Free to Express!

After learning from the amazing Kyle Lacy, author of Twitter Marketing for Dummies, we are actually getting a little bit comfortable with blogging and twitter! The previous posts were from our inital blog site, but we are trying out a new design, by the incredibly gifted Jenny Malott, at Live Artfully Magazine!  Thank you both for getting us up to speed! Hope we can have fun with this now and can share the enthutsiasm with everyone! By the way , Great summer day here in Shell Beach, Calfornia!  This wonderful photo is the one and only Jenny, aka, Chung!  A real encourager and web genius.  

Beach Side Book Signing

Since our first book release, it has been so much fun to meet more and more people who are enjoying REAL.  We love greeting them and shaking these new hands... so many are so willing to show us their hands, ready to tell us a story or two.

We hope to hear from people and even get some photos as time goes on.   Everyone has a story!

So far We have enjoyed three book signings since the end of March.  Next weekend we are hosted by the Friends of Shell Beach Library at the Art in the Park event (Cliff Dr and Shell Beach Road).  This is right on the cliffs above the beach, the most picturesque park in the area.  Here are a few photos from this lovely location.... and also, it is a glimpse of the community in which Terilee and I live with our families.

Secret to staying young? Keep playing!

In our book REAL, we feature about 60 people.  The hands that grace our cover are those of featured "Inspiration" chapter character, Lois.  She continues to live a very full and challenging life right on the beach with her giant garden, her dogs and her toy shop.  It is hard to believe she is over 80.

After walking the dogs and playing a round of tennis, she usually heads back to her shop to create and build.  Over decades she has gone from designing and building serious implements and hardware, such as splints, for people with hand problems.  For the last several years, that desire to engineer and "make things work" has evolved to a greater pleasure: toy making.  There are numerous toys in her home and they are all of one type of animal or another or several.... and they all move!  Not just one movement, but several complex movements and for long duration.  They each use one tiny "motor", strings, wood and recycled materials.  It is mind boggling to see them in action and to know that the eyes, mind, and fingers that have made all of them started doing so at nearly age 80.    Here is her most recent creation.... The mouths move, the feet tap, the hands and arms move and the heads bob and tails wiggle.  IT only takes a few days of rest from completing something like this and Lois is already envisioning and engineering another.  She says, " We don't quit playing because we get old, we get old because we quit playing."   We salute you Lois.   All the best. 

Better Late Than Never!

Have been intending to share these photos of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC during May.   It was a great experience and fun to meet other authors and "would-be" authors.  It was fun to meet the people interested in our book, and as you can see by the photos, we had a consistent crowd and healthy line of patient people.   We actually ran out of books!  Of course, we hope they like what they got and spread the word about REAL, and maybe find some inspiration and encouraging from the remarkable people in the book.  Thank you to Ryan, our guide and driver for the trip!  Also to Karen, terrific friend, supporter and literary agent!

Kick Off Ends in Home Run!

We are just starting to get up to speed.   Learning all of this is such a challenge to me, as I mentioned in an earlier blog. We truly are so excited about the book release party at La Perla del Mar.  Looks like about 250 - 300 people stopped by to share the joy, and it was fun from beginning to end.  Our book, Real , features about stories of about 65 people that are basically anonymous, first name only, with photos of their hands.  It was really exciting to have most of them at this first party so that they could reveal their identities, only if they wanted to, and also sign their pages in the book. They were like celebrities for the whole night!  Everyone was going about and introducing themselves and sharing stories and getting signatures and just enjoying meeting someone new.   By the end of the night Terilee and I were glad we had set aside books for the next day, because we had another book signing in the morning at a local church!   We really love the support our local community has given us.  Thank you to everyone who made it a really successful kick off !!

A week later we signed at the LA Festival of Books at USC in Los Angeles. More coming up...