at the Festival of Books. Sounds like fun. Wish I could come.

Jenna said...

I wish you could come, too! But I guess 10 hours from Pittsburgh to Nashville is a little too far...

Good luck on your last three chapters. I've got more like six or seven to go, I think. I'll get there, though, same as you.

Cheryle said...

I love fall but it brings the deer out to ravage what's left of the garden. Drat!

Wilfred Bereswill said...

Say Hey to JT for me.

I'd actually think about coming down for the Festival, but we have a similar book festival in St. Louis, the same weekend called The Big Read.

Jenna said...

Cheryl, the rabbits are ravaging mine. Will, that's a bummer! It would have been fun to see you. But I'll definitely say hi to JT.