The UPS truck is stuck somewhere in the northern tundra will all my Pohainake Parish books aboard.

Missed having them at the Celebration of the Written Word. Maybe they'll deliver them in time for

the following:

March 10 - Ponchatoula Library Book Club 3 p.m. Everyone invited.

March  26   Southeastern La. University Book STore 10-2 p.m. Open to the World. 

March  31   Covington Book Club. 10 a.m. Meets at Charles and Second. 

Saturday's "Celebration of the WRitten Word" sponsored by the Hammond Regional ARt Center in downtown Hammond, was a smashing success. Regional authors, experts in their fields, shared their knowledge from the writing of cookbooks,mysteries, true crime, children's literature, biographies, publishing, etc. If you missed it this year, put it on your calendar for March, 2016.For writers as well as readers this conference is worth attending. Lots of knowledge. Lots of fun. 

Do I Have To Read This AGAIN?!

Pohainake Parish is finally at the publishers, after proofing the galleys five times. The first proof had hundreds of mistakes (my fault, I sent in the wrong version instead of the last, corrected one.) The second  mistakes were mostly capitalization and punctuation errors. The third had only 25 such as eminent instead of imminent. The fourth had 10. The fifth had two and that was it! Five different people read the proof copies, and each time one of them found something the other had missed. Blinded by my brilliant prose, I overlooked almost all mistakes. My dear friend Pattie typed and retyped, patiently correcting each error, checking and double-checking (were instead of was? mic or mike?), never losing her cool or telling me to go fly a kite. Thanks also to Mary, Joan, Lee, Carli and Margaret for their time and editing skills.  I'm so sick of Pohainake Parish, I'll probably never read it again! 

Good movie, good book

Saw a nice movie, Black and White, starring Kevin Cosner. No f-bombs, no explosions, no car chases, good plot, and entertaining.  Highly recommend it. 

My friend Cynthia recommends "One Vacant Chair" by Joe Coomer, a good read.

Cuba on My Mind - Being a native of Cuba, I'm frequently asked my opinion on the new policy change toward the island. I think it’s great. An embargo that fails for 53 years needs a little tweaking, don't you agree? William and I visited Cuba three years ago when it was still taboo to get there, but we managed.

Loved the 1958 cars! 

Not For Profit

Feb. 5 - Getting a book printed and ready for sale, is a much more ardurous enterprise than selling a house which I did for many years. Maybe it's because the house belongs to somebody else, and you're not emotionally involved with it (exccpt for the paycheck!) My latest book, Pohainake Parish, (which nobody can figure out to pronounce, and I don't really care, call it whatever makes you happy) was proofed by 4 sets of eyes (that's 8 altogether). What one person missed, another caught. Now it's at the publisher's who will print more proof copies (galleys, they call them, I can't figure out why) send them back, and we'll have to reread the whole thing one more time before the final printing. We'll have to sell 100,000 books to make one real estate commission. So truly, for amateurs like me writing is a work of love, not profit!

Beads & Roses

I scratched the Rose Bowl parade off my bucket list a few years ago, when Michigan University played USC. Sam, a member of Big Blue’s marching band, kindly invited Gramma to be his guest. I had the best bleacher seats, best weather. It was the most perfect day. The theme was “Star Wars” and George Lucas was the Grand Marshal.

We’ve all seen the floats on TV. When they’re going right past your eyes, they’re incredible. I wondered how the participants glued all those flowers together and kept them looking fresh for so many hours. I can kill a plant in twenty-four hours.  

The prim and proper spectators around me clapped politely as the floats and bands rolled by. I’m a Mardi Gras product, so when Sam marched past, high stepping and blowing his saxophone I yelled, “Sam! Sam! Over here!” He never turned his head. He never looked in my direction, but the folks sitting nearest to me did, a disapproving frown on their faces.

Then, thank goodness, along comes Grambling. Their drum major is turning somersaults. Drums are banging, cymbals crashing; horns up in the air one second and touching their feet the next. The marching team is jiving, kicking and doing boogies. The green “alien” paint covering the young people’s black faces is streaking and they couldn’t care less. They’re having a ball and I feel like “Okay, this is hometown week!” and yell, “Throw me something mister!” The consternation of those polite Californians sitting around me when I was bombarded with Mardi Gras beads is something I will long remember. Yeah, Louisiana!

USC beat Michigan 32 to 18.

Katie Wainwright, Author

CUBA ON MY MIND

SECUESTRO

THE AZALEAS

Available at book stores, Amazon, Kindle or Kwain@aol.com

Coming soon POHAINAKE– A tragic comedy of parish government.