Island Destinations

With the chill of autumn in the air, my mind has drifted to the high seas of the Caribbean, Hawaii, and other island destinations. Why? In addition to writing books for children and teaching adults in entrepreneurship and writing in online classrooms, I am also a cruiseline enrichment speaker. Over the past few days, I compiled my latest program offerings.

What could be more fun than learning and sharing information about female swashbucklers, mermaids and sea monsters, the design and construction of the Panama Canal, the healing properties of water, tricksters and tigers and native folk tales, lovers' leaps, wild mountain women, and totem poles and icebergs? All in a day's work ... bring on the sunscreen!

You can view my list of destination-specific programs at http://www.carolsmalley.com/cruise.htm.

See you on deck! Happy sailing (on the seas and through life)!

Carol

Congratulations, Jessica!

I returned from Hershey with a buffet of good news!

First, former "Writing for Children" (http://www.ed2go.com) student, Jessica Kennedy, aka The Differently-Abled Writer, received her first book contract for a picture book.

You can learn more about Jessica here:

http://www.jessica-kennedy.com/index.html

I guarantee she will inspire you.

Thanks for sharing your good news with us, Jessica. Remember to send me a signed copy of your book when it's hot off the press. I'm saving a spot on my shelf for you.

Other good news? We were able to save everything on the computer. Yee-haw! A back-up hard drive is on order. I lucked out on that one.

And, my trip to Hershey was exceptionally fruitful. Many thanks to the fine folks at the Hummelstown Area Historical Society, The (Hummelstown) Sun, the Milton Hershey School History Department at Kinderhaus, and Myron and Phil for too many laughs as you traveled down Memory Lane at Moldavia (their old student home). I'm having too much fun with these book projects.

On Saturday, my husband and I traveled to historic Sharon Springs for the annual garlic fest. We bought way too much garlic! I guess we're good to go for vampire season this Halloween. For those of you not familiar with Sharon Springs, it is a Jewish healing springs resort town in upstate New York rich in health and history. Work is underway to restore the town to its former destination point.

I hope everyone has a productive week.

Till the next update,
Carol

Crashed!

What a weekend. A computer crash and due book manuscript hit at the same time. I'm trying to keep my sanity! Luckily, I have a saved copy of my manuscript. I'm not so sure I will be able to recover all of my photographs, however. Lesson learned. Subscribing to an online back-up system has just risen to the top of my to-do list.

This is an incredibly busy week for me. I'm off to Hershey (PA) once more to work on my two book projects for Milton Hershey School and then new sections of both of my online courses start next week. This is an exciting time.

I'll share news from the road when I return.

Till then,
Carol

Saying Good-bye to Summer

My beach buddies and I said good-bye to summer this week. It's hard to believe that fall is upon us, but as I look at the leaves here in the mountains, hints of red and orange appear. It won't be long before snowflakes are falling. Bummer!

My latest book is hot off the press. Threat to the Spotted Owl by Mitchell Lane Publishers is now available. You can see it here: http://www.amazon.com/Threat-Spotted-Robbie-Extinction-Readers/dp/1584156872/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220614514&sr=1-1. Many thanks to wildlife photographer and biologist Jared Hobbs (http://www.hobbsphotos.com/index.php) for his outstanding nature shots.

My 15-year-old daughter, Elise, and I are wrapping up work on another emergent reader for Mitchell Lane. This one is on hamsters and how to convince your parents you can care for one. No, we don't have hamsters -- just two crazy Siamese kittens!

And next week, I'm back to Hershey (PA) to work on my two children's books for Milton Hershey School's upcoming centennial celebration: http://www.mhs-pa.org/100years/celebration/photo-gallery/.

Thanks to graphic designer and photographer Judy Olson (http://judyolsonphotography.com/) for getting my web site up and running. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

This busy gal needs to tackle her to-do list! Have a great weekend, everyone.

Carol