"Cherry Blossom Time"

Recently I took part in the Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia. This is an annual event that takes place over two week period. The last two days of the Festival, which are always a Saturday and Sunday, are when the Mulberry Street Arts and Crafts Festival takes place and that is the event in which I participate along with my friend and co-author Jaclyn Weldon White.

Jackie and I have been operating a book selling booth for the past four years. This year she had four books to sell plus some "Cards For All Occasions" she had created. She not only took the photographs on the cards, she also wrote the verses and created the cards. Me, I was just selling my books.

It ended up that we only operated our booth on Saturday this year, as Sunday there was a storm and a half coming through Macon. But Saturday was a wonderful day, clear and warm. You could change that and say clear and HOT. It seemed like summertime had come to Macon by the early part of the afternoon.

The great thing about doing something like this is the people you get to meet. I had a lady buy a copy of my book HALFWAY HOME and tell me she was sending it to a German friend in New Mexico. She even dictated a German greeting for me to write in the book. I didn't know what it meant but I am sure the recipient will.

People walking by would stop and look at me, listen a little bit to me talk and then smile. "I know that voice," they would say. "I hear you on the radio." I do appear on the local talk shows from time to time and people picked up on my flat southern drawl. I had some too who told me they watched my movie reviews each week on the local NBC station.

The people I enjoyed most were the ones who told us they had been coming to our booth for four years and that they wanted anything new we were selling. That meant Jackie White's new novel DISTANT HEARTS and my new collection of short stories HALFWAY HOME. We sold a bunch of them and had a great time doing it.

It was a long day. I got to Macon at eight in the morning and I didn't leave until after six in the afternoon, so I was pretty tired on the way home. Still I was in a good state of mind. I never, ever expected to be a published author and here I am one. I never expected people to come up to me and tell me they enjoy what I write, but they do and they do it often.

I consider my friend Jackie White to be an author. She can write biographies, novels, true crime stories, and fictional mysteries. She can do it all. Me, I just write my stories about living in middle Georgia and raising a family. It is the type of writing that any of you could do. You just take your life experiences and put them on paper.

Whenever anyone tells me they want to be a writer I quickly tell them if I can, you can. And I absolutely believe that. Each and every one of us has a voice and a story to tell. It's just a matter of getting it done.

To those who stopped by and visited with me at the Cherry Blossom Festival, I say hello. And for those who bought one of my books I say thanks. I hope you enjoy my stories, and I will see you next year with a new book, THE BOOK BINDER.

 

 

 

 

 

©2005 Jackie K. Cooper

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