Dreams do come true
I will finally be an officially published author! After a life time of practicing my craft and dreaming of having a published book someday, it is about to happen. My book, Peach Cobbler for Breakfast—surviving a life-altering event, is scheduled to be published in the fall and should be available in time for holiday shopping.
I first began the book in 1991 shortly after my first husband died but found it too painful to write at that time. Over the years I have started and stopped it many times. I have queried many agents and publishers and, in some cases received some encouraging rejection letters; but no one was willing to take a chance on me.
Finally, things began to come together last year when I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me at a breakfast counter. He sat there with his iPhone and Kindle in front of him constantly checking updates and reading an e- book. I learned he was a man of many talents, interests and contacts and, among other things, he designed web sites. He asked what I did and then asked if I had a web site featuring my writings. I answered I did a blog but needed a full service web site. I also talked about my future goals.
After working together for a few months in creating the web site he said he also worked with other authors and he was willing to be my agent. I guess he needed to see I was a serious and dedicated writer and not just some bobble-head.
As I write in PEACH COBBLER FOR BREAKFAST, I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe they are God’s sign posts pointing us to the right path. Here was a man with the answers to many of the obstacles to my goals and I would be a fool not to work with him. Now, one year later, my book is finished under his direction and guidance; and, with his help I finally have a publisher.
Rick Lakin is his name and he blew into my life on the derachio winds. For more details on our chance meeting see Look at what the wind blew in Published on July 31, 2012 (http://dobbie.icrewdigital.com/look-at-what-the-wind-blew-in/)
Thank you, Rick Lakin, for making my dreams come true.
The end of a very long era
No more Encyclopedia Britannicas in book form
Today marks the end of an era that stretches 244 years. Encyclopedia Britannica announced it will no longer produce its volumes in hardback book form. From now on it is web only, baby.
My school career is marked with the memory of encyclopedias spread across my home desk, school desk, and library desk from elementary school through college. Every report or speech meant lugging out the huge volumes of the encyclopedias and spending hours looking up numerous topics to make sure my subject was thoroughly researched. I was so tired of wrestling with those huge books that I often wished there were some way all that information could be condensed to a small object I could easily access.
I must have been ahead of my time because now that is exactly what has happened. Tremendous amounts of information is easily accessible and at my finger tips as they dance across the keyboard of my laptop computer. We can now go online to read the encyclopedias and other resource books. In fact, I haven’t opened an encyclopedia in many, many years—even though I have a set stacked in the corner of my office gathering dust.
When the Encyclopedia Britannica began in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1768 the thought of condensing all that information onto a small computer chip was as farfetched as walking on the moon. Oh yes, we’ve done that too!
The company plans to mark the end of the print version by making the contents of its website available free for one week, starting today.
The World Book Encyclopedia remains the only printed encyclopedia. They will celebrate their 95th anniversary this year.
Online: http://www.britannica.com
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