My Catchphrases

Saturday 26 March 2011

Saturday Spotlight: Guest Post: Lacey Weatherford: Have you hugged a Librarian today?

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I feel very privileged to hold a guest post from Lacey, not only are her books fantastic (really one of the best literary couples EVER) but she is so lovely as well. Lacey has recently changed publishers and new content, covers, etc are now available - more along the lines of what Lacey had in mind in the first place. Unfortunately, as yet, Lacey does not have a UK publisher and I for one would dearly like to see that changed. If you go to Tuesday's Trailer you can get a coupon to download the first book in the series for FREE.   Over to Lacey:


I’m actually quite excited to do this guest post today because I get to talk a little bit about a subject which is very near and dear to my heart, and that is libraries/librarians and how they influenced me toward writing.

When I was younger I couldn't wait for an opportunity to go to the library. We had one in the back room of the small country school I attended, and it also served as our town library too.

Our librarian’s name was Orpha Jackson, she was my great aunt, and she was one of the most wonderful people I have ever known. She was an older lady, who would light up when I would come into the room to talk to her about books. Often times I was the only one in the library, so she would follow me around, visiting with me and helping me to carefully check out books.

I loved visiting with her, and I loved being able to take those books home and devour what was between their pages while curled up in a cozy spot. We didn't have a television at that time, so reading was my number one entertainment. Most times I was finished with my books in a day or two and eager to return to the library again.

It was during this time, on a day spent with aunt Orpha that I discovered my first Nancy Drew book, reading it on her recommendation. I was eight years old and I was instantly hooked! I read the several volumes that our library carried and when I ran out aunt Orpha told me there were more copies of them in the neighboring town’s library.

I soon had a membership at that library too, and continued reading as often as the occasion would arise. This series was what initial made me want to become a writer, and I began writing my own little mysteries, that starred myself and my cousin. I believe my first mystery was called, The Diamond Caper. It was totally laughable, but hey, I was nine at the time!

As I grew older, into my late teens, I continued to check out books to read while I dabbled with writing stories for friends, or sometimes even giving a few shots at poetry too. I helped out with story time at the library on occasion, and when fundraising was started to build a new town library, I volunteered my services as a clown for the big country festivals they would have. (I've been clowning around ever since! Ha)

After I was married, I briefly served as President for The Friends of the Library of our new town library, and I kind of felt like things had come full circle.

I recently took my kids, nieces and nephews to a library and they all freaked out because they found my books sitting on the shelf. This particular library is on a county system so it’s a network of several libraries. I found out while I was there that my books were the number one checked out books in three of their libraries, with long waiting list to be checked out. The librarian laughed and said they had to keep replacing the books because they tended to “disappear” a lot.

I just shook my head in awe. Never did I imagine that I might be an author supplying books for others to read someday. I definitely attribute my becoming a writer to those young childhood adventures to the library.

So my advice to you is this. Go to your public library. Let your cities know they are important to you by frequenting them often. Too many of them are being forced to close due to budget cuts lately. And most importantly, if that good librarian behind the counter inspires you then give her a hug and tell her so! It will make her/his day!

My sweet aunt Orpha has long ago passed away, but I know without a doubt she would be thrilled to see my books in HER library today!

Thank you Lacey for that wonderful post. It really must be surreal to see something you wrote on the library shelves.

Lacey Weatherford has always had a love of books. She wanted to become a writer after reading her first Nancy Drew novel at the age of eight. She resides in the White Mountains of Arizona, where she lives with her wonderful husband, six beautiful children, one son-in-law and their energetic schnauzer, Sophie. When she's not out supporting one of her kids at their sporting/music events, she spends her time writing, reading, blogging, and reviewing books.

Lacey also has a new promoter in the form of the lovely Belinda Boring. Go take a look at all the hard work these guys do.



We want to reward all the wonderful followers of this blog tour, so what better way to do that than to give away a free Kindle and Of Witches and Warlocks Swag!

Being entered to win is easy!

All you have to do is follow the tour each day and search for the highlighted (different colour) words in the post.

There may be only one word on some days or two or more on others, so be sure to read the whole post.

They could be anywhere…even in this description!

Keep collecting the words each day to build a certain phrase.

At the end of the tour on April 22nd, bring your completed phrase to The Delusional Diaries and submit it into the form to be entered into the Kindle drawing!

Did you miss a day? No worries! Just follow the linky list on The Delusional Diaries to the post for that day and search for it.

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So come join in the FUN!

19 comments:

  1. My auntie was my first librarian too. She got me my tickets. That was when you were only allowed three books and they used to take the tickets out of the books and put them in your cards!

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  2. Aww, I really love these posts about people's love of libraries/librarians! :)

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  3. Lately, JoAnna and I have been using the public library more than normal. She goes through books like crazy! She will have 10 checked out, then be dine with them within a week. We don't deal with the librarians much, aside from a few questions. We just learned of the interlibrary program where we can check out a book from another state! Awesome!

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  4. Loved this post! This hunt is fun.

    Vivien
    deadtossedwaves at gmail dot com

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  5. Sadly it is so, that our library system is taking a hard punch. I USE to go to our library every week, at least twice. I would go once for my toddler during the week while the kids were in school and than once on the weekend for the older kids. I have no problem with the library itself, it's the people who work in it that I have an issue with. A person can only be treated badly long enough before they stop going. So, my trips to the library have been cut drastically to once a month, and drop off of materials happens in the outside box so I don't have to deal with the workers.

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  6. @Vivienne Ha! I remember those day too! In fact I ran across an old library book during our move (Nancy Drew ironically) that still had the ticket check out system inside of it. My daughter had checked it out years ago and lost it. I happened to have a copy in PRISTINE condition which I gave to the library to replace it. So now I have their old faded library copy in my pretty set of Nancy Drew books on my shelf! haha Oh! And here's to aunts who are wonderful librarians!

    @Clover Librarians can be pretty great, can't they? Thanks for stopping by!

    @Val I almost had a residential address in our public library when we lived down in the valley! And I'm glad you found out about that program! It's so great to have those systems when you can get books from elsewhere! I love it!

    @Vievien Thanks you! I'm glad you're having fun with it! :D

    @Stephanie What is more sad than an onery librarian? How can you be unhappy when you go to work everyday and you are surrounded with books? I don't get it! I hope your will get better!! I wonder if they have a comment suggestion box. They might be interesed in knowing that their attendance numbers are dropping due to unfriendly staff. Thanks for dropping by!

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  7. Oooh great post Lacey! Last time I went to my library I cried because it seemed so empty. Their funding had been cut so badly that they're no longer able to get new books and have taken to asking for donations. They set up a cool program where patrons adopt a new release by buying the book and then they have the first read. It's so sad that the library isn't given the support it needs from the local government. Everytime the budget needs worked on, the library takes a hefty cut. I've been gathering books to donate from my own shelves. I envy those with great libraries and hope everyone appreciates and uses them :)

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  8. @Belinda I hear you! I did a book signing once at your library and was so saddened by the lack of books on the shelves that I donated copies of my books to them too before I left! I hope the patrons there will be inspired to help keep it going, as you are trying to do!

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  9. Such a wonderful post (:

    I remember visiting the library even before I could even read, picking out books for my parents to read for me. When I finally could read I would be so drawn in by the wonderful world of words that I would just sit down on the library floor, reading.

    Sadly, I don't visit the library that often any more. I try to read books written in the original language, and the English collection is very small.

    I can't imagine how it must be to see your own books on in the library (:

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  10. I miss my hometown library it carried all kinds of my favorite authors and if they didn't they would send out to other libraries. Unfortunately I heard a lot of libraries are cutting that out and thats sad.

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  11. Great post! I love going to my library. I don't necessarily sit down and have a read, I tend to use their internet database and reserve books, but I love knowing I have books ready to collect. Sometimes I do stop and have a snoop around for some titles but majority of the time I have to request the books from other libraries. I don't know what I would do if they shut our local library o.0

    Naomi aka Supernatural Bookworm

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  12. I still remember how excited I was when I got my first library card over the years the number of books I check out has increased by a lot.I remember seeing the nice library man at the front of the library always say hello when I entered it's always made me feel so welcome and made me really happy lovely post

    as always ♥, Carol

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  13. I loved your librarian story. It has been so long ago when I received my first library card:) I have always loved books. I really could not tell you where that came from. No one in my family has ever been big readers.

    Judy

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  14. Omg Omg Omg! When I was little I used to go to the library and read scary stories! Any I could get my hands on! I knew the librarian on a first name basis for a while. But not because we were related lol. I would read R.L. Stien mostly and short ghost stories and folklore. :)

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  15. That's the bad thing about living in a country where people don't read... few libraries and even fewer books. :(

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  16. What a great guest post. Libraries are fantastic, I hope more and more people use them, keep them open. They are an essential part of growing up. x

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  17. I love Libraries, I go almost every week!

    Morganlafey86(at)aol(dot)com

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  18. One of my favorite things to do was walk ten blocks to the neighborhood library to get a stack of books. I also used to work in the school library, and have always just loved being in a place where there are so many books. Great Post!

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  19. When I was very little we used to have a library van, before they built our local library and there was nothing more exciting than knowing they would be coming with the books you had asked for.

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