Tag Archives: Wendy Welch

Holding her Grandmother’s Book

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Yesterday before picking up my friend Cami from the airport I recorded a radio program for “Inside Appalachia.”

During the interview, the strange relationship between bookstores and fires came up. Most rural bookstores owners will be familiar with this phenomenon: one of the first things people replace after a house fire, once they have the basics covered, is their beloved childhood books. It was a shock, the first time a man who looked stronger than the mountains surrounding us got red about the eyes as we handed him a replacement copy of Beautiful Joe. “Had it since I was eight,” he said. “Stole it from the school library ’cause I liked it so much.”

Wayne, the radio host, laughed at this story, then nodded. “You know, the other day my daughter was looking through our bookcase, and she pulled out some books of my mom’s, things she sent us before she died, that she’d had since she was a little girl. And my daughter was just idly leafing through one of them, and I got a catch in my throat. There was something so wonderful, seeing that, her grandmother leaving this trail. They’re just objects, but objects that contain thoughts that inspired my mom all her life. And it never would have occurred to me to be that sentimental about them, but yeah, I wouldn’t have missed that moment for the world.”

Yep.

(If you want to hear the “Inside Appalachia” interview, it airs the week of Sept. 28; check your local station, or visit the WETS website for live streaming on the day. Don’t forget caption contest VI is under August 29 if you want to enter, and Big Stone Celtic Festival is Sept. 22; come one, come all!)

Holding Pattern…

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I’m getting ready to head to SIBA 2012 (Southern Independent Booksellers Association). It’s all very exciting because this is my first time attending SIBA. Friday around 11 I’m on a panel of “Booksellers who Write Books” and Saturday I get to run around the Expo looking at stuff and talking to other bookslingers.

As an added bonus, I get to see three old and dear friends: Cami, who is flying in from Seattle tonight to make the road trip with me; Debbie, who lives in South Carolina and is also going to SIBA with her friend Rockelle, so we’re all meeting up at Debbie’s Hilton Head home; and Sherry, a high school chum I reconnected with a few years ago when she adopted a dog from my rescue (so I get to see little Diogi as well as Sherry).

It will be great fun, but it doesn’t leave much time for blogging, so please consider this a holding pattern and enter caption contest VI. I’m reposting the picture to be captioned here, but scroll down to August 29 and you’ll find the entries already made. Please leave yours as well. St. Martin’s Press is sponsoring the caption contests, so first prize is a free copy of my book; Jack sometimes hands out the “Jack Beck Discretionary Award” if he disagrees with the judges (who are past winners). There are seven contests in all, most involving adorable kittens in the bookshop, so feel free to scroll through previous weeks to see the others.

And look for some fun posts from the Road Trip to SIBA as well as the event itself. Be blogging you! (BTW if you’re interested in the shop-sitter position scroll down through the past three posts to see specifications for the job. And don’t forget that Big Stone Celtic is Sept. 22!)