Feb 052015
 

Silver Boomer Books has nine anthologies published. The next anthology will probably be done through our imprint Eagle Wings Press, but we’re by no means finished with SBB anthologies. To date we have:

In Silver Boomers, we began as a partnership principally of silver-haired Baby Boomers and invited others of our ilk to remember our lives. We began the two unique features of these anthologies of a crawl line (beginning with the birth of the first Baby Boomer in 1946 and ending with the first Boomer to receive Social Security, with all the pages of the book being part of a continuing block of text telling of our generation and the turning point events and people) and a poem at the end by the “quartet” of four editors. Freckles to Wrinkles expanded the age range as we accepted contributions from authors older than we as well as those born after the end of the Boomer age, 1964. Again, the contributions were poems and prose pieces telling of our lives from childhood freckles to the wrinkles of aging faces and hands.
This Path expanded the scope as we looked back from decades into our lives but included children looking ahead to the future. Few of us could have foreseen at age 10 or 20 where we’d end up at 40 or 50. The subtitle of From the Porch Swing says it all: memories of our grandparents. Like the other anthologies, we had worldwide contributions so our memories differed but were startlingly similar.
 How did you learn to love reading and books? Like many of our authors did your history involve Flashlight Memories as you hid under the covers at night? The memories of our service men and women and their families and powerful and poignant. It was our pleasure and privilege to allow some of these wonderful people to share their stories. and to bring these to our readers.
Our original partnership of four had ended by the time we published the last three anthologies, and we had guest editors who added greatly to these three. On Our Own – Widowhood for Smarties meets a need and is a great gift for those new to the pain as well as those looking forward to life, different. A Quilt of Holidays is just that. A patchwork of days, major holidays and days we notice on some calendars. Labor Day, Flag Day, Passover, Christmas…and many more.
Waiting for hours in a dentist’s office or for months beside the bed of a love one, waiting elongates time. But it passes more easily with Longest Hours – thoughts while waiting. Let’s use ten of the obliques to figure out what the next anthology should be.

I’ll be looking at my list of obliques and selecting ten, at random I hope, to come up with suggestions for the next anthology. You can do this, too! Or just use one or two, or suggest an anthology without dealing with obliques. The comment box awaits your answers.

My First Fifty Obliques

 Writing Prompts  Comments Off on My First Fifty Obliques
Feb 012015
 

Last time I named these obliques, ways of looking at a problem from a different angle:

  1. What would it look like made of sheet metal? (My mother’s and grandmother’s question, married to tin smiths)
  2. Where’s the puce?
  3. If it were a pig in Angry Birds, how would I attack it?
  4. Are there mores I need to ignore here?
  5. What does it look like from above or below?

And I continue thus:

  1. What do I want to  touch?
  2. Does it have a smell or a sense of smell?
  3. On a ladder, how high is it?
  4. Do my sons understand it better than I? How would they describe it?
  5. Is it bigger than a breadbox or know what a breadbox is?
  6. Brogans or stilettos?
  7. Where is the fear?

And speaking of fear, my analytical mind is telling me this is a silly waste of time, that these can never have any validation, could not possibly help, and if I put together a hundred of them I’ll never again look at the list. But my dreamer mind is saying, well, whispering, “Maybe…” so I’ll continue.

  1. Can it ride on ruby rails?
  2. Thinking of the last book I bought, how would it change this?
  3. What is the very first thing to do on it? The seventh?
  4. Why do I care?
  5. Toss aside the oughts, where are the wishes?
  6. Am I just doing this to avoid the one I know is the right answer? What would that be?
  7. Which superhero does it best?
  8. Which season of the year suits it?
  9. What period of history fits best?
  10. How do you explain the problem to a child?
  11. Tell an engineer what you want to do.
  12. Spin a romance novel plot around the issue.
  13. Who is the villain in the mystery?
  14. Did Mother have a generational curse? What?
  15. Did Daddy have a generational curse? Do I have it?
  16. What gifts (talents) have I received that I do not use?
  17. What gifts (presents) have I received that I do not use?
  18. What do I actively not want to do? Why?
  19. Go to the word of the day and see what it contributes.
  20. Go to the quote of the day and see what it contributes.
  21. Look at your favorite comic strip for today’s date.
  22. Pick up the last thing you write and choose only the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th words. Put those five words into a sentence about your issue.
  23. Why do I want to do this if I’m struggling with it so?
  24. Why do I not want to do this but say I do?
  25. State the word most closely related. Look up the synonyms of the word. Does that change anything?
  26. What four ideas do I want to get across.
  27. What’s the least I can do? Why haven’t I done it?
  28. What can I do in the next minute to advance this project?
  29. If it were a seven-piece set of Russian nesting dolls, how would each differ from the last and expand the entire idea?
  30. If you had or have an imaginary friend, what thoughts does the pal contribute?
  31. If you dropped the idea on a Monopoly board, where would you want it to land?
  32. Who do you want to work with you on this from among your friends? Why?
  33. Who do you want to work with you on this from among your family? Why?
  34. Who do you want to work with you on this from among famous people? Why?
  35. Who do you want to work with you on this from among your historical mortals? Why?
  36. Who do you want to work with you on this from among your fictional characters? Why?
  37. How would the little engine that could get over the mountain?
  38. What has convinced Henny Penny the sky is falling?

I’ll have more obliques to write, but next I’ll put these to a practical use and let you use them (and yours) to help me plan the next Silver Boomer Books anthology.

Jan 272015
 

I mentioned Dr. Davis’s blog and motivational speech last time. Another take-away from that was the concept of Obiques. Her discussion can be found at Step 2:Start, including her list. I have intentionally not yet read that list, but I will. Oh, I will!

So, what is an oblique? It’s a geometric term: neither parallel nor at a right angle, coming in from an odd direction. In this context if means a way of breaking through trite writing processes. Some thought provoking bits she quotes from her source are these:

Some examples: What would your closest friend do?
Your mistake was a hidden intention.
What is the simplest solution?
Repetition is a form of change.
Don’t avoid what is easy.

My purpose in bringing this up is twofold. The basic need is for me to come up with entries for this blog that will beckon you. But on a deeper level, I need a list of ideas, of thought-starters, of more creative ways to write whatever I’m doing. That would immediately include writing biographic sketches for a group of historic women; a poem every day; my next great book to write; my next great book to publish (other than those I write or have accepted now), and (gulp) in what direction to take my life now.

My first five obliques:

  1. What would it look like made of sheet metal? (My mother’s and grandmother’s question, married to tin smiths)
  2. Where’s the puce?
  3. If it were a pig in Angry Birds, how would I attack it?
  4. Are there mores I need to ignore here?
  5. What does it look like from above or below?

I’m more to write. But first I’ll read Dr. Davis’…and yours if you’ll put them in the comment form.

Reading and Writing

 Memoirs  Comments Off on Reading and Writing
Jun 072012
 

I visited with Rudy “Fearless” Fernandez and Pete Beretta this morning on KEAN radio about reading, and we discussed Flashlight Memories. The last time we were together Fearless had told me several stories from his childhood including as a pre-schooler running away from home, walking along the Rio Grande, a “one-armed kid” carrying a parakeet. He told of badly wanting the status symbol du jore of his childhood, a Daniel Boone coonskin cap. His family had no extra money to buy him one, and Fearless as adult said, “I still want one.” Today I remedied the deficiency.

Fearless had flashlight memories, not of hiding under the covers with the illumination but in a closet. I never needed to hide my reading, being blessed to come from a home where my parents read, both to me and my sisters, and as a chosen pastime. I did have one reading memory in which my father’s demeanor led me to read a book I wasn’t sure he actually approved. I told of that in Flashlight Memories:

The Joshua Tree
A yucca growing as a tree,
native to the arid west.
A book by Cabot, a U2 album —
but before that.
A random novel from library shelves
for Mrs. Holloway’s assignment.
Daddy picked it up, idly inquired.
“Your teacher assigned this?!!
“No, any novel.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I don’t recall the plot.
Only that it wasn’t nearly so racy
as his tone led me to hope.
Fearless has fascinating memories, childhood, with famous people, and dare-devil fundraising. For months I’ve urged him to write them down, joining a queue of others urging him to write. Like so many people, “one day” he’ll write a book. I hope unlike 99% of those people, one day he really will! I’ve encouraged him and others, though, to take steps that actually lead to producing a manuscript, where those fantasies of “one day” usually stay ephemeral.
Just write! Pick a story and commit it to pixels – or to ink on paper. Don’t start with “I was born….” That’s an awful beginning for something you want anyone to read! Instead, talk about a memorable moment, a character in your life and her influence on you, how you came to make a life-changing decision, or whatever you’re thinking about! When you’ve done that, whether it’s three hundred words or a pile of pages, set it aside. Then, the next time you have time to write (which you have to make!), choose another memory and memorialize it. Whether the result ever becomes a manuscript or not, you’ve created something of value to you and your family and friends. When the pile of saved writing justifies it, organize it (not necessarily chronologically) and make it as strong as you can. Recruit others to read it, making recommendations. Few people can do this with a family member, though you may be the exception, but you have friends who will be both objective and bold enough to suggest needed edits. Then, when you have the courage actually to put your heart and soul before the reading world, you’ll be an author!


An author, editor, and publisher with Silver Boomer Books, “Barbara B. Rollins” appears on thirteen books. Her most recent, A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OAStepper, matches each verse in the book of Hebrews with a quotation from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and responds in poetry and prayer. It is the sequel to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes which lacks the Big Book quotes. The six Silver Boomer Books anthologies are edited in part by Barbara, and she has a forensic crime solvers series for children from Capstone Press and the young adult novel,  Syncopated SummerA retired judge, Barbara still sits occasionally but more often sits in her car, going or coming from wherever she chooses.

Books that Inspired SONG OF COUNTY ROADS

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Mar 072012
 

Ginny Greene, author of Song of County Roads recently supplied information for use in securing wider distribution of the book.  Like most of Ginny’s writing, her lyrical rendition of what might have been a mundane list deserves a wider readership.

Gladys Taber and Hal Borland were my earliest heroes of inspiration, method and style – right after a long list of pioneer stories and horse stories I read early in life.

Gladys, because she and her girlhood friend, both widowed, were brave enough to leave the city and take their children to a Connecticut country life they all had to learn bit by piece.

Books: Still Cove Journal, Stillmeadow Calendar, The Stillmeadow Road, Stillmeadow Sampler, and many others, published by J.B. Lippincott.

 

And Borland, because he felt so strongly that even New York city dwellers needed a daily dose of peace in nature. He took them for a stroll in his New York Times untitled “outdoor editorials” for many years (1941 to 1978).

Books: Sundial of the Seasons, When the Legends Die, and many others.

 

And of course everything ever written by the poet Robert Frost.

 

Many other titles are similar to Song of County Roads, or they inspired me by their rural or wilderness or frontier content:

  • Sue Hubbell journaled A Country Year, and a book about bees and beekeeping.
  • Betty MacDonald wrote her story The Egg and I, which became a movie, with spin-offs of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories for children and the Ma and Pa Kettle characters.
  • Sylvia Jorrin wrote Sylvia’s Farm – the journal of an improbable shepherd, Bloomsbury, 2004
  • It’s Hard to Look Cool When Your Car’s Full of Sheep by Roger Pond
  • (It made me remember my old beater station wagon full of goat kids)
  • Bean Blossom Dreams – a city family’s search for a simple country life by Sallyann J. Murphey, Berkley Books, 1995
  • Rescuing Sprite, by Mark R. Levin (I know his dog better than his politics), Pocket Books, Div. of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2007
  • Enslaved by Ducks – How one man went from head of the household to bottom of the pecking order by Bob Tarte, Algonquin Books, 2003
  • The Women at Pine Creek by Allis McKay, the Macmillan Company, 1966
  • Still Life with Chickensstarting over in a house by the sea by Catherine Goldhammer, Hudson Street Press, Penguin, 2006
  • One wasn’t an adventure in nature exactly, but it certainly was an experiment in an adventure of lifestyle: A Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs, Simon & Schuster, 2007
  • The veterinary tales of James Herriott and the Pecos veterinarian Ben K. Green.
  • And always, the pioneer stories like those written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Stories that preserved nostalgia as they preserved farmstead cheese, or skills and practices such as weaving, spinning and candle-making.
  • A Sand County Almanac – by early conservationist Aldo Leopold reads like poetry. Oxford University Press, Inc., 1949

One story I enjoyed so much was about a family who took responsibility for raptor rescue. Searching with a realtor for the perfect property in which to expand, they took with them a long list of preferences necessary for the comfort of eagles. Living quarters for themselves took a back seat, except that the mother bravely stuck in one requirement for family needs – two bathrooms.

  • More stories of commitment to earth’s creatures:
    • The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton, Simon & Schuster, 2008
    • A Hummingbird in My House by Arnette Heidcamp, Crown Publishers, 1990
    • Through Animals’ Eyes by Lynn Marie Cuny, University of North Texas Press, 2001

And then there is Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers – and Guideposts’ Their Mysterious Ways Too – my story about our family’s boxer puppy are in both!

 

Several of these books are on my own shelves. Add to that many more borrowed from the library and returned when finished, keeping for myself a memory and a fondness, but losing the title and author.

 



Ginny Greene

Ginny Greene

Ginny Greene likely arrived on Planet Earth with a blue pencil clutched in her fist. Past president of Abilene Writers Guild, her writing life includes years of newspaper lifestyle features, a newspaper column, and a handful of newsletters, including seven years editing the Guild’s newsletter. These days she is one of the four partners of Silver Boomer Books publishing company. For fun, Ginny writes poems and works crossword puzzles. She edits everything, even street signage, especially yard sale signs, even in her sleep. She’s happiest seeing her love of words spilled over to her children and grandchildren, including daughter, Karen, also a Silver Boomer Books editor. Ginny’s grandson’s essay is included in the junior writers section of the Silver Boomer Books anthology This Path, which constitutes a three- generation contribution to the book. Ginny still has ties to her Northwest hometown, but Texas is “home.”

Just Fine

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Feb 262012
 

Bettsy has beed kind enough to welcome me into her home after I cut myself severely on my right arm. She picked out this as ideal for me – and means more than the graphic fits. Bettsy stands beside me and keeps hers hands off the struggle of the moment, muttering, “She’ll ask for help when she wants it.”

I must admit it’s not a new phenomena. Hospitalized at three and again at five with pneumonia, I’m not sure which time led to the story, but my parents would talk as long as they were telling tales on me of my reporting from the hospital bed with a temperature of something like 105, “I’m fine. I’m just fine.”

I come by it naturally. Mother, Alma Ellen Anderson Breedlove, at the time of the age-five pneumonia, had Mary Ellen who was nine and Carol, two, when the visitors left my fifth birthday party and Mary Ellen broke out with measles. Carol and I got that as well as chicken pox and mumps brought home from school, someone being sick from January until Easter. Daddy travelled West Texas and New Mexico, leaving Mother with her hands full. Only when I was hospitalized and Carol was home with the illness du jour AND a heart murmur did Mother call in Grandmother for backup.

The self-reliant women didn’t start with Mother, either. While she was playing hospital, Texas saw women as not strong enough to sit on juries, and wouldn’t allow that for three more years. Grandmother, more educated than her husband (who would become a phenomena in his profession) could mother Aunt Lorice and Mother while keeping books for her husband, but until 1918 couldn’t vote – and that only in the Texas primary, not the general election.

Women in the family stood strong long before that. Maria Pells, wife of Allert Heymans Roosa petitioned the English occupying army in New Netherlands as reported in court records: (Allert and Maria were 5th great grandparents to Grandmother’s husband, Joe Holt Anderson, Sr., I think. It’s hard to count generations with just one hand. See further at my genealogy, http://sharpwriters.com/genealogy/dutch.html#roosa).

The wife of Allert Heymans requests that Mr. Berrisfort be pleased to relieve her of the people he brought into her house. To which Mr. Berrisfort answers, saying, as soon as her husband Allert Heymans will again allow himself to be found at home, he will then relieve her of this trouble. And he intends to arrest her husband and to take him to the redoubt until the arrival of a yacht then to send him to the Manhatans to the Governor General, for the purposes of there answering any accusation which they, the soldiers, may make against him.

The hon. court proposes to adjust the affair between Allert Heymans and his soldier here before the court, as per instructions, and in the mean time, to keep him under arrest in his own house, with orders for him to keep silent and quiet until the arival of a vessel, then to go to the Manhatans to answer there, in case the difference cannot be adjusted here, and in case he does not keep still and quiet during his arrest, that he shall be handcuffed and sent to the redoubt.

 Anyway, to Bettsy, my sons, Dezi, and others, I know of your frustration. I felt it at Rotary Friday when I was going to start early to “discretely” half put on and half wrap a sweater around me – and JoHan Green got up from the next table where she was sitting with her back to me to help. I do understand, but I could add tales of ancestors like Rosa Berryman Talliaffero Loving, moving west and raising soldiers and preachers after being widowed in the War of 1812, Mary Dudley McKendree raising doctors and the first American-born Methodist bishop from an invalid’s bed, Nancy Spence and her mother fighting off a Comanche raid in a log cabin…. Independent women run in my blood, what’s left of it after spilling a good pile.


An author, editor, and publisher with Silver Boomer Books, “Barbara B. Rollins” appears on thirteen books. Her most recent, A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OAStepper, matches each verse in the book of Hebrews with a quotation from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and responds in poetry and prayer. It is the sequel to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes which lacks the Big Book quotes. The six Silver Boomer Books anthologies are edited in part by Barbara, and she has a forensic crime solvers series for children from Capstone Press and the young adult novel,  Syncopated SummerA retired judge, Barbara still sits occasionally but more often sits in her car, going or coming from wherever she chooses.

Build, Teach and Lead

 Motivation  Comments Off on Build, Teach and Lead
Feb 032012
 

Lt. Col. Haynes and Spike Harris, WWII Navy veteran born August 18, 1922, Bob Hunter and Erik Johnson in background.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Haynes leads the 77th Weapons School of Dyess AFB. Today at my Rotary club he presented one the most interesting programs I’ve heard for a while. But the permanent takeaway for me was simple. His is an intensive effort to train a few officers each year, preparing them to become graduates of the Air Force Weapons School. His purpose is to create leaders among leaders, to graduate people able to build, teach and lead.

How is that accomplished? Haynes’ answer is, “to be a person who can build, teach, and lead, you have to be a person who is humble, approachable, and credible.” What wisdom!

Humility creates someone who can build lives. We’ve all known teachers who boss the class — and the other kind, the ones we know love the students, who don’t set themselves above the class, but as the sculptors or carpenters, building in the character traits most useful. Anybody can strengthen another up by actually listening and caring about the other, avoiding being centered in self. If the person feels loved and important, the building is occurring.

To teach, we must be approachable? The professor whose office is available, perhaps not willy-nilly (what does that teach?) but who is willing to visit with students individually, epitomizes this. The mentor who always seems to have time, no matter how busy she is; the pastor sitting to visit with a trio of children with deep childhood questions, piled on piles; the celebrity who meets an admirer and takes time to really visit, to talk, not just offer an autograph and rush off. These people we remember years later – as we do those who epitomize the opposite. Those teach, too, but they don’t make (effective) teachers of those they encounter.

And to learn to lead, we must be credible. Able to be believed; convincing; capable of persuading people. I sat on the bench many years. Certainly I heard plenty of testimony from the witness stand, but far more cases were disposed of one-on-one (or really with four or five people involved). Often with very little real interaction, I got a clear feel for how real the story was, how believable the defendant. Those people I could work with, the ones that I could expect to benefit from attempts to redirect them, to rehabilitate them, were often people of few words, but the honesty, the credibility showed. Some people might turn around after they stand at the bench filled with falsehood, spouting lies. Not many, though. We don’t tolerate lies. We may let them pass, but we remember, and we’re not willing to take direction from prevericators. A credible person can lead; a truthful person is worth trusting, worth following.

I’ll never go through the rugged Weapons School, but I can build, teach, and lead as long as I strive to be and remain humble, approachable, and credible.



An author, editor, and publisher with Silver Boomer Books, “Barbara B. Rollins” appears on thirteen books. Her most recent, A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OAStepper, matches each verse in the book of Hebrews with a quotation from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and responds in poetry and prayer. It is the sequel to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes which lacks the Big Book quotes. The six Silver Boomer Books anthologies are edited in part by Barbara, and she has a forensic crime solvers series for children from Capstone Press and the young adult novel,  Syncopated SummerA retired judge, Barbara still sits occasionally but more often sits in her car, going or coming from wherever she chooses.

Magic Numbers

 Memoirs  Comments Off on Magic Numbers
Jan 202012
 

One, two, three… we’ve known the progression for years. When applied to age mile markers, what makes some matter more than others? Which do we pick out for emphasis? Certainly one, a unique, special number. And two, three, four, five – small ones carry power, for they mark significant increments. Two is one doubled, five is a whole handful of fingers, etc. Then we start skipping. Ten, fifteen, sixteen – is that just because of the quinceaneras? – twenty, twenty-one… After that it’s decades, until we get to sixty-five, which I do in two days.

I remember some of the earlier “big” years. After the little girls left my fifth birthday party, my older sister broke out in measles, and she, my younger sister and I all went through those and mumps and chicken pox, someone ill the whole time, until Easter. In addition, Carol had a heart murmur and I was hospitalized with pneumonia. Mother soldiered on with Daddy traveling West Texas and New Mexico Mondays through Fridays, though with the heart murmur at home and pneumonia in the hospital, she called in her mother to help. My twenty-first, I was in Roswell, New Mexico, with Betty Ely Nichols and her family. I ate sopaipillas for the first time. When I tore one into pieces rather than biting off a corner to pour in honey, someone (Mrs. Ely, I think) gave up hers so I could try it the right way. My twenty-fifth birthday, I had driven from Nashville, Tennessee to Newport News, Virginia, staying up all night and too tired to rest when we got there. When I got up from the fruitless effort, I found my first wrinkle. All in my circle of friends know Beth Weaver was getting married on my birthday, but only one remembered and wished happiness.

Number thirty was a dreaded number welcomed. A could of months earlier, I’d confirmed I was finally pregnant. Forty? I decided if I didn’t grow up by the time I was forty, I never would. I set out to lose weight, to get organized, to fix a lot of broken parts of me, doing a decent job. At the end of that year I got up the nerve to run for office as judge of a newly created court. I call 1997 my hell year. It started before, in October, with younger son’s surgery. The big fifty happened in January, then in the Spring my dad was hospitalized with ARSD for seven weeks, two in intensive care on a ventilator. Because of the October injury and surgery, an arrogant, asinine, stupid coach set up a chain of events that caused my younger son to graduate from high school at that quoinceanera year. I’d told him he could not move out until reaching the next birthday because as juvenile judge I didn’t want to be the mother of a runaway. But he’d had the birthday and was at home with his father and I was afraid he’d leave or somebody would kill the other one. As tense as a body could get, I got my fifty-year-old body out of the bathtub, reaching up for balance, and severed my rotator cuff. Surgery for that, then a blood clot, then surgery on my older son before we could drive 250 miles to get there. The fiftieth year was memorable, all through.

I reached sixty a month after I found a fellowship, a family, a home in a recovery. More comfortable and carefree than I’d ever been, no trauma attached. Later that year, though, when my sister reached sixty-five, I felt old. Now, as I attain that number? The significance is my insurance cost lowering! That despite the fact I was confused for someone else yesterday, and I happen to know she’s considerably older than I. We don’t look like each other, do we? How could anybody confuse is?

Numbers are just numbers. Years are just years. And time to be savored, to be counted one-by-one, lived one day at a time in the fullest and most joyous way possible. Come run with me!



An author, editor, and publisher with Silver Boomer Books, “Barbara B. Rollins” appears on thirteen books. Her most recent, A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OAStepper, matches each verse in the book of Hebrews with a quotation from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and responds in poetry and prayer. It is the sequel to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes which lacks the Big Book quotes. The six Silver Boomer Books anthologies are edited in part by Barbara, and she has a forensic crime solvers series for children from Capstone Press and the young adult novel,  Syncopated SummerA retired judge, Barbara still sits occasionally but more often sits in her car, going or coming from wherever she chooses.

That Year – This Year

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Jan 052012
 

Two thousand eleven was an eventful year for Silver Boomer Books. That, my reader, is the classic understatement. On the one hand – the positive one – we opened our physical office, published five great books, have agreements we’re working on with two guest anthology editors well-known in their fields and recognized on the subject of the anthologies. And then, again, another guest editor agreed to come aboard yesterday to help with at least one of the anthologies, so that makes three, not two. I’ve been on the radio three times in the last three weeks with a fourth tomorrow. We’re getting real readership on some of our books. The five books I’m pretty sure we’ll publish next year are strong contributions to the catalogue, and two more I’ve got exuberant hopes for – though they’re not even written.

On the other hand, we’ve had our issues, jointly and severally. Karen left at the beginning of 2011; sadly, Ginny has chosen to leave a year later. She’ll be devoting her time to writing in her own writing space – in Idaho. I’ve never been to Idaho. But maybe I’ll get there sometime. And she will spend the cold months down here in Texas, so that makes it less distant. Becky moved from Shreveport to St. Louis, and she’s had some distractions that made concentration on writing, editing, and publishing more difficult. And me? Besides leaving the courthouse after more than 30 years as a lawyer then a judge, I’ve found the full-time publishing office fits well, and I’m happy. I also left my house and husband, living in an apartment again, the first time in 35 years. And I became a grandmother – twice, the same day! How about that. I hear, though, it’s pretty common for Grandmoms of twins. And I’ve worked on wearing out my car, not just driving across Texas, but I’ve been to Michigan a couple of times, too, with more trips planned. It was a good year, balancing all on both hands.

We’re about to finish the fifth day of 2012. I’ve done a ton of work already, intend to plow through a whole regimen this month, and more in the months to come, to do everything in my power to do our great authors justice by getting their books out there and read. I’m excited about 2012. And scared. But I lived through 2011, happier than I could have believed I could be when I started it. If my world gets that much better in 2012, I just might explode. And you’ll hear the repercussions here – and hopefully around the world as we become real, as we find we really do have “potential.” Come with us!



An author, editor, and publisher with Silver Boomer Books, “Barbara B. Rollins” appears on thirteen books. Her most recent, A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us, written with OAStepper, matches each verse in the book of Hebrews with a quotation from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and responds in poetry and prayer. It is the sequel to A Time for Verse – Poetic Ponderings on Ecclesiastes which lacks the Big Book quotes. The six Silver Boomer Books anthologies are edited in part by Barbara, and she has a forensic crime solvers series for children from Capstone Press and the young adult novel,  Syncopated SummerA retired judge, Barbara still sits occasionally but more often sits in her car, going or coming from wherever she chooses.