Bulletin! Bulletin!
It's time to call on the Friends of Fragments to help broadcast book-seeds to new and fertile ground beyond the Realm of Floyd. How can you help, you ask? By simply cutting and pasting the message below into an email message to a church, civic organization or other group located in a hundred mile radius of Floyd. (Or, if all expenses paid and a per diem and rental car are provided, as far away but absolutely no farther than Honolulu, HI.) I'm looking at filling in some spaces for September and the fall.
Greetings from Floyd County.My name is Fred First, and I'm writing to inquire if there might be interest in a future program for your organization. I'd be delighted to share with your members the story contained in my book, Slow Road Home: a Blue Ridge Book of Days, published in April 2006.
The book is a regional memoir that draws from my background as biologist/naturalist, photographer and teacher, and arises from my love of the southern mountains and in particular, of our sheltered valley south of Shawsville.
The story of a special year apart, told in lyrical and sometimes humorous vignettes, will find resonance with any who have risked stepping off their secure but deadening career tracks to do something entirely different with their lives. It will speak to those who have longed to find roots and belonging and relationship with some settled place at last; and it will offer gentle encouragement to folks who have thought they might someday want to write, but have not yet begun.
This short presentation about and from the book has received a very positive response from those who have attended book events for Slow Road Home at the Radford and Bent Mountain libraries, Warm Hearth Village, the Jacksonville Center in Floyd and elsewhere. The book and author were featured recently in an interview for Studio Virginia on WVTF, Roanoke's NPR station where I have been a frequent essayist over the past four years.
I encourage you to visit the book's website for excerpts, endorsements and more. I'd be happy to send you a review copy of the book if requested and look forward to hearing from you soon about possible dates for programs in September and beyond.
Kind regards
Fred First
gckpress@gmail.com
blog: fragmentsfromfloyd.com
book: slowroadhome.com
Floyd County, Virginia
And while we're shamelessly soliciting, you know that just exactly now would be a great time to order several copies of Slow Road Home for those old friends that live where you used to, who you don't see so often but with whom you want to keep connected. Slow Road is a book about connectedness of various sorts. Don't you think they'd appreciate it? Just click the PayPal button on the book website. It's easy. It's hypoallergenic and non-fattening. It's a vote for mom, apple pie and (certain nostalgic, anachronistic remnants of) the American Way. Buy a book--support the Goose Creek Slow Living Movement and keep Fred off the streets!