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Dear Reader,
I'm on vacation today and my dear friend author Blaize Clement, is filling in for me. Blaize lives right here in Sarasota, only a 10 minute drive from my house. After reading her guest column (below), I offered to share my peach pie recipe with her. So my dear friend, who loves to eat, but not to bake, suggested we have coffee and pie together soon. She'd supply the coffee and I should bake the pie.
Blaize would love to hear from you. She answers all of her mail and she's is giving away three copies of her book, Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons. When you send Blaize an email, in her reply, she'll also include a copy of my peach pie recipe.
Thank you Blaize, for filling in for me today.--Suzanne Beecher
Today's Column...
I'm a long-time reader at Dear Reader, and while I was thinking about what I would write for this column, I received a charming note from a young woman in Switzerland.
She wrote, "I'm sorry but I can only a little bit English. I would you ask if can give me a lot of interesting infos about you. We must think of the school from a talk about a book, and because I just read one of your books, I thought I could make the presentation on this book (Only the Cat Knows the Murderer). I would be especially interested in a bit of your childhood."
Only The Cat Knows the Murderer is the German translation of the title of one of my mysteries. As soon as I read her note, I knew what I wanted to write for my column. I don't know if it's "a lot of interesting infos" about me, but it has formed who I am and continues to be the one constant in my life.
My childhood was spent on a farm in north Texas. The next farm was miles away and I was an only child, but it was not a lonely childhood because it was filled with books. I was extremely deficient in math skills, but I read from the age of four. Every Saturday, my mother took me to town where we went first to the city library and then to the county library. Each library allowed a limit of seven books to be checked out, so I went home with fourteen books every week. Sometimes my mother allowed me to check out some on her card as well, so I had even more.
I ate meals with a book propped in front of me, I read in bed with a flashlight under the covers, I read every chance I got. An orchard was behind our house, and I spent every summer sitting in a peach tree with a book. I had thrown a rug over two limbs to create a chair--one limb to sit on, the other to lean against. If I got hungry, I could reach up and pull down a juicy peach to eat.
I don't read in a tree any more, and I don't read fourteen books a week. But because of a childhood when books were my closest friends, I know that I will never be lonely because I have books in my life. The lives of people who love to read are filled with fascinating people. We have adventures in places we will never visit, discover treasures in mythical cultures. Books expand our experiences and our minds and cause us to think about new ideas.
I'm very grateful to that young Swiss woman for reminding me of that peach tree where I spent so many wonderful sunny days reading. As I answered her, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason I find so much joy in writing is that it's a way of "paying forward" all the authors who entertained me, inspired me, taught me, and provided me companionship as I was growing up. I love the idea that there might be someone in the world who is spared loneliness because of one of my books. No writer could wish for more.
Blaize Clement
Blaize would love to hear from you. She answers all of her mail and she's giving away three copies of her book, Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons. When you send Blaize an email, in her reply, she'll also include a copy of my peach pie recipe. You can reach her at: BlaizeClement@mac.com
Blaize Clement has been a stay-at-home mom, writer, dressmaker, caterer, and psychotherapist, some of them at the same time. She is the author of the Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series (St. Martin's Minotaur). Her latest book in the series is CAT SITTER AMONG THE PIGEONS.
AUTHORBUZZ:
* To read more about THE WEDDING WRITER, and to enter this author's signed book giveaway, click on the link below, then click on THE WEDDING WRITER.
Susan Schneider, today's featured author, writes...
Where do happily-ever-afters come from? For four talented women working a glossy wedding magazine, life should be as perfect as a Vera Wang catwalk. But when reality is unveiled, Lucky Quinn, an ambitious wedding writer, discovers that life is lonely at the top.
To read more about THE WEDDING WRITER goto: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader
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