“Festivals are happy places.”

A festival is an event, celebrated in a town or community, that centers on some aspect of culture. Festivals can be associated with agriculture like an apple festival, linked to area cultural arts or crafts, or linked to a historical event, or commemorating a holiday like a May-Day or a Christmas festival. The history of Festivals dates back to the 14^th or 15^th centuries in time and these celebrations are found in virtually every country of the world. Festivals are often spread over several days and may combine music, entertainment, parades, shows, local arts or crafts, sports or skills demonstrations. They are as varied in kind and characteristic as the cultures they are found in. Today, festivals are often categorized by specific type, such as arts, literary, storytelling, music, reenactment, or historical festivals. Some festivals completely revolve around holidays or religious occasions or around food or drink like Barbeque or Wine Festivals.

As an author I have participated in many different types of festivals—and I’ll be spotlighting some of these festivals we’ve attended in this blog with past photo collages in illustration.  One more unique type of festival, that I have often been a part of as an author, are Literary Festivals and writing conferences or events that spotlight writers, where they sign their books and talk with readers and often speak about their work as well. I’ve attended festivals like these in North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Two examples, you’ll see in illustration, would be the Kentucky Book Festival and the Rose Glen Literary Festival in Sevierville, TN.

My favorite festivals are the Regional Festivals held around the Appalachian and southeast area where I live. These festivals also include juried Arts and Crafts Shows, where participants submit their art or show items to be judged for inclusion. We have attended many of these, like the Home Craft Days Festival in Big Stone Gap, VA, the Foxfire Mountaineer Festival in Clayton, GA, and the Townsend Spring Festival in the Smokies. We also enjoy the annual spring Artisan Market in Lenoir City, TN, sponsored by the Foothills Craft Guild, and full of wonderful fine artists. Many times in past. we have also attended the Wilderness Wildlife Week festival, held in Pigeon Forge every year, where J.L. and I give presentations during the days of the event. This festival, continuing for several days, has vendors, speakers, hikes, and excursions.

Often local and regional festivals extend for several days to a week. One of these longer festivals we’ve been attending for several years is the Great Smoky Mountain Arts & Crafts Community show held in Gatlinburg before the Easter holiday. It is always held in downtown Gatlinburg at the Convention Center. This show is usually three to four days in length and we enjoy meeting people there from all over the U.S., who travel to the Smokies for Spring Break and come to the show to see the crafters and vendors. I’m sure we’ll be at this show again next spring!

As the summertime kicks in, with its warm weather and with children out of school, many festivals are held outside all around the U.S. We can attend only festivals where there is some “indoor” space since we have a multi-book display to protect from the weather. This year we traveled to the Mountain Artisans Summertime Arts and Crafts Show in Cullowhee, North Carolina, for a two-day show and then in July to the annual Grainger County Tomato Festival in Rutledge, Tennessee. We’ve been attending the Tomato Festival for over twelve years now … and it is one that we always enjoy. At the Tomato Festival are vendors, entertainment, artisans, crafters, and vegetable farmers from around the Grainger County area with their wonderful Grainger County Tomatoes the festival is named for.

Coming up for us at the end of August is one of the many historical festivals we love to participate in each year – the Cades Cove Museum Homecoming held on the grounds of the old Thompson-Brown House, built in the 1700s. The old historic house contains the Cades Cove Museum with pioneer relics and furnishings. This event is coming up this month on Saturday, August 26^th, so make plans to stop by if you can! We’ll be on the porch of the old house, like in the picture at the beginning of this blog post. If you’ve missed reading some of our books, we’ll have all of them there with us … and you’ll enjoy visiting with the wonderful vendors, historians, and entertainers at this festival event. You can also have lunch under one of the big shade trees.

In September we’re also privileged to be attending another unique historic festival, the 32^nd Annual Cherokee Festival at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, TN. The museum is just down the street from Fort Loudon State Park. This is a great festival put on by the Eastern Band of the Cherokee who will be at the festival both days with Cherokee arts and crafts, storytelling, dancing, native costumes, and more. You can sample Cherokee food with the many food vendors and learn about Cherokee history in the museum. J.L. and I will be inside the lobby in the museum, next to the gift shop … and, of course, our highlight book for that event will be my new novel SEEKING AYITA set in Cherokee.

Starting in October, J.L. and I have back-to-back signing events every weekend through October, November, and into December, not only in Tennessee, but in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia. Some festivals are still being finalized … but most are already on the Appearances page of my author’s website with specific dates, places, addresses, and times… We’ll be going to Frozen Head State Park’s Heritage Festival October 14^th, to  the Treats, Crafts and Vendor Show in Rock Spring, Georgia, on October 21^st. Later in October, we’ll be attending  the Annual Mountain Makins’ Festival in Morristown, TN, October 28^th and 29^th and participating in the Foothills Craft Guild’s fall show on November 3^rd and 4^th. Note the photo college illustrations are from past events we attended … so be sure to check the dates and times on my website for when these events will occur this year.  What is always fun about all of our fall events is the variety at the festivals … the different crafters, artists, photographers, entertainers, the special activities for the kids, food vendors, and lavish fall decorations.

As November moves in the shows and festivals we attend become more “Holiday-Oriented”  and linked to Christmas themes. We’ll be heading to the Christmas Connection Show in Kingsport the 10^th and 11th of November, and then to the Christmas Bazaar Festival in Corbin KY on November 18^th at the Civic Center Arena. Next, we travel to North Carolina to the Hard Candy Christmas Show at WCU’s Ramsay Center in Cullowhee November 24^th and 25h on the Thanksgiving Weekend, and then to the Women of Service’s annual Christmas Show and festival on November 30^th at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN.  In early December on Saturday Dec 2 and Sunday Dec 3, we’ll have a last holiday festival event at the 7^th Annual Dandridge Christmas Show or Shopping Expo at the Field of Dreams Activity Center – a great time to pick up Christmas gifts! We look forward to see many of you at some of these lovely festivals before we stop for a break for the holidays.

I hope talking about all these festival events in my blog post will encourage you to look for festivals you can attend in your own home area, if you don’t live near us in the Southeast. In most all parts of the U.S. and abroad, there are an abundance of year-round festivals you can visit and enjoy.  Most of the ones we attend are Free to the public or only charge a small entrance fee to help offset parking – and are full of family fun for all ages. Long before we became authors … J.L. and I loved visiting festival events, always offering a great getaway from the house and an entertaining day. Our memories are packed with good remembrances of beautiful crafts, great food, rich entertainment, and the additional joy of meeting new friends along the way.  As for me … “I am going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.” [Randy Pausch]

For ongoing details of all our Festival and other signing Events, check in often at the Appearances Page of my author’s website at: www.linstepp.com/appearances/

See you again in September … LIN

Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

On July 8^th, J.L.’s and my fourth regional guidebook publishes, titled VISITING NORTH CAROLINA STATE PARKS. As with our two other state parks books, J.L. and I visited every single state park in the state to write this new book. We started our journey on North Carolina’s Atlantic coast and worked our way gradually west in week long trips. We had a glorious time visiting and exploring every park so we could share all the fun things to do and see in each one with our readers … lakes to enjoy, trails to hike, campgrounds and amenities available, historic spots not to miss, and much more. We also added the NC national parks and historic sites in our book, too. In many other states, like in Tennessee, these are governed by the state parks system …and they were too pretty to leave out of our guidebook! We delighted in journeying across the state over the last two years, and I hope you will enjoy reading our new guidebook and planning some trips of your own.

We laid out our North Carolina parks guidebook in four main sections: (1) The Tidewater area near the state’s coast; (2) The Coastal Plain area, moving west from the coast; (3) The Piedmont in the center of the state; and last (4) The Mountains Region in western North Carolina. We researched each section in general and then each park individually, planning our trips before setting out. We read extensively about historic sites, hiking trails, park history, and especially about unique features we didn’t want to miss on our visits.

In North Carolina with the 42 state parks and 12 national parks so spread out, we traveled more getting from one park to the next, staying in motels or lodges we scouted out in advance. J.L. and I usually visited two state parks each day on our trips and occasionally, when the parks were small and near each other, we could visit three before dark began to fall. We seldom needed a fancy place to stay while traveling since after walking, hiking, and exploring out-of-doors all day we were usually happy to fall into whatever bed we found!

On our first trip, of nearly two weeks, we visited all the Tidewater Area along North Carolina’s coast. It had been years since J.L. and I had been to the North Carolina coast and the Outer Banks area. We stayed in a charming historic town called Edenton on the Albemarle Sound as our first base camp and from there visited many parks before moving south. In all, we explored twelve Tidewater parks including Fort Raleigh on Manteo, Jockey’s Ridge on the Atlantic Ocean, Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout, Carolina Beach State Park, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Fort Fisher, Moores Creek National Battleground, Fort Macon, and Hammocks Beach, plus inland parks like Goose Creek and Pettigrew. I was shocked at the tourism growth on the Outer Banks but we loved the National Seashores and the lighthouses we visited along the way. J.L. and I both learned a lot about the Revolutionary War visiting Confederate forts like Fort Fisher at Kure Beach, Fort Macon on Atlantic Beach, and Moores Creek battlefield inland at Currie.

Our next travel trip to North Carolina took us traveling inland from the ocean to the Coastal Plain Region. There we visited another eleven state parks scattered from north to south. Many of these parks centered around lakes, rivers, or swamps in lowland areas, while others took us into mountainous regions to hike steep trails to waterfalls and lovely views. The Coastal Plain parks we visited were Dismal Swamp, Merchants Millpond, Carvers Creek, Raven Rock, Cliffs of the Neuse, Lake Waccamaw, Weymouth Woods, Lumber River, Medoc Mountain, Jones Lake, and Singletary Lake. We enjoyed learning about the unusual Carolina bays, or shallow round lakes, typical in this region, many thought to be 10,000 to 15,000 years old. Because the lakes are shallow, you can walk far out into the the lake to play in the water – which gave us a shock the first time we saw swimmers standing in the middle of the lake! In contrast, mountainous parks like Raven Rock reminded us of the Smoky Mountains near our home.

North Carolina’s Piedmont Region sprawls across most of the middle of the state and we visited thirteen parks there during two travel visits. Many of the parks centered around glorious lakes with vast acreage like Kerr Lake, Falls Lake, Jordan Lake and Lake Norman. Others celebrated rivers or cites on rivers like Eno River, Haw River, and May River. We found William B. Umstead State Park right in the middle of busy Raleigh and Guilford Courthouse Military Park in Greensboro. Showing us the diversity of the area, other parks sat in mountainous areas like the small Occoneechee Mountain park, Morrow Mountain in the Uwharrie Mountains, Hanging Rock State Park in the Sauratown Mountains, and Crowders Mountain nestled among the craggy peaks of The Pinnacle and high Crowders Mountain. These latter parks had many steep trails winding to stunning overlooks.

Moving on to the Mountains Region, closer to our home in Tennessee, we discovered another broad array of parks to enjoy. Here among the eighteen parks we visited, on several trips in fall and spring, we explored not only state parks but many national parks and historic trails and sites. In the northern area of this region we visited high Pilot Mountain, Mount Jefferson, Rendezvous Mountain, Stone Mountain, New River State Park, and Elk Knob. Stone Mountain State Park was especially interesting with so many things to do and see, beautiful trails to hike, a gorgeous lake, waterfalls, and more. While in this upper region we visited points on the Overmountain Victory Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and then drove much of the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway – a National Parkway with stunning points and views all along its route. We visited Mount Mitchell State Park while high on the Parkway, one of our favorite parks in North Carolina, and also went to both sections of Grandfather Mountain State Park. Moving south we enjoyed Lake James State Park, a large park with two unique sections and lots of camping, South Mountains, Carl Sandburg’s national historic site, and Chimney Rock State Park not far from Lake Lure, another favorite on our travels. Starting into the far western region of North Carolina we visited Gorges State Park, hiking the trails and seeing the waterfalls, and then moved on to finish our travels checking out points on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail and exploring North Carolina sections of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Cherokee.

All in all, it was a great adventure, and we can truly say we know much more of the state of North Carolina, its cities, parks, and history than we did before. So often visiting the parks takes you back into less populated, beautiful parts of a state you might normally miss and not visit on a trip. The parks are seldom crowded like other major tourist areas so you can take your time exploring without worrying about traffic or crowds. And there is such beautiful scenery in our state and national parks. How blessed we are to have them preserved and saved for our joy and pleasure.

J.L. and I love the state parks. We have visited all the parks in our home state of Tennessee and in South Carolina and North Carolina now … and I imagine we’ll soon be ready to start visits to yet another nearby state. We hope you’ll enjoy our brand new North Carolina guidebook … and our past books, too, if you’ve missed them.  Summer is a wonderful time to visit the parks when the weather is warm, when the grass and trees lush and green, and the days long,

Order our new NC book through any of your favorite bookstores or online at your favorite Indie store, Barnes & Noble, or at Amazon.  If you want an autographed copy, you can also order our North Carolina guidebook or any of our guidebooks or my novels on our Online bookstore at: https://linstepp.com/order-autographed-books/

And remember John Muir’s wise words: “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

See you in August… Lin

Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.