Griffie World Happenings

Motherless Child - stories from a life
by Sarah Gordon Weathersby

Copyright © 2008

$ 17.99 Paperback
268 pages

ISBN: 978-0615212944

Opening the cover of Motherless Child - stories from a life is like arriving at Sarah’s home, where she welcomes you with that special brand of southern hospitality, invites you to sit down for a spell and have  a nice tall drink of ice tea while she tells you stories from her past.  Reading this book brought back memories from my own childhood of sitting in my grandmother’s parlor and having her tell us stories of life from yesteryear, while gently rocking back and forth in her rocking chair.  I could almost hear the creak of the floorboards as her chair went back and forth over that well worn track.

I tend to stick more with fiction reading than non-fiction, but as I was looking at the previews for potential review, Sarah Gordon Weathersby captured my attention.  The preview left me wanting to read more and to find out what happened to the people that I had already met through the pages of the preview.  Ms. Weathersby tells her life’s story in a very conversational style, inviting the reader to get to know her and her family in a very cozy manner.  She starts off with some of her earliest memories, which happen to be when she was two years old.  Being the youngest of 7 children of an Episcopalian minister, Sarah was both the pampered pet, and at the same time left to her own devices quite a bit because everyone was going in different directions all of the time.  One of her earliest memories was of being a two year old at Christmas time.

    My brothers enjoyed participating in the fantasy for me, and that year they came home on Christmas Eve wanting me out of the way so they could wrap gifts, told me I had to go to bed because they heard sleigh bells in the sky, and sent me off to bed clutching my favorite rag-doll, Sally. The next morning, there were animal footprints through the house, that my brothers said were made by the reindeer. I found out years later they had dragged the dog through the dirt, and walked him  through the house.

 Can’t you just imagine the boys dragging that poor dog through the house to make the footprints?  Although Ms. Weathersby starts with some of her earliest memories, and the book ends with the most recent, Motherless Child  is not written in a strictly chronological manner.  She starts off to tell you about one point in her life, and in order to help you understand will embark on another story which provides the back story to the fabric of her life.  Through the telling of her life, Ms. Weathersby also provides the reader with a keen perspective of history as it was happening from her point of view.  We see the major events, such as John F. and Robert Kennedy’s assassinations, as well as Martin Luther King’s through her eyes and her observations of her family and friends to the same events.

Motherless Child was written to give her daughter Teal, whom she had to put up for adoption 40 years before, the story of her life and why she couldn’t keep her baby.  The agony over the decision to do so, and the hole that left in her heart for all of those years after, come shining through the words on the page.   We feel the pain of separation along with Sarah, as well as her inability to forgive herself for having made that decision and how it colors her life from that point on.

Through Sarah’s eyes, we see her awakening to the division of people by the color of their skin, how her mother developed her sense of pride of self and what she could accomplish, and how it felt to go from an all black school to a racially integrated one.  Through the pages of Motherless Child  I came to admire Ms. Weathersby a great deal.  No matter what she set her mind to accomplish, she did.  After choosing to attend a university which only had six black students in her first year, she decided to learn German and ultimately studied abroad for a year in Germany.  She spoke the language so fluently that when she confronted a professor about the lack of black faculty on the staff, she was then offered a position at the school as long as she completed the necessary graduate work.  While she chose not to follow that course of action, she later decided to throw her hat into the extremely male dominated technology ring at a time when it was just starting to put its name on the map.  Working myself in the technology arena, I am well aware that it is still male dominated, but far less so than when Ms. Weathersby joined the ranks, and yet she continued to excel in her field.  I don’t think it ever occurred to her that she might not succeed at anything she tried, and so she did succeed.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the cover of the book.  It is very simple in concept as it appears to be family photos on a mantle, yet in its simplicity conveys to the reader a sense of what the book is about.  While Motherless Child - stories from a life was written for her long, lost daughter, and was extremely cathartic for the author to be able to tell her story, it has a much broader appeal.  My husband an I recently attended a production of the musical version of The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker, and I feel that the appeal of Motherless Child mirrors the appeal of The Color Purple.  Through the eyes of Sarah Gordon Weathersby, we see and experience a slice of life from a very intimate perspective.  This book delivers laughter and tears as we experience Sarah’s life with her, and leaves the reader feeling uplifted.  Bravo.

Originally reviewed for the Lulu Book Review.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

I’m not really a believer in resolutions.  The word resolution to me is like the phrase, “I’ll try.”  When someone says, “I’ll try,” what they really mean is “don’t hold your breath.”  It’s like a built in excuse for failure.  With “I’ll try”, if I succeed, then I’m the hero, if I fail, well, I never promised anything.  A resolution tends to work the same way.  If I make a resolution, the first failure “breaks” the resolution, so I’m off the hook.  While this is the time of year to reflect on what has happened during the course of the year and make resolutions for the new year, I tend to set goals.  I like goals because you can set interim goals that help you achieve the long term goal.  And goals don’t break.  If I fail at an attempt, the goal doesn’t go away.  I pick myself up, dust off, and take another run at it.

At the start of 2008, I had definite plans in place.  I created a list of goals to accomplish and was ready to tackle them.  Well, as is the way in life, things did not go exactly according to plan.  Looking back, I have still accomplished the majority of the goals that I set and I feel content with my accomplishments for the year.

2008 saw the distribution of Misfit McCabe, which was a very proud accomplishment for me.  To actually hold a bound copy of my work for the first time was fantastic and seeing it on Amazon.com and other online stores was even better.  One of my major goals for 2008 was to develop marketing materials for Misfit McCabe and to start the marketing effort.  So, I have bookmarks, handout cards, wrap sheets, book review blurbs, give-away copies, in other words, the standard marketing fare.  I wasn’t satisfied with my efforts on that score because I wanted something that would really help promote the book itself by giving it more visibility.  With the limited budget of all POD authors, I was trying to think of someway to get my book seen by a larger audience of my target readership.  The light bulb finally went on in October and I was hard at work ironing out all of the details for Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?

I love those Eureka! moments as an author.  As soon as I had the idea, I knew it was the one for me.  The Lulu Book Review kindly offered to help me bring visibility of this marketing concept to a wider group of people, you can check out what it entails by checking out the WITW is MMC? tab.  This also opened a few more avenues as far as marketing materials.  I have posters which have become a part of my marketing scheme for sending to schools and will be soon going to local bookstores and libraries with them.

One of the unexpected and exciting things to happen during 2008 was to start reviewing books for the Lulu Book Review.  I enjoy reading other authors work and reviewing it gives me the opportunity to help encourage other POD authors with their writing quest as well as helping to bring visibility to those works.  I also get to read things that I may not otherwise have run across.  And it keeps me writing.

Another unexpected happening in 2008 was an invitation to participate in the Pearson Prize Book Award contest for 2009 put on by the Learning for a Cause organization. To me it is an honor to have Misfit McCabe invited to participate in the contest, especially since invitiations are issued based on students requests. The winners for this contest are selected by a focus group of 100 high school students, which means that my work will be read by all of the members of the selection group. For me, as an author, it doesn’t get better than that.

One of my goals for 2008 is currently in progress and while I will not meet the original target I set for myself for completion, I will extend this one into the early months of 2009, which is to write the sequel to Misfit McCabe.  What is really nice is that I do have a readership which is clamoring for the sequel (ok, so it’s a small clamor, but clamor none the less), so that is spurring me on to completion.

As far as 2009 is concerned, right now, I am not making any new goals until I finish the ones I have, except I do know that I will be starting another writing project once the sequel has been completed.  Since I have several waiting in the wings, I just don’t know which one that will be as yet.  It’ll depend on which one grabs my attention when I am ready to move on it.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

Just a quick little post to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a very special time because it allows us all the opportunity to review our lives and realize all of the wonderful things which we have been given. I even think back on those things that were negative in nature and find something to be thankful for in that situation. For example, earlier this year I had abdominal surgery for a suspected tumor. I am very thankful that the doctors did not find a tumor (no cancer) and that they performed the surgery when they did because, to be blunt, my insides were a mess and things were caught before I had serious problems. I was very fortunate even though I was laid up for a few weeks, and had to battle post surgery infection. So for that I am thankful.

I have a good life, good family, and good friends. I have published Misfit McCabe, come up with an exciting plan to send it to be read in as many places as possible (Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?), and I am working on the sequel. Through the process of getting the word out there about Misfit McCabe, I have met a dynamic writer, Shannon Yarbrough, who champions self-published authors and have begun writing reviews for him for the Lulu Book Review, all of which are very positive activities and I am thankful that I can take part and thankful for the opportunity.

Along the lines of the first Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I have survived thus far and live in a country where I am free to pursue my dreams.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

Size 12 Is Not Fat
A Heather Wells Mystery
by Meg Cabot

Copyright © 2006
$ 12.95 Paperback
$   8.40 Kindle Edition
$ 23.35 Library Binding

368 pages
ISBN: 978-0060525118

I have been trying to get an opportunity to read some of Meg Cabot’s work.  She is a prolific writer and I have always heard good things about her books, but haven’t been able to find the time to read any of them, while trying to get Misfit McCabe launched, write the sequel, read material and write reviews for the Lulu Book Review, and oh, there’s that little thing called the full time day job (which usually ends up being full time and a half).  With a title like Size 12 Is Not Fat, I decided that I had to start there because the title just grabbed me.  For someone who struggles daily battling the weight issue, I was looking forward to reading a book with a heroine who was not built along the lines of a toothpick.  Not that toothpicks are bad, but they are much more prevalent between the covers of our favorite books than they are walking the streets.  Also, I figured that with only 3 books in the series so far, I could catch up much more quickly than with The Princess Diaries series, which is getting ready to launch book number 10.  Plus, I like mysteries and the bulk of my “for pleasure” reading is light weight mysteries. 

On page one, Ms. Cabot had me.  The story opens with Heather Wells in a dressing room struggling into a new pair of jeans she wants to purchase.  In another dressing room, a girl with a voice like a chipmunk inquires as to whether there is a size smaller than zero.  Heather immediately dubs chipmunk voice “Less than Zero” and continues to refer to her by that name.  I could feel the giggle starting from my toes on that one.  To come up with a character named Less Than Zero and take a dig at vanity sizing at the same time was brilliant.  For that reason alone, I was ready to dive into the life of Heather Wells and see where I ended up. 

The character of Heather Wells is modeled after Britney Spears in a what if fashion.  What if a pop sensation lost her recording contract, her boyfriend, gained a dress size or two, and her mother ran off with her manager to another country stealing all of her money, while her father was in jail?  Oh, and because she was performing for much of her teenage years, she didn’t have any formal education to fall back on when everything blew up.  Heather somehow wangles a job working in a primarily freshman residence hall for New York College, and lives a couple blocks away with her ex-boyfriend’s brother, Cooper Cartwright.  She helps organize and keep track of Cooper’s expenses and does his billing, for which he lets her live in his 3 story pink stucco brownstone in the Village.  The back drop of the residence hall is filled with realistic detail which comes from Ms. Cabot having worked in a New York freshman residence hall after graduating with an art degree, and finding no jobs that would pay the bills.  Like Heather Wells, one of the main draws to the job was the offer of free tuition, so she could get a degree in something that would enable her to earn a living.

The character Heather Wells is portrayed as a 28 year old of arrested development and self-esteem issues due to the circumstances surrounding her formative years.  Her maturity level is much younger than her years, and is closer to the level of the freshman residents of Fischer Hall.  As we have seen through the eyes of the media and all of the attention on Britney Spears, that Britney certainly does not operate at the maturity level her years would lead you to expect.  Neither does Heather Wells.  She has a major, adolescent crush on her landlord, boss, and ex-boyfriend’s brother, Cooper and fantasizes about him throughout the book, but is unable to communicate her feelings for him in adult manner.  She also doesn’t seem to know how to handle the attentions of Jordan Cartwright, the ex-boyfriend, who keeps coming around trying to reconcile with her, which confuses Heather because he just announced his engagement to someone else.

Against this background, the female students of Fischer Hall seem to be dying off at the rate of one a week, doing something so unfeminine as elevator surfing.  Heather is especially suspicious because it would appear that the girls were elevator surfing alone, which never happens, and the girls in question would seem to be the least likely people on the planet to take up elevator surfing.  And of paramount importance to Heather, one of the girls liked Ziggy, and no one who liked Ziggy, the uncoolest cartoon character of all, would EVER elevator surf.  Of course, when no one else thought that there was anything to investigate, Heather decides to investigate events on her own.  Move over Nancy Drew, Heather’s on the case now and she doesn’t like anyone killing her girls.

Size 12 Is Not Fat is an easy and fun read.  Meg Cabot draws colorful characters which surround Heather and provide her with a sense of family, albeit an odd one.  Through the dint of not being able to let go of the mystery surrounding the deaths of the freshman women of Fischer Hall, Heather ultimately prevails in solving the mystery, and in the process nearly gets Jordan Cartwright killed as well as herself, but learns something about herself along the way.

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

Being an author, I love books, although it seems somewhat axiomatic to say so. I enjoy holding them in my hands, turning the pages and diving into the world that the writer has created for us. That being said, with the advent of e-book readers the world of books as we know it is changing. There may, one day, be no page to turn, except in a virtual sense.  Now, some people I know are actively against using an e-book reader, but I will admit that I can’t wait to have my own Kindle.

My reasons are simple, yet many. I really like the aspect of being able to carry an entire library around with you in the size of a single paperback and not even the same weight in most cases. With the Kindle as well, there is the ease of downloading new material pretty quickly. I can shop, preview the material and have it as soon as I need it. No having to wait to get home from the store or if you are the point and click variety of shopper like I am, no waiting for the book to ship. That’s another plus, no shipping costs. Since I have severe dust allergies, an e-book reader removes the factor of dust caused by page decomposition over the years, plus the amount of dust that collects (and so quickly too) on the number of books that I own.  The reduction of the carbon footprint is also a draw; fewer trees will be needed to produce paper, fewer chemicals will be processed to make the ink, warehousing requirements are reduced or eliminated.  Theoretically, that should mean either an increase profit margin to the publishing company who should then share the wealth with the author, or pass the savings along to the customer, or a combination.

Although the e-book concept has not yet caught on as much as some would have hoped, I believe that it is an idea that will continue to grow in popularity until the majority of books which are published will be published in printed and e-book format, and will continue along the spectrum until the e-book is the given publication and the publisher will consider whether or not to go to the expense of the printed book.  Until the e-book reader format has been improved to provide a full color page capability, there will be a segment of books for which the e-book format is not practical.

Once the full color e-book reader has been established, will that then mean the death of the book?  Will it be within our lifetime that printed books become a memory?  While no one can answer that with any degree of accuracy, my bet is that there will be fewer and fewer printed books over time and an increase in e-books.  But, until Fisher Price, or another company of that ilk comes up with a relatively inexpensive, indestructible e-book reader for children, printed books will be alive and well in the Children’s section of your virtual bookstore.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?

For Immediate Release:  submitted to Free Press Release - an online press release organization for promoting your work.

Garden Grove, CA (Press Release) November 1, 2008: Young adult author, LK Gardner-Griffie has created 8 special edition copies of her juvenile fiction novel, Misfit McCabe for the purpose of traveling the world. These eight books are being sent to various locations throughout the United States to start their journey. The plan? Each book will be read by the recipient who will register it on the website, http://www.misfitmccabe.com, and pass it on to another person who will do the same.

Each book has been color coded and assigned a number so it can be tracked on the website’s map.  Readers will see where the book has been and also can keep track of it after they send it on.  Information about each of the locations where the books have been will be posted on the website to provide “snapshots” of the books’ travels.

When asked what prompted her to put this plan in action LK Gardner-Griffie responded, “Books are meant to be read, and part of what I want to do as an author is to promote reading. People tend to pass books around when they have read one they like, and I thought it would be neat to create a book whose purpose was to be passed from person to person, creating a book chain. I am excited to see how far each of the books can go before the chain is broken.”

Teachers are encouraged to use the website for the educational opportunities it presents. The special edition books have shipped and are making their way to the beginning point of their travels already. How far will they go?

For more information about Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? visit: http://www.misfitmccabe.com or Griffie World – The Official Website of Author LK Gardner-Griffie
Email: lkgardner-griffie@griffieworld.com

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Gardner-Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

I briefly mentioned Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? in my last post and I thought now would be a good time to elaborate a little more on the concept and what I expect to accomplish with this project.

I normally am an inveterate book keeper and re-reader.  Books are like friends and I enjoy reading an old favorite from time to time.  Or, I’ll re-read a book because I really enjoyed the language, or appreciate how the author structured the book.  I also read every night to help me relax enough so that I can drift off to sleep and for that process, reading a new book is not always helpful because I will always want to turn the next page to find out what happens, where with a previously read book I know what happens, so my mind can relax.  So, for me the concept of reading a book and passing it on to someone else is a little foreign, but I know several people who do that very thing.  They enjoy reading, but don’t keep any of the books to re-read.  If they enjoy a book, they’ll recommend it to a friend and pass it along.

These thoughts were passing through my head as I was looking at my copy of Stealing Wishes by Shannon Yarbrough, who has said on more than one occasion that the saddest thing for a book is to be unread.  I had read and reviewed the book and was considering sending it on to some friends who might enjoy it as much as I did.  (Sorry Shannon, I still haven’t won the battle with sending it on.)  At this point, I had the thought that it would be really fun to be able to track a book as it is passed from reader to reader.  It would be interesting to see all of the places that the book has been and wonder about the people who had read it. 

When I was young, not quite back to the point of dinosaurs, but definitely before the age of email, I used to get chain letters sent to me.  It captured my imagination to wonder about the people who had received the letter before me and wonder about who it would go to in the future.  Of course, any chain letter sent to me with the instructions to copy it out by hand 10 times and send it on were doomed to die by sudden death because while I loved to think about the possibilities, I never actually sent one on.  I am glad to say that none of the dire predictions for breaking the chain ever came true.  So, then the thought about having a book chain came to mind, without the peskiness of having to copy it out 10 times before sending it on. 

At that point, the floodgates opened and ideas kept coming.  I’d put together a website so that people could register that they had the book and where they were.  Ooh - it would be neat to have a map to put markers on so that each location would be highlighted.  The markers should be color coded so that each book line could be tracked, because why stop with just one book.  Which one would go the farthest?  Which would be read by more people?  I could put a page to track all of the locations, so that everyone coming to the site could learn about the places, and post their own comments.  What if someone didn’t have anyone to pass it on to?  I could create a page so that people could register to receive one of the copies if that happened.

It took me awhile to catch up with all of the ideas the kept pouring forth, plus, I had to create the book in a hard bound edition, re-design the cover to meet the new specifications and wait for the books to start shipping.  The production time frame for hard bound books is much longer than for paperbacks, so the waiting has been absolute torture for me.  I continue to think of ideas for the site, but want to hold back and wait to see what happens organically.

You are welcome to stop by and see the website and drop me a comment on it.  Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? 

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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: 
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.

Today was a red letter day for me. A long awaited copy of Misfit McCabe has finally shipped. I will be getting the copy next week and will have the first hard bound edition in my hot little hands. What makes this one so special?

The completion of the production process on this special edition book marks the beginning of the of the companion project that I have been spending a lot of my “spare” time getting off the ground. While it will still be a couple of weeks for the remainder of the books to ship, Book 1 shipping out is a major milestone.

Some of you may be asking yourselves, so what is this big project anyway? “Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?” has been set up to chronicle the travels of 8 special edition copies of Misfit McCabe as they are passed from person to person. For a sneak peek while we are waiting for the remainder of the books to ship, please check out Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
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LK Gardner-Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.