NEXT EVENT: 24 JAN 2011 - LAKE CITY, FL

24 January at Lake City's Main Library, I'll be speaking about my work (writing, oral history collection, etc.) before Columbia County Historical Society. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. and I'm looking forward to it. I will have books for sale.

RAIN PICTURE

Hi, there,

We finally got some rain here and Robert Baxter has memorialized it with this beautiful photo of wild huckleberries at the edge of the Suwannee. The river's been at its lowest since anyone began measuring and, of late, the only time the water moves is when a wind pushes it back upstream. Still, yesterday's visitor, my friend Nancy Sorak, said it was peaceful.

Nancy and I hadn't met in almost two decades, yet we were the same. She said people don't change much; my jury's out on that one. We'll see. Meanwhile, if you'd like to see some of the art Nancy creates, jog over to Fleota in Bay St. Louis. Nancy's work has been amazing me for decades and grows only more beautiful and original.

EVENT NEXT WEEK: 24 January at Lake City's Main Library, I'll be speaking about my work (writing, oral history collection, etc.) before Columbia County Historical Society. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. and I'm looking forward to it.

TWO WEEKS, ALREADY . . .

. . . since we've talked and North Florida Center has another shipment of books coming; they arrive tomorrow and there's at least one unsolicited review already up at amazon.com for THE SALVATION OF MAGGIE RIDER: Stories from Nokofta. The reviewer begins " The Salvation of Maggie Rider is a great story about life in Florida" and ends. . . you will find it almost impossible to put down once you start."

Here's a description of the book's contents: In the small southern pocket of a North Florida community called Nokofta, Cauthen's men and women move through lives no longer possible since the 1950s. At home, in church or at school, along paths and roads, in woods and fields, young Maggie Rider searches for an understanding of her hometown and her own place within it. She takes stock, too, of her uncle, the brokenhearted loner, whose secret existence in a converted hen house is a mystery she has dedicated herself to solving. In these layered stories we glimpse an early 20th century Florida that no longer exists and characters--in [the stories] "Maggie Rider," "Maudie May," and "Eva's Barn" united in their timeless and compelling need to make sense of what has gone before.

The blurb above is off the back of the book; not sure it makes clear that "The Salvation of Maggie Rider" is a novella accompanied by two short stories.

Remember we are a not-for-profit endeavoring to document north Florida while there's some of it still left and your purchase of our products go toward this work. I wrote this book, then donated it as a fundraising measure; I don't personally get a penny from its sales. Many thanks to all our supporters, subscribers, and readers. Here's a Robert Baxter documentary photo just in from his walk yesterday along the Suwannee on the Florida Trail:

All best to you as we approach the end of the first two weeks of 2011; I hope your work goes well and would love to hear from you.

scauthen
NFCDS, Inc.