Well, I hit another small town festival this past week-end. It seems that I have been doing that a lot lately. They were celebrating “The town that wouldn’t drown” in Butler, TN. Sixty years ago the TVA flooded the town of Butler, TN, forcing people to relocate. Today they have a museum to celebrate its history. And every year they have “Old Butler Days” to celebrate their town and keep its memories alive.

With the usual crafts and vendors, I met some very interesting people. I met two fellow authors that I enjoyed meeting very much.

I met Jerry Vencil, the author of Old Jonah’s Book of Tales. He was dressed in “mountain man” fashion and he looked every bit the part he tells and writes about. He says that he is not really an author at all but a storyteller. He loves to tell tall tales. And judging from what I saw, I bet he could tell some real whoppers! He writes his books in the Appalachian Mountain dialect as a way of preserving the language and passing it on to future generations. He also had some other books that looked very interesting. One was a cook book that a young boy was reading and laughing uproariously at. He found the dialect very amusing! If you would like to buy a copy of one of Jerry’s books, you can visit his website at www.TallTaleTrails.com. Yes siree! That mountain man sure wuz a sight for sore eyes!

Another author that I met was Richard Stanberry, the author of The Lost Romanov Files. He also has a sequel to the book and is working on a third one. His book is about a group of American soldiers serving their country in Germany during the Cold War years of the 1980′s. While they are there, they stumble upon an old tunnel where they find buried treasure, and how it changes their lives forever. Richard told me that he had written a “secret code” into the book, but no one had been able to crack it yet. He was a very funny guy. He has a great sense of humor. If you would like a copy of his book, it is available directly from the publisher at www.publishamerica.com or at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble or online internationally. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from Richard Stanberry!

So as you can see, festivals are just not for eating barbecue and listening to music, although that is a lot of fun. It is also a great way to meet interesting people!