My book, Step By Step, a Memoir, just received a 5-star rating from Barnes & Nobel eBooks. According them it's one of those "great picks for summer reading." And, all this for $1.99!

The Fearrington Writers Read held yesterday (6/26) was a lively success with talented writers/readers and a packed house. We thank all who attended and invite you to join us when we do this again. We will announce the when and where shortly. In the meantime the next meeting of the Fearrington Writers' Group is scheduled to begin our fall season on September 16. Please mark your calendars now.

GET READY: The first (annual) Fearrington Writers Read is next week!
GET SET: McIntyre's, 6/26 at 2 p.m.
GO: To listen to an interesting and exciting hour with 8 skilled writers from the Fearrington Writers' Group!

Fearrington Writers Read

We are happy and proud to announce the first (annual) Fearrington Writers Read. The event will take place at McIntyre's Bookstore on Wednesday, June 26 at 2 p.m. You will be thrilled to hear from the following eight readers, all members of the Fearrington Writers' Group, who will read short prose stories and answer questions from the audience. Please put this date on your calendar and come out to hear your friends and neighbors, talented writers one and all, read their own works.
Sherman Poultney
Dick Merwarth
Forrest Greenslade
William Polf
Caroline Taylor
Les Ewen
Barry Reece
Laura Jensen

Fearrington Village author Caroline Taylor

Fearrington Village author Caroline Taylor announces the release of her second P.J. Smythe, Jewelry from a Grave, a Five Star Mystery from Gale-Cengage Learning. A reading is slated for 2 p.m., Sunday, May 19, at McIntyre's Book Store.
Jewelry from a Grave features P.J. Smythe, a former Annapolis "skip tracer," who tracks down loan defaulters. P.J. is thrilled when her new employer, Chatham Confidential, offers her a significant bonus to track down antique jewelry lover, Yolanda Branson. In her attempts to locate Yolanda, P.J. unearths a file labeled "Funny Business," which contains a secret code that, when deciphered, exposes a jewelry-fencing operation involving several former Chatham employees and perhaps some current ones. One of them might be P.J.'s boyfriend, or even her boss. Before she can connect the dots linking a phony narc, some stolen jewelry, and one or more Chatham insiders, P.J. is forced to go for a midnight swim -- losing her car, her clothes, and almost her life.
Taylor's debut novel, What Are Friends For?, won praise for throwing in "enough laughs to please a wide audience." Suspenseful and quickly paced, Jewelry from a Grave takes readers on an equally breathtaking journey, Caroline Taylor's short stories and essays have appeared in a variety of publications including , Fiction365, The First Line, A Fly in Amber, Fresh Magazine, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, The Green Silk Journal, Long Story Short, The Oddville Press, Orchard Press Mysteries, The Dan River Anthology-2009, Workers Write!, Tales from the Capitol, and Work Literary Magazine. In addition to What Are Friends For?, Taylor is the author of Publishing the Nonprofit Annual Report: Tips, Traps, and Tricks of the Trade (Jossey-Bass, 2001). She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and the North Carolina Writers' Network.
For more information on the author, please visit www.carolinestories.com

Winter Solstice

WINTER SOLSTICE

by Laura T. Jensen

(Published: Chapel Hill News January 2010)

He is truly wise

Who has traveled far

And knows the ways of the world.

            Viking Proverb, circa 800-1000 AD

The sky is a clear blue, the yellow ball hanging there sparkles, like clusters of diamonds, off the snow collected on every tree branch. On legs wobbling with fatigue from a morning spent on ice skates, we snowshoe across a meadow for our first neighborly visit. The air crackles and is so cold my teeth hurt. Friendly doors are opened and we are welcomed with cakes and coffee. There is chatter, hugs and food everywhere we stop.

Hours later, back home we drink Aquavit; the bottle plucked from a snowdrift. The small-stemmed glasses prevent our fingers from warming the liquor. The table groans with food; my stomach growls. We eat cod, potatoes and cabbage. Gathered around a warming fire, we ignore the howling wind and Skål again. This Aquavit is after all, “the water of life.”

Tradition dictates that someone tells a story. We all embellish and laughter bubbles. I speak little Norwegian but it doesn’t seem to matter. I am gathered into the fold.

The tradition of commemorating Winter Solstice continues in many lands to this day. No more heartily than in Norway where a celebration to give thanks (for the coming of spring) with merriment is the norm. Here the dark days are long but tomorrow the days will begin to get longer, and that is what everyone is celebrating. And, why not? At the Summer Solstice it will be light for almost twenty-four hours.

I am in the land of my forefathers to experience this ancient tradition and I am not disappointed.

-END-

The story, Betrayal,  by Laura T. Jensen, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffner Prose Award. It, along with the other award winners, appears in the book, "Best New Writing 2013", and is now available on Amazon.