Book Festival time

Yep - you guessed it. I'm heading to Columbia (SC) next weekend for the SC Book Festival. The weird thing is that I'm going in a capacity I haven't been in since I started attending book festivals. What, you may ask, is up with that? Well, usually I am a volunteer. This year, I had tried to get on as a guest speaker but didn't get selected and I wanted to be there as an exhibitor but funds prevented from or the company from doing this. I wish the other authors for 4RV would see that book festivals are beneficial way before their books are actually published. They allow one to get their name out there and be associated with a publisher who is putting herself out in the public's eye. They are great places for networking. You never know who will stop by your booth and buy tons of copies of all the books and pick up information on other persons in the publishing house. I can't persuade them though to contribute funds to book festivals. It's frustrating and the economy is so bad that not many folks are really buying books; they are going to the libraries where they can get them for free, read and return them for more.

Although I'm not an official SC Book Festival volunteer, I will be manning the SCWW booth most of the weekend, other than the few times I'll be visiting a couple of folks' workshops. It seems that there are quite a few people who won't be able to help out this year, so if you happen to be in Columbia, SC, this coming up weekend, make sure you stop by our booth and speak. State of Wilderness will be on display as a published author of the SCWW. My books, along with several titles from 4RV - Trockle, Lion in My Living Room, Bubba and Giganto, Al-the-Gator and Freddy Frog, Case of the Missing Coach, Midnight Hours, Hidden Lies and other stories, will be available but not in the arena of the book festival, so stop by and let me know if you are interested in getting a copy of the books I have available.

See you all in the postings - hopefully I'll see you at the book festival - and I'll post more after the book festival. This year I made reservations at the Homewood Suites (which is part of the Hilton Family Hotels, since I've become a member having stayed at the Hilton twice now for the SCWW conference in Myrtle Beach), so I know I won't be staying in a rundown, flea ridden hotel and I won't be sleeping in my car either. Luxury. Hailie is going with me this weekend but she will be spending the weekend with her sister who lives in that area so I will have a nice hotel suite to myself. It should be a very good weekend.

See you all at the festival and in the postings - E :)

Virtual Book Tours forum rotation - March 1

We all decided that hosting two tours a month was a bit much. So Karen has gone to a once monthly schedule starting with March 1. We will be hosting the designated persons for a week. Looks like this tour I'm hosting Lea again (I just hosted her on her personal book tour, but I'm sure I can dig up some more interesting things to post for hosting her).

Follow each person on their journey as they expose you to new books.


March 1, 2009, tour schedule:

Deborah Ramos hosting Joyce Anthony
Dianne Sagan hosting Sally Murphy
Harry Gilleland hosting Mark Bradley
Karen Cioffi hosting Pam Devor
Kathy Stemke hosting Kevin McNamee
Lea Schizas hosting Dorothy Massey
Nancy Famalari hosting Penny Sansevieri
Suzanne Lieurance hosting Deborah Ramos
Vivian Zabel hosting Dianne Sagan
Margaret Fieland hosting Harry Gilleland
Ransom Noble hosting Karen Cioffi
Crystalee Calderwood hosting Kathy Stemke
Elysabeth Eldering hosting Lea Schizas
Joyce Anthony hosting Nancy Famalari
Sally Murphy hosting Suzanne Lieurance
Pam Devor hosting Vivian Zabel
Mark Bradley hosting Margaret Fieland
Kevin McNamee hosting Ransom Noble
Dorothy Massey hosting Crystalee Calderwood
Penny Sansevieri hosting Elysabeth Eldering

4th in the 4th tag

I was tagged by Rena to go to my 4th photo album on my computer and post the 4th picture that comes up.




This is the fourth picture in my actual fourth photo album folder - it is from last summer when I went to the Belton Center of the Arts summer camp and talked about my book some. This was a group picture so the best one in the group of four I received - lol.

Now I'm supposed to tag four people and let them know - so I'll tag:

Katie Hines
Donna McDine
Joy Delgado
Karen & Robyn


See you in the postings - E :)

PW breathing a slight sigh of relief for the CPSC ....

Stay of Enforcment, but realizes it will be a long road to get any reformation on the CPSIA. As per the article published today, PW makes note at the end of the article that all the chairs of the committee and subcommittees (Waxman, et al.) have sent a letter to President Obama asking for Acting Chair of CPSC Nord's removal. She has been the only person sane enough to see that this law was unrealistic and more damaging than the original intent. Now these jerk wads want the law left as is and not rewritten or changed in any way. Do they not realize that millions of jobs are at stake? Do they think that by including every single product to this abscure and expensive testing when the proof is already there that there is no lead in products is going to be more productive and boost our economy?

Say no to these committee chairs and tell them to keep Nancy Nord and to reform CPSIA of 2008. Tell your Senators and Representatives to immediately do something about this. Every person of voting age who voted in November 2008 needs to contact these people you put in office and tell them to Pass Senator DeMint's reform bill and work on creating a better economy, not destroying it further. Tell them NO MORE STUPIDITY, DO AS WE SAY. They are still working for us and should be paying attention to what is being said by the people they represent. Everyone has a stake in this and should be contacting their representatives immediately. Do not wait until it is too late. Save the children, save the economy, say NO TO STUPIDITY and pass the reform as outlined by Senator DeMint -

T-minus five days plus 365 (give or take that year) until the economy implodes -

Summary of the Stay of Enforcement (CPSIA)

The CPSC has issued a federal register notice summary of the stay and what the goals of this stay will allow the Commission to accomplish. Books are not listed in the stay because the Commission has asked for more information and further testing before anything can issued about them. For the complete read, go here.

It makes more sense in a way than most anything else I've read concerning CPSIA but this fight is long from over.

Remember we need to continue to inundate our Congress men and women with calls and letters and tell them to repeal or reform. Vote for Sensator DeMint's proposed reformation of CPSIA, vote to save the econoomy, save the children. Those three Senators that opposed CPSIA in the original votes had good reason to oppose. Yet, no one else spoke up, because it was being done under the guise of "protecting the children". The issuance of this stay does not in any way mean that the public has to be satisfied with what is going on. Representatives in Washington work for the public. Keep calling them, keep sending letters and tell them there is no way to meet the demands of this ill-written, poorly thought out, contradictory, ambiguous law. Join all the causes at CPSIA-central.ning. Make your voices heard and get all your neighbors and friends and families and online acquaintances to join in the fight. This will affect everyone, even people who don't have children because the consumer will be paying outrageous prices for normal every day items in the long run. Teachers, librarians, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, every voting citizen needs to speak up -

T-minus 7 plus 365 days until doomsday -

A little bit of help on CPSIA from one Senator (SC-R Demint)

Senator DeMint, one of the three who originally voted against CPSIA both times it came to vote last year, has a blog posting up that is a definite step in the right direction for CPSIA. He states that congress should not blanket all products and should use some common sense. Read the full posting here. I think his points are right on and I'm glad he's working for the citizens all over, not just for his state.

When I spoke to his office last week, the woman assured me he was trying to get a reformation of CPSIA through this week, so let's hope that the other Sensators and Representatives have been inundated with enough calls to realize this law should have never passed as it was originally written.

Holly Jahangiri has some excellent postings about the stay issued Friday. Check out her blog posting from Friday to see what she has to say on the issue. I agree that the lawmakers definitely need to get some common sense and forget this law. But the best we can hope for now is a reformation as outlined on Senator DeMint's posting. Keep the phone calls coming and keep the letters going. Tell everyone you know to contact their representatives' offices in Washington and make your voice be heard. Make sure they know you need to take down all the information on how this law will affect you in the long run and will ruin the already failing economy. Standup and speak up. Don't let this temporary stay be the end of everything. Repeal or reform CPSIA today. Anything is better than what is written.