The Witches of Castle Crabapple

It seems sad news and happy news always come together and so it was today.

The good news came early this morning with an e-mail from Colette Bezio.

Doris Bezio, a member of the Quill Club, our writers' group during the 1980s and 1990s, was our poet laureate. She sometimes brought her daughter Colette with her to our monthly meetings.

I was not one of the founders but I was a member for years.  It was there that I met Susan Manzke who writes a weekly column about farm life that appears in two publications.  Betty, who contributed humorous stories that are now finding their way into Black Coffee Fiction, later became an editor for a newspaper, followed by two magazines.  I wrote for all three.  Lee, Bridget, Darlene and others, we all met monthly to write and socialize.

The best part of being in the Quill Club was that when any of us published something we could celebrate together.  It was sad when we no longer met.

Now the old gang needs to get together again soon because Colette has published a children's book, The Witches of Castle Crabapple.    She works at the Muehl Public Library where she creates designs for special events, runs the equipment, and gives me advice on books I might enjoy.  Head librarian Elizabeth Timmins urged Colette to write this book, which is just the first volume of a planned series. Not only did she write the story, she illustrated it beautifully.

The Witches of Castle Crabapple, now available at Amazon.com at this link.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Witches-Castle-Crabapple-Volume/dp/1475249217/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344434355&sr=8-1&keywords=witches+of+castle+crabapple

When the first case of books is delivered to Colette, it will be party time.  As I said, happy news.

I think I will save the sad news for tomorrow.