By Chanah Liora Wizenberg The Wake County Public Libraries Annual Book Sale was the first weekend in May—a bibliophile’s dream! As I entered the Expo Center at the Fairgrounds in Raleigh, N.C., where the sale was being held, I gasped. A sea of books was spread before me. There were tables and tables of books set in rows the length of the enormous room. The scent of freshly popped buttered popcorn and hot dogs permeated the air. For a split second my mouth watered and my stomach [...]
By Don Vaughan, donaldvaughan.com Last year, I lost one of my best friends. We’d known each other for eighteen years, and had grown extremely close. We visited almost weekly, and shared innumerable stories on topics both intimate and far-reaching. I miss my friend a lot. This special friend wasn’t a person, but the McKay’s Used Books & More in Raleigh, which suddenly and inexplicably closed its doors in April 2017. When Nan and I moved to Raleigh from South Florida in 1999, [...]
By Jeff Davidson, breathingspace.com An insidious trend is impacting authors, writers, poets and all creative individuals everywhere. As a result of the Amazon.com review process, virtually anyone can post anything about any intellectual property at any time. Such postings can be made independently of whether or not one has actually, say, bought and read the book, or has anything coherent to say about it. In Amazon’s quest to provide a “forum” for users, all reviews, those [...]
By Kristy Stevenson, kristystevenson.com I don’t make resolutions anymore, but with the New Year upon us I thought it was as good a time as any to START something. Something new, something neglected, something fun, something challenging … you get the idea. In 2017, I was grateful that my work went in a lot of different directions. This of course meant that some projects got sidelined in order to meet new deadlines. But I learned to juggle and diversify. Regular and repeat business is [...]