Category Archives: Uncategorized

Spring Events have Sprung

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Here’s what’s happening in my reading and writing world now that March is about to roll in. If I did this correctly, you should be able to save the event image and share it on social media to help me get the word out. All books are for locally at Page and Palette.

So honored and excited to be a part of Alabama Authors day at Five Rivers in Spanish Fort.

I’ll be reviewing Gabriel Zevin’s book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on Tuesday, March 5, at 10:30 AM at the Fairhope Public Library.

My friend and Alabama Authors Day Organizer Mike Bunn is going to be our speaker at the March 7 Fairhope Single Tax Lecture Series (poster below). It begins at 6 PM at the Fairhope Public Library and I look forward to seeing you. Mike is the director of Blakeley and is a fine writer, especially his latest book, Fourteenth Colony.

We’ve got a Pensters Writing Group meeting in March too. I’m interviewing my friend and fellow Penster Lovelace Cook. I’m reading Meet Me in Mumbai now and have already lined up a few questions for her.

Yes, Gabe Gold-Vukson and I are closing out the lecture series in April this year talking about our Fairhope book.

Thanks for reading and sharing!

Pensters, Author Events, and More!

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Please join us for the Pensters Writing Group meeting this Saturday, featuring Mike Turner. Guests are welcome. 

Also, a few updates on my book events. I’ll be signing books with Gabe at Page & Palette this Sunday, November 19. It’s the annual Downtown Business Holiday Open House. Come by and get a book or say hi.

You only have another week to vote for me Gulf Coast Media’s Best of Baldwin. I’ve been nominated for Best Local Author, so sign in and vote for me.

I’m proud to be a first-generation college student. Coastal Alabama recently featured me and many other first-generation students, faculty, and staff. My story starts around the one minute mark. The video was recorded and edited by students right here on the Fairhope campus. 

Gabriel and l will be speaking at Fairhope Sunset Rotary on November 30 at the Fairhope Yacht Club at 6:30. I serve as secretary for FSR so if you are interested in joining us please let me know. 

Spotlight on Susan! We are going to the Governor’s Mansion in December. Susan will be honored along with other Class of 2022 National Board-Certified Teachers in Alabama. There is a reception and photo op with Governor Kay Ivey. The mansion is decorated for the holidays and there’s light refreshments. Pinkie’s up! Cheers to my brainy and beloved bride!

I’ll be at the James P. Nix Senior Center on Tuesday December 12 at 11 AM. I’ll be talking about the new book and a little about my history with photography.

Fairhope by Foot tours started out as walking tours, and that’s still my bread and butter, and I love leading them. The most recent was for a student trying earn a Congressional Youth Medal. In addition to walking, I’ve led Fairhope tours hoping on and off golf carts, from a bicycle, but here’s the next big leap. I’m hoping on a motor coach! Not sure how this is going to work yet. These things don’t corner well so we may just park in the turn lane like the delivery trucks. The people on the bus with me are going to see Fairhope up close, but through the tinted looking glass.

Thanks for reading, watching, and listening!

Taste of LA and Best of Baldwin 2024

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So excited to be part of the food, fun, and family tomorrow at the Fairhope Piggly Wiggly. I’ll have my books, Fairhope Past and Present, Stump the Librarian, Clay City Tile, and Mapping Fairhope for sale. My Fairhope Past & Present co-author Gabe Gold-Vukson is joining me after he gets out of work. Stop by and say hi!

On Monday, I went in to the Fairhope Public Library to return and renew some books and ran into my former co-worker, Kris. We were getting caught about a committee we are both on. As we parted ways she said, “don’t forget to vote.” I looked at her puzzlingly. “You are a finalist for Best Local Author in the Best of Baldwin.” What? Sure enough! Someone nominated me and now I’m one of five finalists in Gulf Coast Media’s Best of Baldwin 2024. Follow this link or scan the QR code below and vote for me. Thanks for voting! While you’re there, vote for people and places (Fairhope Public Library) in other categories including my friend, fellow blogger, and local artist Judy Hanks Pimperl.

New Book? Plus the July 16 Baldwin County Historical Society Meeting Announcement

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Yes, my next Fairhope book, with museum director Gabe Gold-Vukson, is out July 31. You can pre-order a copy through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Or stop into Page and Palette and ask to pre-order the $24 book. For the Arcadia Press Past and Present Series book, Gabe and I found some amazing photos in the museum collection, the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation Online Archives, and the Fairhope Public Library. Then we went to the same locations and took a photo capturing the very same scene. In most cases, they are a match! Except the present photographs are full color.

Sunday July 16, 2023: 2:00 PM, Guest Lecturer Alan Samry and Willie Taylor, Baldwin County Historical Society. University of South Alabama Fairhope Campus.

“History Nerds 100 Years Ago: The Faces and Places of our Society Founders,” traces two librarians and other prominent county leaders as they organized the first Alabama county historical society in 1923! Alan will put the founders into perspective as he traces the organization and it’s early leaders from 1923 until the publication of the society’s book, A Brief History of Baldwin County. Yes, the society compromised history nerds from lawyers, judges, doctors, educators, bankers, retirees and armchair enthusiasts with names like Comings, Albers, Cross, Stapleton, Holmes, Winberg, and Rickarby to name a few.

Willie Taylor, retired educator and author of Reaching Reality East of Mobile Bay, will talk briefly about her African American descendants in Baldwin County. She’ll also connect the late authors Florence and Richard Scott and the historical society.

New Book Launch/Trivia Night

You are invited to attend our book launch/trivia night at Page and Palette. We will be there Thursday August 3, at 6 PM. We’ll have a brief and fun trivia contest to see who knows what about Fairhope. After, we’ll hang around and personalize books.

Gabriel and I are proud of this book. As we looked at the historic photographs, dating from the 1900s to 1970s, we were amazed at how much is still the same. Yes, Fairhope is growing, but this book shows that our downtown, bayviews, and homes of the founders are still present.

More Book Event Dates!

Sunday August 6: 2:00-5:00 PM, Authors Event, Barnes & Noble in Spanish Fort
Sunday August 20: 10:00 AM, Guest speakers, Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship

The Rest of the Story

As a writer, I have to say, it was a huge challenge getting our captions down to 80 words. Fairhope Past and Present is dominated by some grand images. However, I’m reminding that you have to have my previous book, Mapping Fairhope: Legends, Locals, and Landmarks. It tells the stories both then and now of the people and places inside the Fairhope images. Paperback available at Page and Palette and Tom Jones Pottery. Paperback, hardcover, and ebook available at Amazon.

My Fairhope Living Articles are now in a Book!

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Mapping Fairhope: Legends, Locals, and Landmarks, is now on sale. Mapping Fairhope is a collection of my Fairhope Living magazine articles that you can purchase locally and online. I’ve teamed up with some local nonprofits who will benefit from the sale of my book.

The book launch/fundraising event for the Fairhope Public Library is Sunday, November 6, at 2 PM. All the proceeds from the sale of each book, which costs $20.00, will be donated to the Friends of the Fairhope Public Library. Can’t make it to the event? That’s okay, the book will be for sale in the Friends bookstore with all proceeds benefiting the Friends nonprofit.

Mapping Fairhope is also for sale locally at Page and Palette. I will be signing books there on Friday, November 11, from 3-5 pm. Or stop by Page and Palette for the Holiday Open House the afternoon of Sunday, November 20. 

Other local retailers, including Tom Jones Pottery in Clay City, will have the book for sale soon.

Not in Fairhope? I got you blueprinted…I mean covered. Purchase the book online.

November already booked?

Mark your calendar for the second fund-raising event at the Eastern Shore Art Center on Saturday December 3, at 1 PM. This will be a panel discussion titled, “Mapping Fairhope: The Intersections of Fairhope Art and History.”

Finally, I will be raising funds during an event at the Fairhope Museum of History on Saturday December 10 at 1 PM to benefit the Friends of the Museum.

Books will be sold in the gift shop in the art center and museum after each event, with all proceeds benefiting the respective nonprofits. 

I look forward to seeing you at one of these upcoming book events!

Best Reads and Leg Stories from 2021

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These are my favorites from 2021! Buy a copy or check them out at your local public library.

Saving Bay Haven: A Charming Town with a Dirty Secret, Karyn Tunks Wayfaring Stranger, James Lee Burke Jubilee Sunset Romance, Deborah McDonald
Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey
Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, Kristen Radtke

Leg Stories
We went to visit Greg and Pam, my former reference desk mate, in Tennessee. We checked out their new home overlooking Norris Lake and took in the sights. The weather wasn’t all that great, but we spent a little time outside and inside. The Museum of Appalachia is well worth your time and money.
John Rice Irwin started the museum. Most of the text is told in the first person by JRI himself, or as told to him by the original owner of the item. Mr. Irwin didn’t just collect stuff, he collected stories, and once people knew what he was doing they donated things to him, like coffins, entire buildings, peg legs, traveling cart and soooo much more. It’s nicknamed “A Living Mountain Village” for good reason.

Henry Clay Moss with a hatful of potatoes. Peg leg nerd alert: He wears suspenders to hold up his pants and a belt around his waist to keep his peg leg on.
Uncle Henry Moss’s Peg Leg with the suspension strap still attached. Museum of Appalachia.
JAKE JACKSON’S TRAVELING CART-When J.J. (Jake) Jackson became crippled, he made this hand powered, three-wheel cart to get to and from the grocery store he operated in Jonesborough-Tennessee’s oldest town.(The name of the store was “Jackson’s General Merchadise.” My best information indicates that Jackson operated his store from about 1930 into the late 1960s. (David Byrd, from whom I purchased this interesting contrivance, had heard thatjackson became paralyzed with “jackleg”, a condition said to have been brought on by drinking “bad” whiskey-not an uncommon occurence during prohibition, I understand.) JRI

If you ever find yourself northwest of Knoxville, Tennessee or near the Cumberland Gap, the building and grounds (including the Popcorn Sutton Whiskey Still) of John Rice Irvine’s Museum of Appalachia is a must see.

Thanks for reading. Happy New Year. Write On!

Still Curious?

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Sirmon Farms, Daphne, Alabama

Although, I have not lost my curiosity, *@$!&%’ COVID scared it some. So, what’s with the symbols instead of the swear? It’s got a name. It’s called a grawlix. The word was coined by Mort Walker, creator of the Beatle Bailey cartoon. Every darn spell checker turns it red, so I’m happy to have something the computers don’t have a clue about how to autocorrect.

On the subject of humans and computers, I’ve heard told we don’t always gee haw. Yeah, I learned this southernism from Art, our local planner, and yes, it means get along. Right is Gee, and Haw is left, and there’s some mule from 135 years ago who didn’t hear nothing, and so farmers started saying, “Me and this mule just can’t gee haw.”

As for the writing, the Birmingham Arts Journal published my essay, “The Flo of Old Fairhope” in August. If you just read it, and you live locally, you’ll realize that I have to rewrite the ending. Maybe to the tune of “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Libraries: Culture, History and Society just published my essay, “In a Foot of COVID-19 Clay Are the Feats of Library Writing Communities.”

libraries-5.2_08_samry-1

I’ve been happily cranking out copy for Fairhope Living magazine. The October issue has the historic hotels of Fairhope’s past. It was a cool article to write, similar format to the street history. Also enjoyed getting to know Jenny Resmondo of South Alabama Physiotherapy. November has the Gaston and Mershon family history and a home on Coleman Avenue. December has a story of how a pole barn becomes a retirement home and the Knoll Park Christmas tradition.

Hope everyone’s alright out there. Stay curious and keep creating. At this blogging rate, the best of 2021 list will be next. Happy Halloween.