My next book in process.....

Yesterday when the sky was cloudy and rainy, I found myself looking through my picture files to begin the process of organizing for my next book. My editor, Anita Firebaugh, discovered this upcoming book in the middle of The Living Room Bed: Birthing, Healing, and Dying in Traditional Appalachia. During what I thought was the final editing, Anita called me to say she thought I really had two books in the cumbersome manuscript I had sent her. A light bulb went off in my head although I was very tired of the rewriting, editing, expanding, contracting, and frustration that goes with writing a. I said, "Oh lord, what do I do now?" I went to the computer and quickly wrote out a detailed table of contents and, sure enough, there sat in the middle of the manuscript a nearly-written book on children's games and toys. I took out the middle chapters, slammed the two ends together and The Living Room Bed was born. I cherish the day I hired Anita to be my editor!!!

Three of my first cousins

fishing with their hands

in the Shoemaker River in

Hopkins Gap.

Now, when the weather is bad or too hot for me to garden, I will be working on children's games and toys in traditional Appalachia. I think I found the cover picture yesterday. What do you think????