Dear Faithful Readers, I'm delighted to tell you that Outcast, the first book in the Benedicts of RIchmond series will hit my editor's desk this month. It's scheduled for publication in March 2009. I took four days off from writing in April to spend with my daughter on a mother/daughter weekend. Heather picks the spot each year and I go along for the ride—and the joy of my daughter's company. This year, Heather wanted to visit her "roots." My daughter was born in Uvalde, Texas, when I was living there as director of theatre at Southwest Texas Junior College. I was already five months pregnant when I was hired, and I promised the faculty administrator that having a baby wouldn't keep me from doing a good job. Heather obliged us all by arriving on December 25 (school was out for the holidays on December 22), and I was able to go back to work when the semester started again on January 8, thanks to help from my mother-in-law.
We bought cascarones to crack on each other's heads (eggs that are emptied of their contents, the top half broken off, filled with confetti and then covered with tissue paper that's glued on--to create a fun way to deliver the confetti), and went to La Villita Friday evening to enjoy the crowds and food from every nationality that settled in Texas. Great barbeque, great jalapeno poppers, great buneulos, even Irish, Chinese and German food. Much fun! We rose early Saturday to drive up into the hill country of Texas to Fredericksburg, the birthplace of Admiral Chester Nimitz, who was the commander of the Pacific forces during World War II. While there were some wildflowers along the way, we were too early or too late for the bluebonnets that decorate the roads in Texas each spring, thanks to the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson. We hit a bakery in Fredericksburg early and ate warm sweet rolls right out of the oven, then shopped in the mom-and-pop stores along the main street. Heather is already planning our next trip, which will be to either Savannah or Charleston--or both! If you know any great places for us to visit, please let me know. Be sure to sign up on the mailing list at my web site if you'd like to receive an e-mail/postcard when the next book is in stores. A Stranger's Game is still available in stores in hardcover--discounted 20% in Barnes & Noble. I'll be working on the sequel this summer. Hope your spring is full of sunshine and flowers! Be sure to sign up to be entered in a drawing this month to name a character in the sequel to A Stranger's Game. The winner will be named in my June newsletter. April winner of A Stranger's Game audio CD was Walter Koons Jr.. Take care and happy reading,
|
In Stores
| |||||||
© 2008 JoanMertensJohnston, Inc.
|
||||||||
Heather spent her first days in this home in Uvalde, which we bought for $19,500. It hasn't changed much in thirty years! Heather's father and I added the cement porch and columns when we owned the home in the seventies. We also refinished all the wood floors and put in new kitchen cabinets. In that home, I bought my first microwave. I also did a lot of macrame and cake decorating.
We stopped at Hermann Sons Steak House in Hondo for dinner (great onion rings and chicken fried steak!) on the way back to San Antonio, where we stayed with a good friend of mine whom I met in Uvalde when we worked on the Bicentennial Committee together. Our next stop was the #2 spa in the nation--Lake Austin Spa, northwest of Austin, where Heather and I indulged ourselves with a couple of spa treatments and some R&R on the beautiful grounds. 
Friday we headed into San Antonio and visited the Alamo (which always chokes me up), which is right in the middle of downtown. We were in town the week of Night in Old San Antonio, which is a yearly, week-long celebration. We had a great Mexican food lunch on the River Walk Friday . You take stairs down from the street level to a ten-degrees-cooler level below, where the river runs through the city. There are boats you can ride the length of the river and many sidewalk cafes where you can sit and enjoy great food. 
We stayed downtown for the Battle of Flowers parade Friday afternoon, with lots of bands and prancing horses and floats with beautiful girls in beautiful dresses with long, elaborate trains. The crowd shouts, "Show me your shoes!" and the girls lift their dresses to show what they're wearing. This tradition started decades ago when the girls found standing in high heels for two hours on a moving vehicle troublesome and decided to wear tennis shoes. After that was discovered, the crowd wanted to make sure the girls were wearing something appropriate--which, as you can see as Her Gracious Majesty, Mary Elizabeth Rogers, Queen of the Court of Palatial Magnficence lifts her skirt, was orange University of Texas longhorn cowboy boots! 
