READ MORE IN 2024
“To read is to fly.” – A. C. Grayling
Here at the new year, many people are crafting their New Year’s Resolutions. “Read More” is a popular resolution and for good reason! It’s no secret that reading is good for you. Here are some reasons by an assortment of experts, philosophers, educators, and authors about the benefits of reading to make the resolution to “Read More in 2024 ” get on your New Year’s list.
“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” [Dr. Seuss, bestselling author]
“One of the most obvious benefits of regular reading is learning. In a world where our attention spans are declining … books go much more in-depth about a particular subject.” [ Leon Macfayden, author and psychologist]
“All I have learned, I have learned from books.” [Abraham Lincoln]
“Reading transports us to worlds we would never see, introduces us to people we would never meet, and instills emotions we might never otherwise feel. It also provides an array of health benefits. Not only does regular reading help make you smarter, but it can also actually increase your brainpower. Just like going for a jog exercises your cardiovascular system, reading regularly improves memory function by giving your brain a good workout.” [Abigail Fagan, PhD]
“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.” –[Roald Dahl, bestselling author]
“The average person reads 1.5 books per year while the average top CEO reads over 50 books per year. They don’t do this to brag on social media … They do this so they can maintain a competitive edge. To keep their minds sharp. To stay on top of their field, find new ideas that can improve their lifestyles and their business….Reading is the most common activity performed by some of the most successful people of our time. “ –[Ivaylo Durmonski , Life Advice article]
“The world belongs to those who read.” [Rick Holland]
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” [ Joseph Addison, 17th Century English writer]
“With the modern barrage of media and instant technological information, our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Reading a book, unlike skimming a web page, forces you to focus. To get the most out of a story, you must fixate on the plot and complete the book. In doing this, your brain forms deep connections and practices concentration….Your brain goes beyond the words on the page, imagining details such as appearances, emotions, and surroundings.” – -[Ariel Abke, Pearson]
“If most of your daily reading consists of social media posts, text messages, and news headlines, you’re missing out….Reading stimulates a complex network of circuits and signals in the brain and provides access to in-depth knowledge…Being able to concentrate and focus for long periods is essential to our success and wellbeing … Our brains have a ‘use it or use it’ policy, just like our muscles. In other words, if we don’t exercise our minds regularly, our cognitive abilities may decline.” – [Thomas J. Law, Oberlo article]
“A growing body of research indicates that reading literally changes your mind and brain…People who’ve engaged in mentally stimulating activities all their lives were less likely to develop the plaques, lesions, and tau-protein tangles found in the brains of people with dementia and alzheimer’s….What should you be reading? The short answer is: Whatever you can get your hands on.” [Erica Roth, Healthline article]
“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” [Jim Rohn]
“You are everything that you consume … And if you choose poorly, you will think poorly.… Television is a medium that inspires a kind of mindless passivity in the viewer, making them particularly suggestible to whatever information or entertainment they were being exposed to, and therefore, easily herded into accepting predominant views … Unlike reading a book, watching television takes an unbelievably little amount of effort. There’s a reason television is widely recognized as the lazy man’s preferred mode of entertainment. … The content is not designed to delight and inform as much as it is to keep you placidly watching. It’s no wonder that the research on outcomes of television consumption tend to be abysmal. People who watch craploads of TV are generally unhappier, unheathier, more paranoid about the world … and are more likely to have behavioral and social problems.” [Mark Manson, New York Times bestselling author]
“Reading makes the mind grow.” – [Kacey Riel]
“Reading creates new memories. With each of these new memories, your brain forms new connections between neurons called synapses and strengthens existing ones. As you read you are memorizing and recalling words, ideas, names, relationships, and plots. You’re essentially training your brain to retain new information. Reading makes you smarter, it’s that simple.” –[Joe Rogan, JRE Library]
“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” [President Harry Truman]
“Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce stress levels by more than two thirds, according to new research. …It really doesn’t matter what book your read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination.” [David Lewis, The Telegraph]
“Reading also comes with health perks: Research suggests that devouring books helps keep the mind shaper for longer, while lowering heart rate and feelings of psychological distress. Plus reading before bed can improve sleep quality.” – [Angela Hunt, Time Magazine]
“Research suggests that reading literary fiction helps people develop empathy and critical-thinking skills. Becoming immersed in a book allows us to enter the perspective of characters—not just their thinking but their feelings …Reading is one of the best inventions that humans gave to humanity and yet people completely take it for granted.” – [Maryanne Wolf, author]
“Reading helps us gain insight into our own lives and the lives of others.” [Diana Raab, PhD, Psychology Today]
“Reading fiction can help us gain phenomenal, empathic, modal, and moral knowledge which helps us in our practical life.” [Zanab Arif, Benefits of Reading Novels]
“As you identify with another person, a protagonist in the story, you enter into a piece of life that you wouldn’t otherwise have known. You have emotions or circumstances that you wouldn’t have otherwise understood.” –[Keith Otley, University psychologist]
“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest people of the past centuries.” [Descartes]
“Reading is an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” [Madeleine Blackman]
“Reading a variety of topics can make you a more knowledgeable person, in turn improving your conversation skills… By reading books about protagonists who have overcome challenges, we are oftentimes encouraged to do the same. The right book can motivate you to never give up and stay positive, regardless of whether it’s a romance novel or a self-help book.” -[MPL Karen, Markham Public Library]
“Reading is one of the best ways to foster imagination…. Reading is a key part of enhancing imaginative thinking which can lead to innovation and understanding.” [Alexandra Akinchina, World Literacy Foundation]
“The seeds of dreams are often found in books.” [Dolly Parton]
“Reading is a form of training for living. Books teach us how to think, how to relate to people, what to do, who we are and who we should be. For the most part, they teach us how to live … We all need guidance and books have a unique knack for providing it. Books enable us to garner more experience and knowledge than it would be possible to accumulate in a lifetime. We can learn from the mistakes and successes of others, applying their wisdom to our lives.” [Rosie Leizrowice, Huffpost article]
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” –[W. Somerset Maugham, author]
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” [Steven King]
“To me there are few things as pleasurable in life as reading a new book and loving it …A good author can make a reader feel like they’re talking to an old friend….Good stories have themes that can be applied to an array of real life situations that teach us valuable lessons on morality and what it means to be a good person…reading may be the best way to grow as a human.” [ Peter Lord, author]
“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” [Louis L’Amour]
“When I think of all the books still left for me to read, I am certain off further happiness.” [Jules Renard]
“Life is defined by the decisions we make and I’ve come to view life as a series of adjustments. As we increase in age and wisdom, we begin to recognize opportunities in our life to grow and improve. Any decision to embrace that opportunity could best be labeled as a resolution. I’ve just never understood why we’d wait until January 1st to make the change. … Every time I read a new book, I am stretched as a person … That’s why I’ve taken this occasion of a new year to purposely resolve to read more books.” –[Joshua Becker. Becoming Minimalist e/1 M readers a month]
I hope you will decide to make “Reading More Books” one of your New Year’s Resolutions, too. … Have a wonderful New Year! ... 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.
Up close, some tree leaves are “Smooth Edged” or entire, around their sides, while others are zig-zagged or “Tooth Edged.” Dogwood trees and Crabapple trees, familiar to most, are good examples of “smooth-edged” trees, although the Crabapples do have tiny teeth around their edges. Beech trees are a more obvious example of “tooth-edged” trees. There are several different types of Beech trees but the American Beech is particularly stately and beautiful, often growing into a tall, giant of a tree. Elm trees, too, are “tooth-edged” trees and the well-known American Elm is often a large shade tree with wide spreading branches. The elms and beech in our neighborhood turn a golden yellow and then brown.
After you begin to study more about tree leaves, you will find that many are recognizable in the fall not only by their color but by their shape. Also, some trees have different shaped leaves on different varieties, like on Sassafras trees. In our neighborhood is a giant red-leafed Sassafras with long simple leaves with no lobes. It turns crimson red in the fall. Also in the neighborhood is a Sassafras tree with three-lobed simple leaves. This shorter sycamore tree’s leaves turn a rich yellow in the fall. I often think these sycamore leaves look sort of like mittens in shape and often the leaves only have two lobes instead of three, looking even more like a mitten.
Often you can recognize trees not only by their leaves but by their nuts, seeds, or berries. The Sweetgum tree is one of those. Its pointed lobed and toothed leaves are somewhat star-shaped. Sweetgum leaves turn red and purplish-red in fall and you can often find the tree’s round, spiny “sweet gum balls” nearby, the tree’s fruit, containing the seed. Young Sweetgum trees don’t produce Sweetgum balls at first but the trees start producing them later as they age.
The Chestnut tree not only has distinctive leaves, easy to identify, but it produces sticky “Chestnut Burrs” in fall. The leaves on a Chestnut tree are often big, too, like magnolia leaves. My neighbor has a big Chestnut tree in her back yard and it’s her hand you see in the photo holding one of the tree’s burrs.
Two less common trees to watch for in the fall landscape are the yellow Gingko tree, with its green leaves gradually turning a vibrant yellow and the Red Dawn tree, sometimes called the Dawn Redwood tree, a deciduous tree with leaves that look much like an evergreen Christmas tree. The Ginkgo tree, also native to East Asia, is one of the oldest known living tree species in the world. The leaves have a distinctive “fan” shape, making it easily recognizable. I remember several beautiful Gingko trees on the University of Tennessee campus and we are blessed to have a lovely Gingko in our neighborhood, a beauty of yellow color right now. Another very old tree, you might spot because of its unique leaflets, is the Dawn Redwood. My neighbor has one in her yard and as fall wanes it turns a gorgeous orange. This tree is actually now an endangered species and like many redwoods can grow to a great height.
As you look out across the hillsides at the fall colors, when you’re stopped along the way or driving, many of the yellow trees you see are most likely to be beech, birch, and yellow tulip poplars, while the lush rich orange and yellow-orange trees you spot are probably sugar maples, oaks and sweetgums. The reds scattered and clumped on the hillsides may be mainly maples, dogwoods, sassafras, and oaks. The colors of fall are always a delight and I love knowing that I’ll know more now about what kind of tree I’m seeing as I enjoy them. To learn more about the trees near your home, pick up a “tree guidebook” to help you identify the trees you see, read about identifying trees on the internet, and possibly download one of the “tree identification” apps to help you learn more about the trees in your fall landscape….And enjoy the fall!
Until 2019, all my books were set around the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, near where I live. My first book, titled THE FOSTER GIRLS, published in 2009, quickly became well loved by readers, as did the subsequent books in the series. All twelve of these titles were stand-alone novels, each taking readers to different places in every book with a new story and new characters. While working on the final books in the Smoky Mountain series, and already planning a new continuing series my editor at Kensington named The Mountain Home Books, a new idea began to rumble around in my mind for books set at our favorite beach in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. I talked to my editor at Kensington at the time to see what she thought about it. Audrey said, “Lin, I think your readers will love traveling to the beach with you. Everyone loves your Smoky Mountain books and I’m sure they’ll love any books you write set at the beach, too.” So. after finishing my current mountain title … I started to work on a new Lowcountry trilogy of books set at Edisto Beach.
The term “Lowcountry,” in general, refers to any low-lying geographical country or region. However, when South Carolinians talk of “The Lowcountry” they always mean a specific geographic region consisting of the twelve counties along the South Carolina coast. This region extends from Georgetown, just south of Myrtle Beach, through Charleston, Edisto, Beaufort, Hilton Head, to end at Daufuskie Island above Savannah at the Georgia border. The South Carolina Lowcountry implies not only a specific region but the term also embraces a unique cultural mindset, its people and places. The Lowcountry area is known for its distinct beauty, sandy beaches, recreational pursuits, seafood, historic places, and favorable climate.
J.L. and I had always taken most of our vacations at different Lowcountry beaches but one summer in the 1980s – when our children, Max and Kate, were three and five—we discovered Edisto Island and Edisto Beach. It immediately snagged our hearts and drew us back summer after summer – and still does. Edisto Island is located on the coast, in the heart of the Lowcountry, half way between Charleston and Beaufort. Edisto is one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands, the larger part in Charleston County with its southern tip, Edisto Beach, in Colleton County. The roadway into Edisto from Highway 17, winds its way to the beach, traveling through remote rural areas and crossing long stretches of marsh land. Edisto Beach, at the road’s end, is an unobtrusive place, not very commercial in comparison to most of the well-known beaches along the Lowcountry coast. But we loved that aspect about it right away, and we returned year after year to enjoy the beach, the quiet island, the small shops and local restaurants, the bike trails, and the area’s beauty and laid-back charm.
It was to Edisto that I wanted to take my readers—to a lesser-known place in the Lowcountry with a small-town feel. My first Edisto book CLAIRE AT EDISTO, brought Claire Avery to the island to recover after the unexpected loss of her husband Charles. Claire had been a stay-at-home mom with two small girls, Mary Helen, nine, and Suki, five. Living at the time in the church manse, next to the historic church where her husband had pastored, Claire was facing all the many transitions an unexpected loss encompasses—shock, grief, lifestyle changes, a multitude of decisions, and the need to find work and a new home for herself and her girls. The resulting book is the story of Claire’s journey and all the adjustments and problems she faces making a new life on her own. The house she comes to at Edisto, for a space of vacation and a time to grieve, belongs to her husband’s brother Parker. The beach house, named Oleanders, is familiar to Claire, as she, Charles, and the girls often visited at this house for vacations.
In developing the Lighthouse Sisters books, I enjoyed branching out to visit and spend time in nearby cities close to Edisto. In LIGHTEN MY HEART, Gwen’s story, a large part of the book’s setting is in Beaufort and Port Royal. Beaufort is one of our favorite Lowcountry spots to visit, kind of like a small “Charleston,” and I especially enjoyed creating Trescotts Restaurant in downtown Beaufort. Since Gwen gets a Lowcountry teaching position she’s been hoping for in the nearby community of Port Royal, many of the book scenes are centered there, as well. J.L. and I were charmed with our visits to historic Port Royal, founded in 1562, which we’d missed exploring much before. If you’ve missed going to Port Royal, too, take a day to see all its sites when you are in the area. It has wonderful walking trails, historic buildings, charming shops, great local restaurants, a Cypress Wetlands, streets lined with colorful homes, and a scenic beach with boardwalks and an observation tower at The Sands.
Right now, as I write this post, I’m finishing my final outline for the last book in this four-book series, Lila’s story, which will focus on the Deveaux Inn and Lighthouse again, while branching out to encompass Edisto Island as a whole. In this book, I’m bringing a big plantation into the story, a market on the highway, many new characters, and a sweep of hidden issues and problems that need to come to light and be dealt with for many of the characters to find peace and joy again. As the title THE LIGHT CONTINUES suggests, life and love do continue after problems and pains. And we can all begin again after sorrows and hurts and find new love and joy. I hope you will enjoy all four of these Lighthouse Sisters books … and tell your reader friends about them!
My husband J.L. and I just returned from a week at Edisto Island, enjoying the beach and a time of relaxation. While there we visited new places, and met some new people, that I hope to bring into the novel that I’m beginning. I gathered a lot of fun stories and facts while visiting at Edisto, too, that I hope to work into my storyline. Readers are already hoping I’ll write more Lowcountry books in the future, as well as continuing more mountain books… and a few ideas are already drifting around in my mind for future stories. So, In time, I’m sure there will be more Lowcountry books as well as more Mountain Home books to come.
An old quote by Toni Morrison says: “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” And that’s exactly what I did … taking readers first to the Smoky Mountains I love and then to the Lowcountry with wholesome, rich, and memorable stories that will linger in your heart and mind, draw you back to read them again and again … and pull on your heart to visit the places I write about….Books are truly the way I go home with people, and I hope you’ll let me “visit” with you soon in one of my stories ….Happy Reading!
With the weather a little cooler around the East Tennessee area, J.L. and I decided to take a day and visit seven of the best-known historic homes in our hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. Most of the sites we had visited in times past but others we hadn’t explored at all, so we had a fun day traveling around Knoxville, visiting all seven sites in the chronological order in which they’d been built. I hope you’ll enjoy sharing in our journey, with a photo of each site and a few brief notes about it, and I hope this post will make you eager to look into historic sites you can visit in your own hometown and community. I think you will find it more interesting than you might imagine, helping you learn more about your city’s past—and your own past. As David McCullough once wrote: “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”
The city of Knoxville began in the 1700s on a point high above the Tennessee River, on wilderness land once a part of the hunting grounds of the Cherokee Indians. What we know today as “downtown Knoxville” started with the first pioneer home built by James White in 1786 on Hill Avenue. White is called the Founder of Knoxville and he came from North Carolina to settle on a 1000-acre land grant given to him for his service as a Captain in the Revolutionary War. He soon built a fort around his home and gradually other outbuildings were added, a smokehouse and well, weaving house, blacksmith, and guest house, soon making it a hub for travelers and for trading. James White negotiated several treaties with white settlers and with the Cherokee. In 1791, working with President Washington’s Secretary of War, Henry Knox, White and his son-in-law Charles McClung divided a part of his downtown land into lots to help develop a town, which they called Knoxville after Henry Knox. In 1790, White’s fort was restored and opened to the public, and today visitors can take a tour of the grounds and learn about life in these early days in Knoxville.
Across the street from the James White Fort is Blount Mansion, built by William Blount in 1792. William Blount, a signer of the United States Constitution, chose Knoxville as the area’s first territorial capital. He built his home for his wife Mary Grainger Blount and their children, and their fine home was also used for business and state meetings. Few pioneers, and especially the Indians of that era, had ever seen a home like the Blounts’ with glass windows and refined furnishings. Blount played a leading role in helping Tennessee to become a state and he became one of Tennessee’s first United States Senators in 1796. I wrote about Blount Mansion in an earlier post in November of 2022 if you want to read more about this site and see more photos.
Our next visit was to Marble Springs State Historic Site, the last home of John Sevier. The 350-acre farmstead on John Sevier Highway contains the cabin homestead of John Sevier and his second wife Catherine. Sevier was a Revolutionary War soldier, a frontier militia commander, a hero of King’s Mountain, and later the first governor of Tennessee, serving six terms as governor in total. He lived at Marble Springs from 1790 to 1815. Visitors can take a “self-guided tour” around the grounds to see the Sevier cabin, with an added kitchen, nearby herb garden, smokehouse and spring house. On the grounds are other outbuildings made into an office and gift shop, plus an old tavern, moved to the site from West Knoxville. Many events and reenactments are held at Marble Springs and several hiking trails can be enjoyed on the property.
After leaving Marble Springs we drove to east Knoxville, crossing the Holston River, to historic Ramsey House on Thorngrove Pike, built in 1797. I’ve toured this house several times and have been to events here as an author. It’s a lovely old home to tour, on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been beautifully preserved. The stone house was constructed with marble and limestone and often called the “finest house in Tennessee” because of its architecture. The house was built by Colonel Francis Ramsey (1764-1820) and his wife Peggy, and the Ramseys were among the earliest families to settle in the Knoxville area. Colonel Ramsey was a leader in the military, a surveyor, a plantation owner, and a statesman. With John Sevier, James White, and William Blount, Ramsey was involved in the establishment of Knoxville and played many roles in the city’s early history.
Crossing the Holston River again, we next visited the Mabry-Hazen House on Dandridge Avenue. Also listed on the Register of Historic Places, the house, built in 1858, is located atop Mabry’s Hill on an eight-acre site. The two-story Italianate house was constructed for Joseph Alexander Mabry II. Mabry was a wealthy Knoxville merchant and importer who helped the Confederate army during the war, with forces once occupying his home. His daughter, Alice, and son-in-law, Rush Strong Hazen, inherited the house which later passed to their daughter Evelyn. After Evelyn’s death the house opened as a museum. The day we visited, a group of homeschoolers had just taken a tour of the house, learning more about Knoxville’s early history and how people lived in past times.
Knoxville developed first in areas close to its downtown. Many old homes like the Mabry-Hazen house and Ramsey House can be found in the East Knoxville area, where the Chilhowee Park was also created in the late 1800s. Other prominent homes developed to the North in Old North Knoxville in the last half of the 1800s, as did other fine homes heading West of downtown beyond the new University of Tennessee on Kingston Pike. The Pike was only 30 feet wide when first created in the 1790s, created to connect downtown Knoxville to Campbell’s Station further west. Crescent Bend is thought to be the oldest residential structure on Kingston Pike, built by Drury Paine Armstrong (1799-1856) and his family in 1834, on what was then a large tract of 600 acres of land. The big two-storied white house has lavish interiors and a commanding view of a bend in the Tennessee River behind it. Today the grand house can be toured but it is best known as an event site for lovely weddings and gatherings. The home has a beautiful tiered garden on its grounds, with nine terraces, five fountains, and lovely statuary, and in the spring the grounds are lush with flowers and masses of tulips.
The next historic home on our list, Bleak House, was built by Drury Amstrong’s son Robert Armstrong and his wife Louisa in 1858 on a part of the family’s land they were given. Beautiful portraits of the couple hang inside the house in the front parlor. An antebellum Classical Revival style home, it also is on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was used as a Confederate headquarters during the Battle of Knoxville and two cannonballs are still imbedded in the walls. The home, now called Confederate Memorial Hall, belongs to Chapter 89 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It is rich with Civil War history. Tours can be arranged, and like Crescent Bend, many weddings and events are held at this elegant white house on the hillside. It, too, has lovely grounds and gardens.
The final visit on our historic house tour was to Westwood, also on Kingston Pike, built in 1890. This Queen Anne brick home with its ornate exterior touches and Romanesque stone elements was built for John Lutz and his wife Adelia Armstrong Lutz. This is another home linked to the Armstrong family, the land given to the couple by Adelia’s father Robert Armstrong of Bleak House. Westwood house once sat on a large estate property with extensive grounds. The house stayed in the Lutz family until 2009 and was later given to Knox Heritage to restore in 2013. The interior of the home is beautiful and one of its special distinctions is that there is still a painting studio and art gallery in the house, with over 30 of Adelia Armstrong Lutz’s paintings. The studio is stunning to see with red walls and gorgeous architecture. Adelia was a prominent and well-known artist of the day and is considered to be the first professional woman artist in Knoxville. Her home, Westwood, was inducted into the prestigious Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios (HAHS) network in 2002.
Knoxville is my home town, surrounded by beautiful natural scenery, and I do love it. Knoxville had the first state newspaper in Tennessee and it is the home of one of American’s oldest state universities, The University of Tennessee, started as Blount College in 1794. Knoxville was the first capital of the state of Tennessee, and Knoxvillians have run for president, won Pulitzer prizes, served in famous military roles, been recognized as conservationists, scholars, and industrial leaders. I’m sure your home town is full of rich history, too, and I hope you’ll take some time to visit some of the historic sites and buildings where you live. Robert Penn Warren said: “History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”
“Festivals are happy places.”
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.
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 26th, 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.
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 14th, to the Treats, Crafts and Vendor Show in Rock Spring, Georgia, on October 21st. Later in October, we’ll be attending the Annual Mountain Makins’ Festival in Morristown, TN, October 28th and 29th and participating in the Foothills Craft Guild’s fall show on November 3rd and 4th. 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. 
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]
Lin Stepp 