RICH DAVIS is more than an illustrator for children’s books. The kids at schools and libraries love him and after Saturday June 5th Rich will find he is loved by writers groups. My friend Cherie, Laurel and I attended his program sponsored by the Ozark Writers and Illustrators for Children (OWAIC http://www.owaic.org/), at Library Center 4653 S. Campbell, Springfield, Missouri. Rich’s website is http://www.richdavis.freewebspace.com/

After that meeting we attended the Ozarks Romance Writers to hear guest speaker, Allen Young share how to write travel articles and more. Unknown to us “teen book mania” was taking place in the teen department at that same time. Teen novel authors; Arkansas author Jenny B. Jones, three Missouri authors; Holly Schindler, Brian Katcher and Brent Crawford.

I came home bursting with go power. Lonnie will have a piece published in a children’s magazine in December, Cherie had a tween novel manuscript critiqued where she received good feed back. Also, when she starts writing her non-fiction book Allen Young volunteered to read it. He thought her book was great idea.

I was encouraged to return to illustrating and to submit to more than one place.
First I have some writing assignments to get caught up on. Writing for the adult markets sometimes gets in the way of submitting my children’s manuscripts. I will have to work harder. But, I did submit my May poem on David’s blog today. Check it out at http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/
Later this afternoon I will attend the meeting of the Ozarks Regional Arts Council.

I did some gardening in The Woodland Garden last week and this week.
Sometimes, I think I do exploring and photo taking than gardening. I took odd
cloud photos, sunsets over Bull Shoals Lake and deer in our neighborhood. Also, I have been trying to catch-up with the church album. But, I keep taking pictures. I love to do too many things; because I love life.