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James, Alice, Andrea on Crete, August 2016

Join us for an online Author Chat with Alice Joyner Irby, author of South Toward Home

Mark your calendars on Wednesday, August 12, 2020, at 7 pm EST for a fascinating hour and a half with Alice and friends.

Register below

Cover of South Toward Home

Publisher’s Note

When I first met Alice Joyner Irby, I knew she had an extraordinary story to tell about her life, her family, and the people who crossed her path.

As she finished each chapter over a little less than a year, I knew her extraordinary book was being created. And now it is here as South Toward Home.

Why Alice wrote this book.

“I want others to get to know the characters in my stories, for they are among the good-hearted, strong, independent people who helped make the 20th century the American century.”

Here is a brief synopsis of South Toward Home.

Catch the marvelous imagery in the reading of South Toward Home. Find yourself carried into bygone eras. You will actually encounter stories that span more than eight decades. Experience those remembrances if you have lived through some of these times!

Travel with author Alice Joyner Irby in her journey during periods of turbulent cultural and societal change. She reports her attempts to shatter glass ceilings confronting women in the workplace…her

Alice and Glenn Dickens - 2019

Alice and Glenn Dickens – 2019

role in integrating a university…her participation in the creation of the Job Corps in LBJ’s War on Poverty. Yet, Alice’s roots remain grounded in the South, where she was nurtured and raised in a loving community.

In her twenty-six stories, we come to know well this fun-loving young girl and those who shaped the woman she has become. A single mother with a daughter, the author expresses the bond between

the two. This is a relationship strengthened over time and deepened through their shared experiences. This book is a rare combination of intimate personal portraits coupled with a pragmatic look at the life surrounding them. 

It is a book written for family about family, blood or not. Crises and joys…stress and well-being…harsh realities and great kindnesses…above all, Hope!

We, as readers, are drawn into the stories. We have known the folks encountered on these pages, maybe not personally; but these accounts cause us to reminisce about those who have poured into us the life-giving renewal that enables us to meet challenges, to celebrate life with all it brings, and to look up in faithfulness that endures. – Mary W., reader

 

 

South Toward Home Book Cover

Writing of South Toward Home was an Unlikely Journey

By Carolyn Harmon
charmon@rrdailyherald.com

Reprinted with permission from the Daily Herald.

Alice Joyner Irby in The Sacred Valley, Peru

Alice Joyner Irby in The Sacred Valley, Peru 2018

Sit a spell and hear the church bells that called worshippers on Sunday morning — visit Greensboro when UNC-G was the Woman’s College — travel along on other adventures.

Alice Joyner Irby of Raleigh recently had her book published, “South Toward Home: Tales from an Unlikely Journey,” by the Outer Banks Publishing Group.

Alice was born in 1932 and lived in Weldon and after she moved away, she returned regularly until her mother died in 1991. She also visited her very good friend, the late Ruth Gregory Proctor of Halifax.

“Weldon has always been my home,” Alice said. “It is a book about my life, starting with Weldon and ending with Weldon.”

Alice grew up in Weldon, graduating from Weldon High School in 1950. She has lived through the Great Depression and the Korean War, in which her friends were drafted, she said.

“It was scary — and the polio epidemic — my brother, George Joyner, and I were quarantined for a summer, so reading about the pandemic now brings back some of those memories,” Alice said. “They didn’t know how you could get it, but they knew you could get it from other people. So we couldn’t have visitors.”

That is when she learned to play badminton. Alice’s parents were the late Margaret and William B. Joyner. William set up a badminton net during the polio quarantine.

“We couldn’t play ball, it would roll down the street,” she said. “We couldn’t go out in our yard.”

Alice’s sister is Margaret Joyner Kinker. Her brother, George, live in Morehead City and is married to a Roanoke Rapids girl, Gwen Dickens.

“We all came from Halifax County,” Alice said. “My parents were very active in the Methodist Church, and my mother’s family were some of the founders of that church in Weldon — the beautiful Gothic Weldon Methodist Church on Fifth and Washington — it is closed now.”

Weldon Methodist Church

The Weldon Methodist Church, now closed

That is where Alice’s book begins — the first of 26 stories contains a picture of that church.

“The first section is about my growing up in the church, the importance of the church and the town. The second is about my brother, and our adventures — partners in crime — then I had a story about the four of us in Weldon.

“The four of us used to sing for funerals out in the country — sometimes in the family home and sometimes in a country church. They contacted the church, or they wanted some music, the four of us would pack ourselves in Ben Wyche’s car, he was always the driver and we would go sing.”

The four of them were Alice, Wyche, Blanche Selden Bullock, a classmate from Weldon High, who married Thurmond Bullock; and J.P. Ellis.

The first set of stories continues with Alice growing up, the train coming through, the second World War and what it was like living in Weldon during that time. The second set is what happened in Alice’s young adult life.

“One story has to do with how I was discriminated against trying to get on a United Airline Flight just for men in the early 1960s,” she said. “Some of the stories are about me hitting those barriers in those days. Another one has to do with my first job out of graduate school at Merrill Lynch in Greensboro, when I applied I was told, ‘You have the credentials that exceed, but we can’t hire you because you are a woman.’ The laws permitted that at the time.”

Another section is about her career while working for the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s Job Corps, part of the war on poverty. She attended Rutgers University where she was the vice president for student services, followed by working for an educational testing service that makes the SAT and a lot of the admissions tests, she said.

In other sections, she writes about celebrities and her friends — her daughter, Andrea Irby, growing up with a horse; the time she met George W. Bush on a golf course in Pinehurst; her yard man; her sister, Margaret; two of her friends named Mary; her father; and the fortitude and courage of women in an earlier time, she said.

“I wanted to celebrate a lot of people who have been important in my life,” Alice said.

The book came out of a suggestion and encouragement of her editor in Raleigh, Linda Hobson, and a friend and fellow scribe, Ron Rhody, Alice said.

“We lived in Pinehurst — he said, ‘You really need to write your story for your family if nothing else.’ ”

An incident that happened in 2018, also encouraged her to write the book, she said, when her daughter’s husband, Cecil Bozarth, died suddenly of a heart attack at the peak of his career.

Cecil with his prize-winning Zephyr

Cecil with his prize-winning Zephyr

“And that was a blow, it was really difficult to endure — I couldn’t write for awhile,” she said. “There were at least two stories that focused on my daughter and her family and I decided I should get those printed. I worked very hard for a year and got it published in April. I realized when I was doing it, when I really got going on it, I wanted to do it for another reason — to celebrate the people in my past — in Weldon and Halifax — that had meant so much to me.”

Another reason was to talk about the UMC Woman’s College in Greensboro, she said. The university had a sequence of names as it evolved. It was known first as the State Normal and Industrial School, and after 1897 as the State Normal and Industrial College until 1919. During the period 1919-1931, it was known as the North Carolina College for Women, and became the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina from 1932 to 1963.

Alice said she graduated with an economics degree in 1954 and then earned her Masters in Economics from Duke University.

After “South Toward Home” was published, Alice had plans to share it in Halifax, but COVID-19 has changed her plans for now.

Her close friend and former classmate Glenn Dickens said the book will be sold in Halifax at the Bass House.

“And hopefully, if this pandemic gets over she can have a book signing here,” she said.

Dickens said Alice’s mother taught her French and was her favorite teacher. She said Alice is “a mighty fine person.”

“I am very impressed to have her as a friend,” she said. “I read the book and I thought it was wonderful and so well written I couldn’t put it down. I am reading it over because I am sure I missed a lot. It is so informative of things back in that time — it brought back a lot of memories.”

The book’s cover has its own story — it is a picture of the Roanoke River in Weldon, captured by Weldon resident and photographer, Lee D. Copeland.

Roanoak River by Lee D. Copeland

Mist on the Roanoak River that became the cover of South Toward Home
Photo by Lee D. Copeland
Copeland Ltd Photography, Weldon, NC

Alice had a copy of the picture, without identification, and she wanted to find out the photographer’s name. She found it at the Riverside Mill in Weldon, where Copeland has several photographs for sale, he said.

After searching for a couple of days, she received some help from her daughter Andrea and Nancy Mueller, board member of the Halifax County Arts Council. Andrea found Copeland’s wife, Dee Riddle Copeland, on Facebook.

Dee’s mother, Janie, who also lives in Weldon, is 98 — they all live in Weldon, Alice said.

“She responded to my daughter on Facebook and Lee gave us permission to use it for the cover,” Alice said.

Copeland said the photo was in Weldon at the first falls on the Roanoke River near the boat ramp on the first cold fall morning several seasons ago.

“I had been watching the river for some time, waiting for three things to come together,” he said. “The falls colors to peak, the river to be low enough to flow through the rocks, the air to be cool enough to allow the mist to rise on the river from the warmer water.

“The three elements came together early on a weekend morning where I spent 90 minutes with my Nikon, photographing the area until the sun got high enough to dissolve the mist,” Copeland said. “I have always felt it was one of my best photos of the river and am very pleased that Mrs. Irby, after seeing the picture on a greeting card, was moved enough to track me down and ask permission to use it on her book cover.”

Copeland said, after the book was published, Alice and Andrea, while passing through the area, stopped by the Copeland’s front porch.

“And spent a delightful 45 minutes visiting with my mother-in-law, Janie Riddle, and Dee and I, reminiscing and discussing friends brought together by the Roanoke River,” he said.

Copeland said he has been taking pictures for 50 years, working professionally for about 20 and as a hobby the rest of the time.

“I worked at several newspapers in Eastern North Carolina, including The Daily Herald with Dick Kern as my editor. I covered the Nixon, Ford and Carter White House while in the Army, the bicentennial in Washington, D.C., and was appointed to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Inaugural Committee.”

As a result of the book, Alice has submitted it for two awards from the N.C. Literary and Historical Society Association and the North Carolina Society, she said. The suggestion came by way of a retired professor at NC State, James W. Clark. He is a well-known award-winning North Carolina writer, who went to Littleton High School, and who read Alice’s book, she said.

The two became acquainted.

“I am not sure when I will find out if I won, but I did send them in,” she said.

When asked why folks should read her book, Alice said it is what she calls a comfort book.

“They are stories about people who lived ordinary, but at the same time exceptional lives,” she said. “I think for many people it will connect to their own memories of their growing up. It is also a social history of about seven or eight decades.

“I am 87 years old, I lived through two-thirds of the 20th Century,” she said. “It will remind people of their own lives in those times. I have heard from people I knew when I was growing up and people who I don’t even know, and they identify with someone in the story. It triggers their memories of their own lives in those times.”

James, Alice, Andrea on Crete, August 2016

James, Andrea’s son, Alice, and Andrea on the Island of Crete, August 2016

The book is available at Amazon.com and the Outer Banks Publishing Group Bookstore.

 

Cover of The Dark Before the Dawn

Audio Excerpt from The Dark Before the Dawn

Publisher’s Note

Listen to one of the chapters from Annette Creswell’s The Dark before the Dawn, a love story shortly before the start of World War II. The Dark before the Dawn is available here in our bookstore, on Amazon and in fine bookstores everywhere.

Synopsis

Author Annette Creswell

Author Annette Creswell

Just before the start of World War II, Peggy Davis, a London midwife, has a chance encounter with a stranger that changes her life forever.
When Peggy meets Charles, a wealthy lord as she boards a bus in front of Harrods department store, fate casts them together.
When Charles’ wife, Diana, and first child die in childbirth, Peggy, and Charles are thrust into a relationship of happiness, sorrow and unexpected tragedy.
They ultimately marry, have a son and adopt an east end refugee boy from London.
What transpires is a web of family dramas a la Downton Abbey with lesbian relationships, Nazi sympathizers and family secrets revealed as Peggy attempts to navigate through her new life from midwife to lady of the manor.

 

Koos Verkaik holding the cover of Heavenly Vision

New 5-star review of Heavenly Vision notes the mastery of the author

Publisher’s Note

Dennis DeRose’s review on Goodreads of Koos Verkaik’s Heavenly Vision will convince you this is a book you must read.

Heavenly Vision Cover on a table

The cover was drawn by Doriano Strologo, an illustrator in Numana, Italy, depicting the main character in the book, the mysterious Raso, the man who had the heavenly vision.

by Dennis DeRose

HEAVENLY VISION is like an out-of-focus jigsaw puzzle but the longer you stare at it, the sharper the image becomes until everything is crystal-clear at the end. Koos knows how to play to the reader as he gently but firmly makes you turn the pages as the action continues from the first page to the last. As you read the last few pages you may shout… NOW I GET IT!

Read the entire review of HEAVENLY VISION on Goodreads.

Pine tree against the Carolina blue sky

Literary author reveals secrets to creating the right point of view

Outer Banks Publishing Group author Mary L. Tabor contributed her writing expertise on Day 3 of a 30-day writing challenge sponsored by Wattpad.

Watch her video on creating the right point of view

Learn more with Mary’s bestselling stories about women’s challenges in today’s hyperspeed society, The Woman Who Never Cooked.  The book is now published in its second edition by Outer Banks Publishing Group and available in our bookstore, on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere.  The book is

“The American adult woman is featured in this debut collection of stories about love, adultery, marriage, passion, death, and family. There is a subtle humor here, and an innate wisdom about everyday life as women find solace in cooking, work, and chores. Tabor reveals the thoughts of her working professional women who stream into Washington, D.C., from the outer suburbs, the men they date or marry, and the attractive if harried commuters they meet.

“Her collection of short stories The Woman Who Never Cooked, published when she was 60, won the Mid-List Press First Series Award.

“Mary Tabor writes with astonishing grace, endless passion, and subtle humor,” wrote reviewer Melanie Rae Thon.

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Novel writing is like taking a good photograph

Ron Rhody at the Branding Shed

If we don’t tell each other our stories, how will we know what life is about?

By Ron Rhody
I’ve a new book coming. I’m uneasy with it. I’ve never before written anything this personal knowing it will be public.


But I wanted to get the slice of time this book is about, and the place at its center, and the people who figure in it, on the record in the way only a book can do.

Our Own Little Fictions -Stories from the Road

Our Own Little Fictions So, I have done it. It’s an unconventional book. There is no obvious story line. There is one, but the reader will have to pay attention to uncover it. And the story jumps around in time — the way memories do. Again, the reader will have to pay attention. And the people who figure in it are presented mostly in cameo, but with enough portrayal to allow the reader to imagine them. And I’m asking the reader to pretend they are listening. Not reading. Listening.


Hopefully the writing will make that easy. This is asking a lot of the reader. But the book is novella size and won’t take a lot of time to get through. There is that. Watch for it.


Our Own Little Fictions Available November 1. List Price: $14.99 5.5″ x 8.5″ (13.97 x 21.59 cm) Black & White on White paper 86 pages Outer Banks Publishing Group ISBN-13: 978-1732045217 ISBN-10: 1732045216 BISAC: Biography & Autobiography / General


Read the stunning review by the San Francisco Book Review.

RON RHODY

Ron Rhody is one of our bestselling authors having published 8 books in both non-fiction and fiction. Our Own Little Fictions is his fourth non-fiction book.

Ron Rhody portrait
Author Ron Rhody

Visit his blog to learn more or read one of our posts below.

Summer Beach-reading - 2-book sale

Buy Angel’s Truth and get The Mansfield Killings FREE!

Get our two bestselling crime novels for the price of one!
ANGEL’S TRUTH & THE MANSFIELD KILLINGS

BUY BOTH for $12.99

List Price: $15.99
5.5″ x 8.5″ (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White on White paper
268 pages
Outer Banks Publishing Group
ISBN-13: 978-0990679080
ISBN-10: 099067908X
BISAC: Fiction / Crime

Angel Gonzales is charged with heinous crimes that law enforcement, the media, and most folks in Richmond, Texas, and surrounding communities are certain he committed.

The crimes and trial dwarf anything that has happened in that part of the Lone Star state in anyone’s memory.
When, against all odds, the jury renders “not guilty” verdicts, shock escalates to anger.

In the minds of many, justice has failed, and a brutal criminal is being set free. For Angel and his court-appointed public defender, Marty Booker, being judged “not guilty” isn’t enough.

Together and with help from an unanticipated source, they attempt to prove Angel’s innocence.

In the process, they butt up against prejudice, deceit, and a sheriff and district attorney who put politics, ambition, expedience, and arrogance above responsibility to do their jobs.

It’s a story of horror, hatred, belief, and persistence – a story of a Mexican-American teenager who nearly loses his life on the way to becoming a man.

 

BASED ON TRUE EVENTS
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE in 2019

Price: $14.99
5.5″ x 8.5″ (13.97 x 21.59 cm)
Black & White on Cream paper
280 pages
ISBN 10 – 0982993137
ISBN 13 – 978-0-9829931-3-2
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Language: English

On the night of July 21, 1948, Robert Daniels and John West entered John and Nolena Niebel’s house with loaded guns. They forced the family including the Niebel’s 21-year-old daughter, Phyllis, into their car and drove them to a cornfield just off Fleming Falls Road in Mansfield. The two men instructed the Niebels to remove all of their clothing, and then Robert Daniels shot each of them in the head.

What followed was the worst two-week killing spree in the history of Ohio.

 

Angel's Truth author Bob Irelan at his first book signing

“Angel’s Truth” author Bob Irelan shares what he learned from his initial book signing

Top of the page photo courtesy of Rancho Murieta Community Website

By Bob Irelan

Book signings are an effective marketing and communications tool, not only for established authors but most certainly for first-time novelists.

For me, a recent local launching/signing event for my first published novel, “Angel’s Truth,” proved to be a learning experience.

I learned that the audience is genuinely interested in what you have to say. And I was pleased by the number and quality of the questions.”Where did you come up with the plot? How did you choose the characters? How did you come up with their names? Is any of this based on fact? How do you go about organizing the narrative? Do you outline? Do you know the beginning, middle and end before you write? How do you go about getting published?”
That’s only a sampling of the questions I got, so be prepared.

The setting I used was a wine and cheese social, very informal, 4 to 5:30 p.m. It worked well. We had a framed table card of favorable Amazon reviews (“Here’s what readers are saying about “Angel’s Truth”) on each table and each person received a custom designed “Angel’s Truth” bookmark that quoted briefly from the book and gave information on where it could be bought. Good friends provided these and they were well received. Whether or not you bought the book, you got a bookmark as a gift and reminder.

I also told them the messages concerning discrimination, mindsets, injustices were ones I had long cared about. Also my belief that the truth often is not obvious — that it takes digging, commitment, persistence, plain old hard work to achieve it.

After being introduced, I spent a few minutes describing what motivated me to write the book. The motivations included my desire to try writing fiction after a long career that mandated all my writing be factual. I also told them the messages concerning discrimination, mindsets, injustices were ones I had long cared about. Also my belief that the truth often is not obvious — that it takes digging, commitment, persistence, plain old hard work to achieve it. And, while the plot is shaped around two vicious murders, I wanted to deliver a satisfying, surprise ending.

I read several passages from the book, starting with the first couple of pages. Because “Angel’s Truth” is a mystery, I selected other sections deeper into the book which pulled them into the plot. I didn’t tell too much, just enough to entice them to read the book and try to figure out who did what and where it was headed. That amount of time for reading passages seemed about right.

Then came the questions – the absolute best part of the afternoon. My advice: Don’t cut these off; make sure you allow enough time to answer any and all questions. And, if/when you know the questioner, personalize your response.

I closed with this final thought.

“Everybody has a story to tell. It may be biographical and of interest to future generations of your family. It may be a detailed narrative or a collection of anecdotes. Or, it may be fiction. Whatever the choice, I challenged them to commit their ideas to paper.”

That resonated because several folks thanked me afterwards for the prompting.

We ended with signing and selling the book. Logistically, I found it worked well to have someone serve as cashier. That allowed me time to personalize each signing.

And, as my mother would say, “Remember the basic of thanking everyone at the beginning and end.”

Bottom line, this initial event for this first-time writer of fiction, was a very satisfying and educational experience. I hope some of the above details will be helpful to you.

Learn more about Bob Irelan in his interview and why he believes truth is so important or follow him on Facebook.

Bob Irelan at his book signing for Angel's Truth

Photo by Jon Irelan


New Amazon Book store

How to get more book reviews on Amazon

Here is an excellent video by Michael D. Butler on how to get more reviews for your book on Amazon. You can find more information on his blog, Beyond Publishing.

Only 65% of the world’s books are purchased through Amazon according to Forbes but that is still a big enough number to smartly utilize their platform.

In this video Michael D. Butler, Best-Selling Author, Publisher and Book Launch Expert shows new and veteran authors HOW to get MORE verified reviews on Amazon without getting slapped and shows what is the tipping point to get Amazon to push your book out to the wold.

On this video we talk about:

  • What makes a review verified?
  • How can I my reviews actually show up on Amazon
  • How can I avoid getting “slapped by Google and Amazon”?
  • What is the MAGIC number for getting Amazon to push my book out to the world?
  • How many book sales on Amazon translate into an Amazon Best-Seller?

Getting Reviews on Amazon is not easy but it is very important if you want Amazon to push you out.

 

 

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