Windows to the World

As a child, the public library introduced me to the world of possibilities. As an adult, my career obligations sent me to many new towns, new countries. No matter where I was, stepping into the library was, for me, coming home.

Whatever their size, wherever their location, libraries are truly mystical, magical places. Over the years, librarians have found a way to make books available to the public. At the start of the 20th century, for example, Washington County Maryland launched what’s believed to be the first bookmobile using a horse-drawn carriage:

wcbm250scropped

Mary Titcomb’s Book Wagon

While urban areas transitioned from wagons to gasoline-fueled vehicles, people living in isolated rural communities in the Appalachian Mountains were served by the Pack Horse Library Project:

Photo courtesy of the Kentucky Digital Library

Meanwhile, county libraries in many states incorporated book wagons of their own:

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

Many early libraries depended on the generosity of philanthropists such as the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Here’s one reputed to be the earliest Carnegie Library in Wisconsin: 

Image result for oldest carnegie library

 

This quote by the gifted Ray Bradbury sums it up perfectly:

Image may contain: cloud, sky, ocean and text

Thank you, readers!

I love meeting new fans and hearing from readers!

Last week, I had the privilege to be included in the Fayetteville True Lit Festival. In addition to participating in a panel about genre writing, I spent the day autographing books and visiting with readers of all ages. The crowd included both established and aspiring writers as well as editors, artists, students, and families–and all of them wanted to talk about books. For a writer, it doesn’t get much better than that!

Some of the readers had already finished Deadly Ties and came to ask about the next one in the Waterside Kennels mystery series. (That would be Dangerous Deeds, by the way, and it’s still on track for publication in a few months.) Others were just discovering the series and were excited to add Deadly Ties to their collection. My favorite moment of the day came when a family came by and stopped to watch the slideshow of readers’ dogs.  The oldest boy was a fifth-grader named Kalen who picked up my book, read the back cover, and turned to his mother. “This one, Mom.” How cool is that?

*

It’s always fun to meet readers in person and online. In person, events like the True Lit Festival or Books in Bloom  and book clubs offer a wonderful opportunity to hear from fans. I love asking them about their favorite books and authors and listening to what they like (and don’t like) in fiction. And I get an added bonus: people share their own stories about dogs, the Ozarks, and local folk legends.

Sometimes, my interaction with a fan comes in the form of an email, Goodreads discussion, Facebook post, or Amazon review. Here’s a sampling of some of the recent comments I’ve received:

“If you want a great story, wonderful characters, twists and turns to keep you guessing and an all around great read, you’ll love this book. Can’t wait for more.”

“What originally started out as a nice, homey mystery quickly turned into a breathtaking thriller with such vivid detail that I felt smoke in my lungs.”

“This book was hard to put down. I read 4-5 books at the same time and once I started reading this one I didn’t stop until the end. Great mystery and dogs too. That’s a great book to me.”

*

And from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, award-winning crime writer Judith Cranswick has this to say:

Just finished listening to Deadly Ties. I LOVED it. I am very impressed and, believe me, I take a lot of impressing.  Up there with my favourite authors. … What I admired particularly was the build of tension. Many master plot & characterization but getting the pace just right is what singles out the best writers.

*

Thanks to everyone for sharing their excitement about Deadly Ties! For those new to the series (or looking for a reasonably priced gift) here are the purchase links:

Audible: http://tinyurl.com/kzvzn75

Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/nnww9r8

Audible.co.uk: www.audible.co.uk/pd/B00NAFN5W2

Amazon.co.uk: http://tinyurl.com/p9z9x6n
https://dogmysteries.com/tag/libraries/
dogmysteries.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2021-39
80710
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:U3Z3ZPPIDNTZBVZA3LSTK3T6RGZRZX7S
<urn:uuid:c661017f-fcee-48ce-8ea4-3d1391bdac10>
2021-09-27T23:08:09Z
192.0.78.190
text/html
sha1:MWEWLXIH4CJFJWDSR4H2PA7XMKOPR3VC
<urn:uuid:7a5fd96f-3bbe-4eb7-8724-d1432f6ff1c0>
https://dogmysteries.com/tag/libraries/
response
<urn:uuid:e14909da-a65a-44e1-acf0-60917061d556>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2021-39
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2021
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-204
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/